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  • Adventure Time: Sandwiches are Serious Business in the Land of Ooo.
    • One of the shorts in "Five Short Graybles" is all about Princess Bubblegum painstakingly crafting the perfect sandwich which, much to her frustration, Cinnamon Bun just wolfs down without even tasting.
    • In "Time Sandwich", Jake goes through an elaborate process of evoking the spirit of creativity and stealing a lobster's soul to create a sandwich so tasty that the Magic Man tries to steal it from him, trapping it in a bubble of slowed-down time Jake can only penetrate when he gets sad enough.
  • The Beach Episode from Avatar: The Last Airbender hangs a lampshade on such things with Azula, Ty Lee, Zuko, and Mai playing a friendly game of volleyball at the beach. First, Azula confers with her team and points out that a player on the opposite team has a slightly bad leg, probably weakened by a childhood injury, so they should aim at that leg to defeat her. When Azula spikes the ball and scores the game point, she makes the ball explode and completely loses it:
    Azula: Yes! We've defeated you for all time! You will NEVER rise from the ashes of your shame and humiliation!... Well that was fun!
  • Batman: The Animated Series: Temple Fugate, a.k.a. the Clock King, and his obsession with punctuality.
    • Harvey Dent/Two-Face is so reliant on flipping his coin to make decisions that he nearly falls to his death trying to repeatedly flip a replacement trick coin that always lands on its edge.
    • Jervis Tetch/the Mad Hatter and the works of Lewis Carroll.
      Tetch: Are you the dreamer, or merely part of somebody else's dream? That's just the question Tweedle-Dee put to Alice in Through the Looking
    • The Joker lives this trope. Anything anyone does to him, no matter how minor or unintentional, is a grave offense against him personally. He sees himself as the funniest living organism in Gotham, dammit, and you'd better respect the hell out of him and give him whatever he wants, or he will hurt you. Yell at him on the freeway? He'll stalk you for years. Refuse to grant him (illegal) patenting rights? He'll threaten to kill you and then carry out his threats in the most unexpected and bizarre ways possible (even poisoning someone's cat and goading it into clawing his face). Tell him he's too late in entering a comedy competition? He'll kidnap the three judges and warp their minds with microchips, turning all of them into criminals and ultimately causing one of them to be sent to the hospital with near-fatal injuries.
      • Telling a joke wrong or in a clumsy way can also really set the Joker off.
  • Camp Lazlo: One episode had Slinkman say that Commander Hoo-Ha takes the rule of not letting boys watch a movie that isn’t appropriate for their age very seriously and that ignoring the rule leads to unspeakable repercussions.
  • In Central Park, Season 1 "A Fish Called Snakehead", the Tillermans love eating spicy cheese bread at the farmer's market so much that Owen tells his family that if there's one spicy cheese bread left he's going to fight them for it, weapons and bare knuckles. Cole tells them he's going to rub the bread on his butt to claim it, but Owen and Paige will still eat it regardless.
  • The card game in Chaotic is only serious business in parallel universes (two, in fact). On Earth, it is just a very popular game and nothing more.
    • Only popular enough to play it during lunch at school without people thinking you're a total nerd (which most players are)
    • On the episode "Earth To Kaz" tends to avert that as well. Anything Chaotic (actually any TCG) is a brand iron used for nerds.
  • The students of Clone High take everything seriously, including cross-country, film festivals, student council, raisins and litter. Considering that Ponce De Leon meets a grizzly death from a stray plastic bag, they kind of have a point on that last one.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door: The Kids Next Door once encountered Rupert Puttinsky, a guy who made "miniature golf" Serious Business... to the point of insisting on calling it as such:
    Numbuh 5: They have champs in mini golf?
    Rupert: The game is called miniature golf!
    • And don't you dare call miniature golf a stupid game, either.
    • For the titular organization, many kid activities are Serious Business and often threatened by adults. Case in point: the ban on drinking (root) beer in "Operation Pop", a prohibition parody.
    • Also ice cream, in which the search for the true nature of the "fourth flavor" (vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate being the core three) is akin to that of a religious quest. Ice cream was so serious business to one character that he became an Omnicidal Maniac over everyone eating his ice cream and not thanking him for it.
    • Numbuh 3 shows tendencies of this when it comes to Rainbow Monkeys.
    • The entire show rests on the premise that childhood is Serious Business. Which is also Truth in Television.
  • Dexter's Laboratory typically had Dad being the progenitor of Serious Business. In one episode, he goes to insane lengths to get at his wife's fresh-baked muffins as quickly as possible. In another, he insists that Dexter be able to defeat Dee Dee at a snowball fight because Dad used to be a snowball god until he was defeated by...Mom, who explains that she just playfully lobbed a little snow at him one day and he freaked out, at which point Dad realizes he was making a big deal over nothing. In still another, he urges Dexter to join him on a fishing trip.
