Not So Above It All / Western Animation

Characters who turn out to be Not So Above It All in Western Animation.

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• The Amazing World of Gumball
  • The show generally plays the Women Are Wiser trope straight with Nicole and Anais, who are generally portrayed as the smarter, responsible, and more level headed members of The Watterson Household, especially the latter, who's a Child Prodigy while her father and brothers are all generally some form of reckless Idiot Hero. (Granted, how sensible Gumball or Darwin is can vary greatly from episode to episode.) And the girls in the family generally play Straight Man to the boys' antics. Despite this, all members of the household are capable of grabbing the Idiot Ball and both Anais and Nicole have their own character flaws that can get so out of hand at times, the guys (usually Gumball) end up playing the Straight Man to them.
    • In "The Fuss", Nicole spends most of the episode passively aggressively guilting her family over a Forgotten Anniversary... only to realize she had somehow been reading the calendar upside down for months without noticing and had been guilt tripping her family, especially her husband Richard, for nothing.
    • In "The Flower", Gumball gets literally possessed by the embodiment of his jealousy towards Leslie, after he starts hanging out with his Love Interest Penny. After it is all resolved, Penny tries to give Gumball a lecture on jealousy... only to be possesed by jealousy herself when Gumball's platonic female friend Carrie gives him a friendly bump on the shoulder.
  • Darwin is typically the one to call out Gumball for his stupid plans, but when he goes along with dumb plans of his own, as well as going along Gumball's, he could be just as bad as, if not worse than, him:
    • In "The Sidekick," to prove that he’s not Gumball's sidekick, he decides to kidnap Tobias’ mother, something with Gumball, for all of his craziness and stupidity, would never do: in fact, he even calls out Darwin for it.
    • In "The Bros" and "The BFFs," Darwin could be just as possessive and territorial towards anyone he finds is on the way of his and Gumball’s friendship.
    • In "The Banana," Darwin was initially telling Gumball to forgive Banana Joe for what Gumball thinks he did to his pen. After realizing what Joe did to his stuff, though, thanks to Gumball’s glue prank, he decides to disregard what he preached about, had to be restrained from physically attacking Joe, and decides to chew and ruin Joe’s personal stuff, the same way Joe allegedly chewed Gumball’s pen.
• Various episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force show that Frylock is just as corrupt as either Shake or Carl if given the chance to embrace his urges, and in some cases like "Total Re-Carl", making such bad decisions that even Master Shake calls him out on it.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • Sokka is usually the Straight Man to everyone else's weirdness, even the Only Sane Man at times...and then there are the times when he gets high on cactus juice, puts on a fake beard and performs a ridiculous Sigmund Freud impersonation, tries to crawl inside a giant monster's mouth...
    • Really, this happens so often that Sokka is an odd case of The Smart Guy/Deadpan Snarker also being the show's Plucky Comic Relief. He spends half his time dryly mocking everybody else's foibles and then goes on to outdo them all.
    • Azula is a detached, borderline sociopathic princess who always seems perfectly in control of her emotions. In "The Beach", she is revealed to be a colossal dork. She attempts to interact with other teenagers and winds up looking deranged, treating a volleyball game like a huge military victory and giving a dramatic We Can Rule Together speech to a boy who likes her. And this isn't even counting her eventual Villainous Breakdown.
  • From The Legend of Korra, Tenzin tries to be the composed airbending master that he really is. The problem is that the universe simply will not let him maintain his composure. It seems to be something he got from his uncle Sokka in the original series (see above). Whether it's Korra using his mother against him in an argument, or his youngest son using a potted plant as a bathroom^note "Meelo, NO! That is NOT a toilet!", the stoicism is never around for long. In particular, despite earlier deriding pro-bending as a "mockery of the noble tradition of bending", he later caves in and becomes a closeted fan himself.
    Tenzin: Oh come on, refs! There was some funny business in that last play!
    Lin: Wouldn't have guessed you knew the rules of pro-bending.
    Tenzin: [ahem] I've been...brushing up.
• Beavis and Butt-Head:
  • Despite his clear disdain for Beavis and Butt-Head's disruptive behavior, there are many instances where Principal McVicker is shown to be almost as amoral and conniving as they are. For example, in the episode "Wet Behind The Rears", Beavis and Butt-Head are showering in their underwear after gym class. Suddenly, the fire alarm goes off, and they are forced to get out before they can put their clothes back on. Cue the rest of the school pointing and laughing at them and the grand revelation that the fire alarm was deliberately set off by McVicker and Buzzcut to humiliate Beavis and Butt-Head.
  • In "The Final Judgment Of Beavis'' Saint Peter is this when Beavis dreams he has died and is having everything he's ever done in life, most of it negative, judged:
    Beavis: What do you know, asswipe?!
    Saint Peter: I know everything, buttmunch.
• Ben 10:
  • "Under Wraps" begins with Max taking Ben and Gwen to work on a farm to teach them the value of hard work, which he claims he learned on his uncle's farm as a boy. At the end of the episode, when Ben and Gwen insist that they've totally learned their lesson, Max is relieved, because he now remembers how much he hated working on the farm and happily bails on it with them now that he's made his point.
  • In the same episode, Gwen tries to take Grampa Max’s side when he is chastising Ben for his laziness, but when he points out she's behind on her chores too, she whines about it being summer vacation like Ben would do. And later, Gwen tries to stop Ben from using his alien powers against Max’s orders to get their farm work over with faster. Until he offers to let her get to it, at which point she eagerly encourages him.
• Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! has a Halloween Episode where Velma spends the episode decrying how the modern celebrations distract from the holiday's historical roots. But after the catch the episode's villain, who had similar complaints, she demands to know why Velma doesn't support her. Velma's response is to say that while she talks a good game, she still loves candy as much as the next person.
• Big City Greens: Bill Green may be the voice of reason amongst his family, but even he isn't immune from his more silly moments, like when he and his family trashed Remy's mansion in "Mansion Madness," or spent the day all over the city doing every activity that they could in "Long Goodbye."
• Bob's Burgers: Bob Belcher is usually the Only Sane Man in the Belcher family, but he has a few eccentricities of his own, like talking to (and for) inanimate objects, treating Thanksgiving dinner as Serious Business, and his bad habit of tripping on painkillers.
• The serious and straight-laced Lucky Piquel from Bonkers is frequently shown as being prejudiced against even the most cordial of toons, but when he gets a mouse ears hat from Mickey Mouse in "I Oughta Be in Toons", he puts it on with a big grin after making sure no one's around to see him.
• In Central Park, Season 1 "Garbage Ballet", Bitsy tries to convince the hotel housekeeping staff that the seventh floor is not haunted. She agrees to spend the night on said floor in order to convince them. While she openly mocks them for thinking the floor was haunted, as soon as Bitsy is alone she openly expresses that she can feel (and smell) her father haunting the floor.
• Codename: Kids Next Door:
  • Numbuh 2 believes himself to be a very smooth joke-teller and tries to make a pun or joke of the situation, resulting in most of the other operatives, including Numbuh 5, to groan at the punchline. However, when dealing with chocolatized Heinrech trying to freeze her, she resorts to melting him from driving her rocket close to the Sun and then bombarding him with marshmallows. She throws this in as her victory line before laughing. "As Numbuh 2 would say: you can't hurt anyone any s'more!"
  • Speaking of Numbuh 5, she's usually the most level-headed member of the team and tries to keep everyone focused on the task at hand. In "Operation B.U.T.T.," she's stunned when Numbuh 1 retires abruptly and learns that the Delightful Children from Down the Lane are blackmailing him with a photo of his bare behind. Upon seeing the photo, Numbuhs 2, 3, and 4 immediately start cracking jokes about how huge Nigel's butt is, and though Numbuh 5 tries to resist, she eventually breaks down laughing at the sight and joins in the teasing because it's just that big.
  • Numbuh 1, despite his overall characterization as a serious and competent leader, can be just as foolish and immature as you would expect a kid to be.
• Dark Danny, the titular Danny Phantom's villainous Bad Future alternate self, who is easily the evilest creature to ever appear in the series and lacking even a shred of decency, compassion, mercy, or kindness, still admits he does miss Tucker's comedic moments.
• Elise in Dan Vs. tries to avoid getting caught up in Dan's vengeance, and early on tried to keep Chris from getting dragged into it, too. Then again, in the very first episode, she shares Dan's hatred of New Mexico (her grudge has lasted since childhood) and takes her revenge even further he "settles" for ruining the annual hot air balloon event, she hijacks an alien warship, slaughters road-runners, and blows up cities. In "Dan Vs. George Washington", she tags along with Dan's latest campaign of revenge and admits to Chris that Dan's revenge schemes are actually pretty entertaining.
• Daria:
  • Aunt Amy is once brought in to settle a dispute between her sisters, with the expectation that, as the smart, detached outsider of the family she could easily resolve the petty conflict without getting drawn in. It took her all of thirty seconds to join the bickering, leaving Daria and Quinn to solve the problem themselves.
  • This is actually rather fitting since Amy is considered to be like an older version of Daria. Daria herself, especially in the later seasons, proved that she does have some flaws like regular people. Helen herself as mentioned that not even Daria is able to live up to the high standards she has.
• DC Animated Universe:
  • During a poker game that Poison Ivy crashes in Batman: The Animated Series, Two-Face coldly informs her, without flipping a coin, that half of him wants to strangle her and the other half wants to hit her with a truck. His good side is usually just that, but it turns out he holds quite the grudge for the time she tried to poison him, back before he became Two Face and was still the benevolent district attorney, because he unintentionally and indirectly caused a species of rose to go extinct by breaking ground on a new prison.
  • A milder version than most takes place at the end of one episode of Justice League Unlimited. After The Flash, feeling he's not appreciated and seen as immature, goes against orders to help rescue a friend of Scott Free, he meets with the Martian Manhunter following the mission. Flash begins to defend himself, expecting J'onn to admonish him for his immaturity...instead, J'onn just wanted to play Brawlin' Bots.
  • Another good example is J'onn's addiction to Oreo Cookies.
• Amberley of The Dreamstone is usually a more lucid and well-behaved counterpart to Rufus, though she has a bratty temper and sometimes joins Rufus in rambunctious antics. She ends up only exasperating the problems caused by Rufus in the pilot by getting captured by the Urpneys after jumping into their ship Leeroy Jenkins style.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy has Double D, who, while most of the time acts as the Only Sane Man of the show, often goes along with Eddy's schemes, despite the fact that he knew he'd go too far one day.
• Family Guy:
  • Lois normally falls under Women Are Wiser. However, it's only really in comparison to her husband, as she gets a gambling addiction in one episode, becomes a kleptomaniac in another, and when she gets elected mayor, embezzles from the town and accepts bribes. Lois' role in the show in modern episodes consists near solely of this trope. She generally only exhibits Straight Man behavior for a short time before acting as stupid or callous as her husband.