    Dad: Dexter, since the dawn of time man has gone fishing. And not just for our little aquatic friends, but fishing for answers! For understanding! For meaning! So awake, my son, and join your old man in the quest... for KNOWLEDGE!
  • In the Doug episode "Doug's Dinner Date", when Doug goes to a restaurant and orders liver and onions, a food he hates, everybody at the restaurant, including the staff, reacts with shock.
  • The Dreamstone, naturally revolves around a feud between dreams. The Big Bad Zordrak, is vehement on sending nightmares to the heroes in the Land Of Dreams, who will protect their good dreams to any extreme (their creator, the Dream Maker, is particularly hammy about this). Zordrak's Mooks, the Urpneys, are the only ones who barely give a toss about dreams, but are dragged into missions to ruin them regardless (usually via stealing the title stone), facing violent, or even deadly retaliations from the heroes or their Bad Boss (or often both) depending on how they fare. The later episodes added a more genuinely serious world domination scheme, likely to downplay the Disproportionate Retribution on the heroes' part.
  • The Fairly OddParents!:
    • The weather is serious business to the people of Dimmsdale, to the point where a Torches and Pitchforks mob chases the weatherperson out of town every time they make an incorrect forecast because everyone wants to go fishing.
    • The 'Crimson Chin vs. Crash Nebula' special caused Chester and AJ to start arguing over who was the better hero, leading them to stop being friends during the episode. Both of them demand in unison that Timmy side with them, "...or you're not my friend anymore!"
    • Baseball is taken so seriously in-universe that Chester is in danger years after his dad fumbled a World Series game.
  • Serious Business was parodied in the episode of Family Guy "E Peterbus Unum". In one of Peter's ancestral flashbacks, the Union won the Civil War with a Drinking Contest.
    • Another episode has a running gag revolving around the Serious Business of whether or not to pronounce the "h" in "whip".
    • In one episode they hang a lampshade on how One Tree Hill treats high school as serious business.
    • The civilians of Quahog take a lot of Peter's Comedic Sociopathy on the chin. The two instances they were finally enraged enough to make Peter a pariah and even threatened to brutally assault him? When he ruined television.
  • The basis of Fillmore! is every aspect of middle-school life is overblown to something everyone's life revolves around. Everything is Serious Business, including the bocci ball team, standardized tests, the school mascot, mini-golf, macaroni art, the world's longest-living virtual pet, baseball card forgery, abstract art, graffiti, and tricking kids into stealing scooters so the culprit can look good by giving them to poor underprivileged kids in Russia. And not only are school mascots Serious Business, but stealing them is a sufficiently impressive hobby that there is actually a book called Caring for your Stolen Mascot.
  • In one episode of the The Flintstones little-league baseball was Serious Business to the parents, just like in South Park (and real life). After Fred, who was the umpire, made a decision that resulted in the home team's loss, the kids' parents started threatening him up to and including rocks thrown through the windows of his house. And since Barney was the team coach, it causes a major rift in their friendship.
    • This was only the parents though, at the end of the episode the kids from the team came to Fred's house and said they thought he made a fair call and accepted it with no hard feelings.
    • In real life, little league parents have been known to assault each other, the umpires, opposing coaches, their own coaches and even the kids themselves. No matter how small the actual stakes, there are always those to whom the game is Serious Business enough to provoke felony level violence.
  • FudĂªncio e Seus Amigos: In one episode, the mere act of saying the word "cu" (which means "ass hole") becomes a crime punishable by jail, said to have a maximal penalty of 70 years. However, it's not that impactful as if the person who said the word simply takes it back, the crime is undone and they aren't punished. The episode revolves around FunĂ©rea saying the word, unaware that it became a crime, but then refusing to take it back even after she finds out that it is, then getting into court. In the end, she claims she did everything on purpose, just to waste money and time.
  • Futurama:
    • Parodied when the Harlem Globetrotters show up to challenge Earth to a game of basketball. When asked what happens if Earth loses, the Globetrotters reply... "NOTHING! There is nothing at stake, and no threat!" After Earth loses the game, further Lampshade Hanging is done by the commentator, who states that "This is a dark day for humanity. Earth... has been beaten... at basketball." In the DVD Commentary, the creators admit that the entire plot was a jab at the network, who always wanted the stakes to be as high as possible.
    • In another episode, the Omicronians are so angered by not being able to finish watching the finale of Single Female Lawyer they attack the Earth, demanding to see the rest of the episode. Talk about Serious Business taken to extremes! Fortunately, Fry's knowledge of 20th Century television helps save the day.
    • Everything is Serious Business to the Omicronians, even that emotion we humans call "wuv". That may have something to do with the fact that they take grammar and spelling mistakes very seriously as well. In "The Problem With Popplers", Lrrr seems just as angry at Zap Brannigan for mispronouncing "guacamole" as he is about him eating their young!