  • Meg, in that she sometimes makes fun out of other Griffin members when the situation calls for it e.g. Chris being made fun of for Lois being in a porno by other schoolkids and Meg joins in. She also salvaged upon a brief moment Brian was "the New Meg".
  • Brian Griffin gets this treatment just as often. Where he used to be the Only Sane Man, many later episodes have seen him developing more and more jerkass tendencies.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends:
  • Mac has loads of moments. Many episodes, particularly as the show went on, are built around him doing something more childish with Bloo and not being the voice of reason — or ironically applying his reason and wisdom to something immature. Imaginary friends also appear to take up the qualities of their creators, and he is the one who made Bloo in the first place. So in a way, it makes sense that he has a more chaotic part to his personality. In "Bye Bye Nerdy", he got detention for shooting spitballs in class — a very Bloo-esque behavior — and when left in Foster's alone with Bloo in "Squeeze The Day", it's Mac who decides to go wild.
  • Frankie flip-flops between being the voice of reason and being as immature and zany as most of the imaginary friends:
    • In "World Wide Wabbit", she laughs along with everyone else and happily works with Bloo to merchandise Mr. Herriman's "Funny Bunny" routine until Mac makes her destroy the copies and explains that her job will be tougher if he finds out, she then panics and has a similar conversation with Bloo.
    • In "Frankie My Dear", she handles Dylan's admission of being a faux nice guy who calls Frankie his "property" by giving him a bloody nose and a wedgie, Moment of Awesome, yes, but still atypical for a 22 year old woman.
  • Even Mr. Herriman has his moments:
    • In "Cookie Dough", Bloo manages to con him into betraying Madame Foster and getting him the cookie recipe.
    • In "Beat with a Schtick", he forgoes his initial expulsion of Bloo—despite the latter's numerous confessions—in favor of letting him get beat to a pulp by the new guy. He does this almost immediately after saying that getting into a fight was "a direct violation of house charter."
    • In "Bloo Done It", he's just as excited by Uncle Pockets' return to Foster's as everybody else and doesn't even try to hide it.
    • In "Duchess of Wails", he's the first character to announce/celebrate Duchess's adoption. He even had an emergency Surprise Party prepared for the occasion.
    • In "One False Movie", he joins the others laughing as they watch Bloo's "improvements" of Mac's home movie—the "improvements" being Bloo adding farting sound effects every ten seconds, something you wouldn't expect someone like Herriman to find humor in.
• Final Space: Bolo might be an eons-old Titan voiced by Keith David, but even he's capable of bringing himself down to the Team Squad's three-dimensional mortal levels quite a few times; such as sharing their universal hatred of KVN, and being extremely sour at the Titan Oreskis for seducing Bolo's first love and giving her an Eldritch Abomination STD.
• Futurama:
  • Generally speaking, robots in fiction almost always brag about how they're better than humans. The robots of Futurama are just as boastful...but don't quite live up to the standard they project, struggling with rampant social issues like organized crime (see The Robot Mafia), unorganized crime (see Bender), and addiction to illicit activities (again, see Bender).
  • Leela has been subject to this trope multiple times.
    • In "The Lesser of Two Evils", Leela twice talks down to women hoping to win the "Miss Universe Pageant"; first to Amy, then towards the actual contestants. But when a misunderstanding briefly leads her and everyone else to think she actually won, despite not even being in the pageant, Leela is clearly excited, then disappointed when the misunderstanding is cleared up and the prize taken from her and handed to the actual winner.
    • In "That's Lobstertainment", rather than pay a nominal parking fee for a Hollywood premiere, Leela flies around for hours before landing on the La Brea Tar Pits...which is exactly the sort of thing she usually scolds Fry and Bender for.
    • Leela usually serves as Fry's voice of reason whenever he lets something go to his head. However, in "Bender Gets Made", she practically thought she was Daredevil (with the expected but not unwelcome hilarity ensuing).
    • "Fun On a Bun" begins with Fry doing a very Fry-like thing: using his bare foot to pick up a tortilla chip between his toes, dip it in some salsa, and then put it in his mouth.
      Leela: Ugh! Fry! That's disgusting!
      Fry: What?
      Leela: You double-dipped! Geez.
      [Leela picks up a chip with her own toes, dips it, and eats it]
  • In "War is the H-Word", it turns out Kif can be just as much of a Mean Boss as Zapp is to him after Fry has the misfortune of being demoted to his assistant. Years of pent up frustration at Zapp are no doubt being released since he has someone to pick on himself.
    Zapp: Private Fry, you shall henceforth serve as Kif's assistant.
    Fry: That doesn't sound too bad.
    Kif: You'll speak when I tell you to, you filthy worm!
  • In "When Aliens Attack", Hermes Conrad, the resident no-nonsense workaholic, Obstructive Bureaucrat refers to Labor Day as a phony holiday made up by unions...before excitedly joining in with his coworkers for their day off, after having previously scolding them for slacking off.
• Hero: 108: Lin Chung is usually portrayed as the calm and collected warrior and leader of First Squad, but he does have his moments of levity, like whenever he gets too wrapped up in drawing to focus on the battlefield... or really anything else.
• In Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Sasha is mostly portrayed as the Servile Snarker Beleaguered Assistant of Justin Hammer, just as evil and ruthless as him, but far more level-headed and trying to get him to actually run the business instead of messing about with Humongous Mecha and schemes to humiliate Tony Stark. That is, until she gets to control the Titanium Man, and becomes positively giddy as she revels in the destruction she can cause.
• Heloise on Jimmy Two-Shoes regularly rolls her eyes at the antics Jimmy and Beezy cause, and their insane childish activities. However, she has fallen victim to Kids Prefer Boxes and is shown to be extremely susceptible to a Cuteness Proximity.
• Kaeloo: Mr. Cat always pretends he can't be bothered to play games with the others, but when they don't invite him to join them, he gets really, really mad.
  • In one episode, Mr. Cat opens a restaurant that is clearly designed to be a Take That! at McDonald's. When the food gives Pretty multiple organ failure, everybody starts protesting the restaurant, so he offers them free toys with their food. Everybody except Kaeloo rushes off to get toys while she looks on in disapproval, but when a toy lands near her feet she plays with it after making sure nobody is looking.
• A common gag on Kim Possible. In general, it's a running theme in the show that Kim is nowhere near as infallible in her regular life as she is in "mission mode".
• Happens to Master Shifu frequently in Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, just like in the films. For one example, in the Fight Clubbing episode "Kung Fu Club", he attends incognito to find out why Po hasn't put a stop to it, and rapidly goes from horrified disapproval, to grudging admiration of the combatants' skill, to the most rowdy member of the audience ("We came to see a fight, not a dance!") He gets even more enthusiastic when the baddies show up and the whole thing descends into a free-for-all.
• The Legend of Vox Machina: While Percy believes himself to be above the other members of Vox Machina, he will occasionally join in on the fun.
• Kiva from Megas XLR, who at first looks down on the people from the present, namely Coop and Jamie, for wasting most of their time with activities that serve no practical purpose, being from a Bad Future where survival was always on everyone's minds and all. But as time goes on, Kiva seems to come to enjoy many of the antics the guys get into as she spends more time in the present.
• Mickey Mouse: After becoming the straight man and nice guy he's better known for being, there were still times Mickey displayed a breaking point such as in "Magician Mickey" where after being heckled one too many times by Donald he puts the Duck through a magical Humiliation Conga or "Symphony Hour" where he threatens Donald with a handgun to keep him from abandoning the other performers during their disastrous concert.
  • A good few of his shorts in House of Mouse involve him undergoing this as well, especially if he's trying too hard to impress Minnie.
  • Repeated in Mickey Mouse (2013), you'd be surprised how many times a sweet, idealistic guy like Mickey can spiral situations horribly out of control.
• Molly of Denali: Kenji is normally one of the nicest characters on the show, but in "New Nivagi," he jokes under his breath that Mr. Rowley needs a barber.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Twilight Sparkle likes to regard herself as the Only Sane Mare: her first impression of the citizens of Ponyville is "All the ponies in this town are crazy!" However, Twilight frequently displays lapses in judgment either due to her social awkwardness or her almost-obsessive need to make a good impression on her mentor, Princess Celestia.
  • Princess Celestia as well, despite being a physical goddess who is well over 1000 years old. Her age and standing as the ruler of all things don't stop her from playfully teasing her subjects from time to time or skipping out of the Grand Galloping Gala to just hang out with friends in a doughnut shop. Another episode has her licking her lips at the cakes at a contest between the best confection-makers in Equestria. The immortal alicorn who raises the sun every morning and lowers it in the evening has zero resistance to chocolate.
  • In "The Ticket Master", Spike calls the Gala "girly frou-frou nonsense," but once everyone is out of sight, is upset at being the only one without a ticket. Celestia sends down one for him, and he immediately Squees, only to be caught by Applejack.
    Spike: I mean, gross! I have to go, too?
    • In fact, one notices that Spike is initially excited at Twilight getting the two tickets until Twilight begins thinking on who to invite. It's heavily implied that the second ticket was for Spike and Twilight's lack of consideration was why Spike feigned disinterest.
  • Both Spike and Twilight tend to backhand this role onto each other since they so often play The Straight Man to each other's shortcomings. Both characters neared outright Anti-Villain territory after going off the deep end at separate points, and both had to snap the other out of it. Noteworthy for the over the top manner both took their respective breakdowns (Twilight became outright Laughing Mad, while Spike turned into a Harmless Villain, complete with Dastardly Whiplash mannerisms and attire).
  • Applejack tends to act as The Straight Mare whenever these two are out of the picture, however having the key traits of a rowdy cowgirl, she naturally plays up at times. She can be rather over assertive and is apparently stubborn enough to make a mule look reasonable.
  • What does Princess Celestia, normally The High Queen and wise Big Good of the series, do when offered a chance to act in a play in Horse Play? A Happy Dance!
• In "A'Sledding We Will Go" from PB&J Otter, Ootsie and Bootsie, the Snootie poodles, spend most of the story teasing the other kids about a not having a fancy sled. At the end, nobody can use their sleds, but Peanut, Baby Butter and Jelly realize that they can slide on their otter bellies just as well. Ootsie and Bootsie find that they can't do it and are upset. Then Peanut and Jelly offer them a ride. They turn to each other and agree, telling them, "Well, if you insist."
• The Owl House:
  • Amity Blight is first introduced as the smug student who always does well in school and doesn't approve of her older sibling's antics. She's also shown to enjoy reading stories to children, and it turns out she's a big fan of The Good Witch Azura, the same book series Luz likes (in fact, she's the only person on the Boiling Isles aside from Luz and King who likes it). Also, one of the reasons she falls for Luz is because of how silly she can be at times.
  • Eda's sister Lilith Clawthorne is shown to be more responsible than her, and is often seen as the stuck-up head of the Emperor's Coven. However, when Eda in her Owl Beast form pulls a face at her, she tells her to stop acting so immature... before pulling a face right back. Later episodes after she's left the Emperor's Coven have her acting more dorky over history, as well as finding enjoyment in rather mundane things such as watching ink dry. She also becomes good friends with Hooty of all characters.
  • Speaking of the Emperor's Coven, Hunter and Kikimora, two other members, are shown to be intimidating at first, but have moments where they come off as less threatening:
    • Hunter's first major appearance establishes him as the new head of the Emperor's Coven and he takes King as a hostage to get Luz and Eda to comply with his orders, but while he's waiting, he becomes amused by King thinking that his cage being covered means it's night. In Luz's next encounter with him, there's one point where she puts her hand over his mouth while explaining something, only for him to lick it. It's also shown that he acts more like a teenager and enjoys himself when he's around other teenagers, reminding us that despite his position, he is still a child.
    • Kikimora tries to kill Hunter in one episode, and in the next she captures Raine in a particularly terrifying way. However, a few episodes later, while on a mission with some other Coven members, they are all shown to enjoy riding in fast-moving mine carts (which, unlike most examples, end up crashing from the speed).
  • Even the Emperor himself isn't safe from this. In the Season 2 finale, he changes into the outfit he originally wore when he first arrived in the Demon Realm, which Luz tells him is terribly outdated and along with his ideals won't be taken seriously in the present day Human Realm. Rather than dismiss her, Belos actually considers that she might have a point, and while still suspicious is convinced to accept her offer of being a guide for him.
• The Patrick Star Show: While Squidina is intelligent and more responsible than Patrick, there are instances of her joining in on the family's crazy antics.
  • Squidina is shown to share her family's Bizarre Taste in Food, being excited to eat Bunny's "boot soufflé" in "Patrick's Prison Pals" or Cecil's soupestroni in "Family Plotz".
  • In "Neptune's Ball", Squidina winds up causing just as much chaos at Neptune's ball as the other members of the family. It's because of her offering Unwanted Assistance to Neptune's DJ and messing with his sound system.
  • In "Family Plotz", Squidina plays hide-and-seek in the middle of a cemetery with Patrick, including crashing a funeral as part of the game.
  • In "Movie Stars", Patrick takes a job at the movie theater and catches the rest of his family sneaking snacks inside. This extends to Squidina, who has a piece of pizza taped to the back of her head. Squidina points out, "I learned that one from you!"
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): Blossom usually acts like the calm and mature leader of the girls, but there are times where she actually acts her young age, like in "Rainy Day Adventure", where they all play inside on a rainy day, and Blossom does quite a good Mojo Jojo impression.
• Ready Jet Go!:
  • Sean is usually uptight and adamant about going to space the human way, rather than the alien way. However, in a later episode, he is more excited about going to space with the other kids, much to their shock.
  • Mitchell always acts like he's a better detective than Jet and his friends, but he still attends Mindy's concert at the end of "Mindy's Mystery".
• The Real Ghostbusters: Egon is The Stoic of the group and tries to remain above things like getting irritated and goofing off. However, he has a number of moments where the facade slips.
  • In "Doctor, Doctor," he chastises Peter for taking "trivial pleasure" in putting a scare into an irate client… but really because it was his turn to do that.
  • Another example overlapping with Hypocritical Humor happens during "The Cabinet of Calamari"; Peter is chasing Slimer around the firehouse, yelling threats and insults as he tries to retrieve a jacket the ghost stole. Egon ignores all the chaos and tells Peter that he ought to be above reacting so poorly over something insignificant like a jacket...until Peter points out that Slimer stole Egon's school tie at the same time. When Ray arrives, Peter and Egon are both chasing Slimer, demanding their clothing items back.
    Egon: Slimer, give me that! That's my tie, you useless little slime-bucket! Give it back to me!
  • He predicts and hijacks Peter's plan to swing from a chandelier as a distraction just because he also wanted to swing from a chandelier.
    Egon: Well, for once, what you want to do is exactly what I've always wanted to do.
    Peter: Okay, be my guest, Egon, if it means that much to ya.
  • When he happens on a carnival using their faces and trademarked symbols in "Rollerghoster", he complains to the manager and threatens to sue, getting himself and Janine evicted from the premises. Peter comments that getting thrown out of an entertainment venue sounds more like something he would do, and the other three have to talk Egon out of embroiling them in a court case that's unlikely to be worth the effort.
• Despite Matrix's insistence in Reboot that he's not the little kid Enzo anymore, the first thing he does when he finally finds Bob? Yell the Guardian's name and try to bowl him over.
  Bob: WOAH!!! I think you're a little big for that.
• Benson from Regular Show. One word: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!!!
• Rick and Morty: Despite how serious Evil Morty's played as a threat, he's not above falling into Buffy Speak or trolling Morty by offering him a ride off the exploding Citadel only to admit he was lying because the second seat on his ship is just a toilet. Also, if one were to attribute Evil Rick's actions to Evil Morty as the former was quite literally a puppet to the latter, he can be outright childish at times, saying he invented Sarcastic Clapping in one dimension and stops C-137 Rick from doing it himself, saying "That's mine!", provided that wasn't an act.
• In one episode of Rocket Power, Otto and his family are entered in a surf contest with surf legends and their kids. After some trash talk to the competition and lecturing Reggie about how she'd better not mess up, Otto takes a nasty spill himself.
  • More consistently, Reggie is the voice of reason of the group, though sometimes is reduced to the same mayhem as the others. One particular case had her try to run out of the crime scene and leave Otto taking the fall.
• Dr Quinn of Sealab 2021 tries in vain to avoid this, but especially as the series went on, would eventually succumb.
• The Simpsons:
  • Marge Simpson has a gambling addiction.
    • When Marge decided to sell prescription drugs just so that her garage sale would be a success. Marge ended up in jail at the end of that one.
    • For all her griping about Homer's tendency to get drunk and do something stupid, Marge herself has shown some pretty boneheaded behavior when she drinks too much wine.
    • Marge secretly likes Homer's wild side. After Homer mellowed out in "Jaws Wired Shut", Marge quickly became frustrated by the lack of activity, and took up monster truck racing, leaving Homer having to rescue her.
    • In "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star", in a refreshing twist, it is Marge, not Homer, who learns a lesson about tolerance. (Though less satisfyingly, Marge's dislike of Catholics is never fully explained).
    • When the family has Mr. Burn's teddy bear Bobo in "Rosebud":
    Marge: I'm sure he'll offer us a fair reward. (Beat) And then we'll make him double it!
    Family: Huh?
    Marge: Well, why can't I be greedy once in a while?
  • That said, Mr. Burns as well. It's very odd to see such a greedy man who is so consumed with desire for money to put all that aside in favor of wanting a nostalgic but financially worthless teddy bear from his youth in "Rosebud".
  • In "Dead Putting Society", after Homer and Ned Flanders have a fight, Flanders feels guilty and mails an apology to Homer... but it's so cheesy that all Homer and the kids do is mock it. Marge chastises her family for making fun of something that was so heartfelt from Ned, then excuses herself to the next room where we see that she herself can barely contain her laughter.
  • Ned's bitter "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the entire town in Hurricane Neddy reveals there's an angry man behind the Nice Guy persona:
    • His rage against Marge: Becoming furious over something that could have been resolved peacefully and quietly, or having enough of excusing ignorance and going right at it;
    • His rage against Bart: Putting away forgiveness when it comes to the town troublemaker and giving him a piece of his mind;
    • His rage against Lisa: His disdain for know-it-alls and perfectionists as well as her condescending imposing of her opinions on others (like her vegetarianism);
    • His rage against Wiggum: His contempt for the incompetence and flaws of local authority;
    • His rage against Krusty: His criticism of people he doesn't find funny;
    • His rage against Lenny: How even he isn't immune to the idiom "Not everyone will like you" and can hate somebody for no good reason;
    • His rage against Moe: How even he can judge people for their appearance and judge books by their cover;
    • His rage against Milhouse: How even he can be an outright bully against a small child, and a Hypocrite as well (he mocks Milhouse for wearing glasses when Ned wears them as well, something Milhouse points out);
    • His rage against Homer: How even he can harbour genuine hatred for another person.
  • In "They Saved Lisa's Brain", the Springfield members of Mensa take charge of the town when Mayor Quimby skips town. All seems well until they start making outlandish proposals they all conflict over. It's ultimately up to special guest Stephen Hawking to knock some sense into them.
    Lisa: Oh, Dr. Hawking, we had such a beautiful dream. What went wrong?
    Hawking: Don't feel bad, Lisa. Sometimes the smartest of us can be the most childish.
    Lisa: Even you?
    Hawking: No, not me. Never.
  • Conscientious Lisa Simpson loves the ultraviolent Itchy and Scratchy cartoons as much as Bart does. She also occasionally joins him in his more destructive fun, like indoors ice-cream ball fights, bathroom product races, indoor bike jousting and prank-calling Moe.
    • Lisa likes to think she's smarter and above the corrupt actions of nearly everyone in town but is just as susceptible to them as anyone else whenever they come around. She quickly gets jealous of anyone who does better at school than her (even her baby sister Maggie), is not above trying to force people to her way of thinking, is easily corrupted by any amount of power, and quickly becomes unhinged the moment any blemishes on her school work appear.
  • In "Homer's Enemy", Frank Grimes has a breakdown and starts impersonating Homer, whose consequence-free stupidity drove him to this point. This ends when he has a moment of genuine stupidity and electrocutes himself. Unfortunately, the same rules don't apply to Grimes and this mistake costs him his life.
  • Lisa is a vegetarian and a fierce advocate of animal rights/welfare, but in "Lisa Gets An 'A'", she complains about Homer cooking Maine cabbages instead of Pinchy because she enjoys the smell of cooked lobster.
• Solar Opposites: Korvo hates Earth, and pretty much wants to get their mission over with and leave. Despite that, he and Terry cook up convoluted schemes to fit in with the population.
• South Park:
  • Stan Marsh and Kyle Broflovski are hit with this every now and then.
  • In the "Coon and Friends" Trilogy, Mysterion is an aloof figure in line with the Nolanverse Batman and the only hero who actually has superpowers... but when Stan asks why they're still calling themselves "Coon and Friends" after kicking out Cartman, he admits it's because "it pisses Cartman off beyond belief, and I find that (giggles) extremely funny." There are also one or two moments when he's surprised and lapses back into his normal voice.
  • From "The List", when Wendy finds out the other girls have masterminded a conspiracy to get free shoes:
    Wendy: You've compromised everything! Our lists' integrity!
    Bebe: Did you see these shoes, Wendy?! [pulls out a new pair of shoes] They're incredible!
    Wendy: It doesn't matter how incredible they are; you can't—oh my God, those are amazing.
  • Wendy again in With Apologies to Jesse Jackson. When Cartman fights the midget David Nelson, Wendy is one of the people in the crowd gleefully cheering on the fight.
  • The Goth Kids as well. For as much complete and utter disdain they have for everything around them, for how much they hate the other kids, and for how much they can't stand the idea of fun or acting like children, they will on occasion get involved with the other kids and play along like "all the stupid conformists" if it appeals to their interests, like dressing up as Game of Thrones characters to join in on the kids' plan to get a PS4.
• Spongebob Squarepants:
  • One episode had Squidward Tentacles, the show's comically serious character, move away from his wacky neighbors and into a community of people exactly like him. Initially delighted, he eventually became bored with the lack of hijinks he so detested and, by the end of the episode, was acting exactly like his ex-neighbors usually did. (This was subject to Snap Back and never referred to again.)
  • In another episode, Squidward is seen cutting loose at two parties for Spongebob along with the rest of the cast, despite his dislike of both Spongebob and such activities.
  • In one episode, the character roles of Spongebob and Squidward are briefly reversed when Squidward wins a crane game, and won't stop bragging about it to the point where Spongebob gets annoyed and starts snarking at him. Squidward then attempts to operate a construction crane with his eyes closed.
  • Sandy Cheeks also occasionally had moments of stupidity or arrogance. Most of her appearances in the second season seemed to be made solely to prove she wasn't good at everything.
  • In "Sleepy Time", the king in Squidward's dream is amused by the man from Peru limerick.
    • Both the king and the audience chase SpongeBob out of the theater like a bunch of fangirls after the performance.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks: In "Veritas", when Tendi is excited about being assigned to cleaning the senior conference room, Beckett Mariner downplays how exciting this actually is. Once Tendi's out of earshot, she then grouses that she never gets that assignment.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "Landing at Point Rain", Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi makes Anakin Skywalker fall into Stunned Silence by revealing he's been partaking in Anakin and Ahsoka's Body-Count Competition.
  Ahsoka: So Master, what was your total?
  Anakin: Not now, Ahsoka.
  Ahsoka: C'mon, are you afraid you lost this time?
  Anakin: Fine, fifty five. That's my count, and you?
  Ahsoka: Sixty, looks like I won.
  Anakin: Yeah.. but I called in the air strike! TIE!
  Ahsoka: [rolls eyes] You're impossible. [leaves]
  Obi-Wan: I'll never understand how you can simplify these battles into some kind of game.
  Ki-Adi-Mundi: Sixty-five, Skywalker.
  Anakin: Uhm, sorry?
  Ki-Adi-Mundi: My total, sixty-five. So what do I win?
  [cue Stunned Silence between Obi-Wan and Anakin]
  Anakin: My everlasting respect, Master Mundi. [bows]
  Ki-Adi-Mundi: [disappointed] Oh.
  Obi-Wan: That is a gift Anakin rarely bestows, I assure you.
• Steven Universe:
  • While the show is primarily light-hearted, the character of Lapis Lazuli appears largely in a series of serious episodes, highlighting both her power and Broken Bird status. But early in "Mirror Gem", she wastes the better part of a day making fart jokes with Steven, and she's shown to be quite a Deadpan Snarker in "Hit the Diamond". It's just that her later circumstances don't always mesh with her sense of humor.
  • Pearl is overly responsible, sometimes to the point of being uptight, but she has her own quirks that are often played for comedy. In "Too Many Birthdays" she goes right from talking about how they might be too mature for birthday parties to getting into a fistfight with Amethyst, and in "Full Disclosure" her problem with Amethyst's plan to build a moat and be the crocodile is "You always say you'll be the crocodile, but you never commit!". She also completely defeats the purpose of Steven's chore wheel in "Keeping It Together" by crossing out the other three names and writing her own over them ("I just really like doing all those things!") but leaving the wheel up.
• Super Best Friends Forever: Being an Amazon princess, Wonder Girl may try to act as an example, yet in the first short she is tempted to hijack her sister's Invisible Jet by a promise of burritos. She plays with this in the fifth short, by first scolding the other girls about irritating Solomon Grundy and then intentionally throwing in her own braaaaaains pun and laughing.
• Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!: Antauri is shown to be wise, mature and spiritual… But in “Big Lug”, even he is shown to get swept up in the wonders of the gas station.
  Sparx: Look at this place! It has everything we could ever need.
  Antauri: Yes, if what you need is endless sugar, chemically-processed animal flesh, and- OH! That’s a nice visor.
  • And later…
    Antauri: Mind over matter… (Spin around, revealing that he’s wearing a soda-hat) Is nothing compared to hands-free refreshments. What a marvellous invention!
  • And later, in the Super Robot…
    Sprx: (as Antauri uses his Ghost Claws on the Sun Riders pinball machine) What are you doing, Antauri?! Get your ghost paws outta that machine!
    Antauri: What? At least I didn't tilt.
• Rebecca Cunningham of TaleSpin, though somewhat Women Are Wiser and more educated than Baloo, shared his ego and stubbornness as well as lacking the latter's streetwise aspects and thus fell into this trope a frequent amount of times. Sometimes even he could be surprised how out of her mind Rebecca acted at times.
  Rebecca: Face it Baloo, you're too gullible, I would never fall for something like that, no possible way...
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the typically serious Splinter occasionally cracks a joke, often as part of an "Everybody Laughs" Ending.
• Teen Titans:
  • Robin usually tends to be the straight laced leader of the Titans, akin to his father, but is still a normal teenager at heart. Various episodes show him to be just as awkward, or goofy as the rest of the titans.
  • The Titan for this trope is Raven. The Stoic Dark Action Girl, most frequently the Only Sane Woman. And yet, when Robin was off training, the other Titans convinced her to suit up in Robin's uniform. "You know you want to" indeed. Also, in "Stranded", Raven is separated from the other Titans — who are each put into groups of two as they deal with being lost on an alien planet — and runs into a tribe of tiny, harmless aliens who insist that she not leave. By the end of the episode they've given her the typical tribal goddess schtick, feeding her grapes and giving her a massage on a comfy pillow, and Raven is just loving it.
• Raven gets even worse in Teen Titans Go!. Her room is full of dark magicky things, she tries her best not to smile... yet she just adores "Pretty Pretty Pegasus", a My Little Pony Expy.
• The older wiser engines of Sodor tend to get hit with this in later seasons of Thomas & Friends. Toby and Edward, in particular, have shown frequent self-esteem issues, and are sometimes left in such a pitiful state that the younger engines they previously mentored have to bail them out.
• A dark and twisted version of this happens in the infamous Tom and Jerry cartoon "Blue Cat Blues", where Jerry watches a heartbroken Tom sitting on the train tracks waiting to be run over because the love of his life married someone else and Jerry appears to be in a stable relationship. Then Jerry sees his girl marrying another mouse and sits down on the tracks next to Tom.
• Totally Spies!:
  • Despite how Jerry is the head of WOOHP and technically Clover, Alex, and Sam's boss, there are several times when he shows he's still capable of making the same mistakes they do even though he'll sometimes get exasperated with them whenever they act immature.
    The first indicator is the amusement he shows in the unorthodox and rather insane ways he gets the girls into his office, often followed by some pun depending on their unwilling mode of transportation.
    The second indicator is when he'll fall victim to whatever scheme the Villain of the Week is enacting just like one of the girls would despite how his years of spying experience should tell him better.
  • Out of the three girls (and sometimes even Jerry) Sam is usually the Only Sane Man and The Smart Girl, though there are several points her intellect gets to her ego, or she has an irresponsible streak like Alex and Clover, most often when it's her turn to hold the Distress Ball.
• Transformers: Animated: Optimus Prime acts as the level-headed leader of the Autobots, at most occasionally indulging in light bits of snark. That being said, upon seeing that Sentinel Prime has been reduced to a head, courtesy of Headmaster, Optimus starts gleefuly laughing. While he helps Sentinel get back to normal, Optimus clearly finds the whole situation hilarious, especially the part where he gets to beat up Sentinel's body.
• Trash Truck: In "Freeze Tag", Hank and his friends are all playing a game of freeze tag when they discover a smartphone with a catchy game inside it inside Trash Truck. They all start fighting over it until finally Mona takes it away, saying that it's caused quite enough trouble for one day, then heads off inside her home. They then start bickering with each other over who's to blame for this... only to hear the sounds of the game and discover that Mona is now playing the game.
• T.U.F.F. Puppy: Kitty Katswell generally acts professional, yet has her bouts of goofiness like the rest of the cast, and occasionally joins in on her partner Dudley Puppy's shenanigans.
• Jessie from Undergrads, in spite of her sarcastic punk exterior, found herself thoroughly enjoying coming to Gimpy's rescue in his Quake deathmatch. She also takes an interest in their game of Risk when she comes to "rescue" Nitz from it, actually joining in and helping Nitz win rather than simply getting him out of there.
  Jessie: So this is how you and your buddies spend every Saturday night.
  Nitz: Uh... my friends are not always this... nerdy.
  Jessie: Don't worry. It's kinda cool. In a nerdy, dorky, loser, I'm-never-gonna-have-sex sort of way.
• Voltron: Legendary Defender: Even the most straight-laced of the defenders of the universe have their moments where they get involved in their teammates' antics.
  • Keith is usually portrayed as a brooding loner, but he's seen fooling around with Hunk at a dinner party, has no problem with taking part in a food/snowball fight, and gets the same idea as Lance to go to the castle's pool.
  • Pidge once chided Lance for wasting his time at a store that sells Earth memorabilia while they were looking for supplies, then joined him when finding out said store sells retro game consoles. Also, Lance doesn't seem that interested in the consoles but still helps Pidge get money to buy one, and is seen playing on it in a later episode.
  • As serious-minded as Allura is, she wanted to go shopping for something sparkly when they stopped for said supplies, then pouted when Coran forbade her.
  • Shiro is the most serious of his group, but lets his fun side out at times, from joining his friends in a food/snowball fight to getting them to stop making laser sound effects until "correcting" them. He also joins in with the show's equivalent of "Dungeons and Dragons" and comes up with a backstory for his character, complete with flashbacks and an Art Shift.
• Wander over Yonder:
  • Commander Peepers, Lord Hater's ever-serious Dragon and full-time Cloudcuckoolander's Minder, has his moments, most especially in "The It" when Wander distracts Hater from the plan of the moment by instigating a game of tag. When Peepers insists that one of the Watchdogs let Hater tag him to get the whole thing over with, they ask him why he can't just do it himself. It quickly becomes apparent that he doesn't want to be "it" either and is willing to full-on battle Lord Hater to prevent it from happening.
  • In "The Party Poopers", Wander and Sylvia attend an important event so that they can speak to a special council; however, there are references to Toilet Humor everywhere and Wander has trouble containing himself while a panicked Sylvia tries to prevent anyone from seeing lest they get kicked out. In the end when they finally get to see the council, it's Sylvia who ends up bursting into laughter in front of everyone, (although the whole thing turns out to be a Secret Test of Character anyway).

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