    • Star Trek has become a religion in Futurama. As explained by Nichols: "As country after country fell under its influence, world leaders became threatened by the movement's power." Since then, all the episodes and movies have been dumped on Omega 3 (a forbidden world) — and it became forbidden to use the words "Star Trek." It was serious enough to start the Star Trek Wars (not to be confused with the Star Wars Trek) which led to the ban and forbidden words.
  • Galactik Football, to the point that most of the characters care more about the matches than about the conspiracies, kidnappings and political manipulation taking place. To be fair, their version of football involves the Flux, which itself is a perfect example of Mundane Utility.
  • In the Generator Rex episode "Without a Paddle", much like Balls of Fury, ping pong is serious business.
    Rex: I don't get this much respect when I save the world!
  • The good guys in Get Ed are couriers. The bad guys are evil couriers, bent on ruling the package delivery market with an iron fist.
  • In the Gravity Falls episode "The Golf War," the Lilliputtians (tiny people that resemble mini golf balls) go to war over a sticker with a gold trophy on it. Granted, it's all due to untold years of rivalry between the denizens of the mini golf course's various themes, but it's still an overreaction. Plus, the little guys are too goofy to take seriously, at least until they start taking hostages.
  • Hey Arnold!: In "Curly Snaps", Curly is obsessed over being the "ball monitor" (the kid whose job is to hand out and collect all the kickballs before and after recess) for a week. Every other kid hates the job and considers it a mediocre and boring chore while Curly believes it to be an admirable and highly respected position. He ends up going crazy and locking himself in the principal's office with all the balls and chucks them at people after Mr. Simmons accidentally skips his turn. Sid, who was given the job instead, flat out tells Curly he doesn't want the job and he can have it.
  • One episode of Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi has Ami go absolutely mental over Bunny Huggles, from the moment she finds out that her collection of Huggle Buddies is incomplete. From barging into a shopping mall, opening boxes of cereal (and scaring away a security guard in the process), to attempting to steal a Bunny Huggles doll from a little girl, to forcing Kaz to dress up as Bunny Huggles. Even Yumi sees her obsession over this baffling, calling them "dumb little toys". Needless to say... Ami doesn't take this very well.
    Ami: They're not dumb! They're Huggle Buddies!! And I LOVE them!!!
  • The cast of Kaeloo take the children's games they play Once an Episode very, very seriously. Kaeloo once lampshades this with a quote:
    Kaeloo (to Stumpy): Be serious, we're playing here!
  • King of the Hill:
    • In the series finale, meat-inspecting is serious business, or at least the competition Bobby enters is. His teammates go batshit insane when he gets one question wrong despite still making it to the finals, then later at a dinner party, one teammate actually throws pepper in an opposing team's faces. And on the way to the finals, the driver of the bus carrying Bobby's team turns out to be a member of the same opposing team, and parks the bus in a puddle of mud and leaves them stranded there.
    • Hank also treats Propane and Propane accessories as Serious Business. And not just in the "It's flammable, so be careful and maintain proper safety when handling it" kind of way. In a "Disrespect or insult it in any way and I'll kick your ass" kind of way too. Note that he considers "using anything but propane to do anything you can also use propane to do" to be disrespecting/insulting it. One episode had Peggy and Bobby discovering that they really like burgers grilled with charcoal. Afraid of incurring Hank's wrath, they're forced to sneak off and eat them in secret so that he doesn't find out. When Hank finds a charcoal briquette on the floor and confronts Peggy, she desperately claims "I didn't know what it was! Luanne asked me to hold it for her! I thought it was drugs!" To reiterate, she believed that Hank would be less upset about her knowingly possessing illegal drugs than he would be about her grilling with charcoal behind his back. At the end of the episode, Hank gives Peggy an ultimatum of sorts. He grills one burger with charcoal and one burger with propane, then tells Peggy to taste both and tell him which one she likes better, with the implication that he would actually leave her if she chooses the charcoal. For the sake of keeping the peace, she lies and chooses the propane.
    • Everything is Serious Business in Arlen. Going against the majority on anything that doesn't make sense is almost certain to get you branded a pariah, dragged to court or jail, or most likely all of the above.
  • The Daffy Duck featured in The Looney Tunes Show takes everything way too seriously: he thinks that getting his newspaper is more important than anything (he doesn't read it, he uses them to make a float of himself) and thinks that if it doesn't arrive one day that means someone stole it; and he nearly ends his friendship with Porky Pig because he took some fries from Daffy's basket, even though the fries were for everyone.
  • Racing becomes this during the second season of M.A.S.K., the aptly named Racing Series. Most of the races get unbelievably high stakes, with some of the prices being an object that would be very dangerous in the hands of VENOM, such as a secret formula for an indestructible metal alloy. Therefore, it's crucial for MASK to win.
  • Much to the dismay of The Omniscient Council of Vagueness, most of the world of Metalocalypse worships the Heavy Metal band "Dethklok" as living gods; allowing them to do anything, including destroying nations.
    • Dethklok are so popular, their fans will go to their concerts despite the ridiculously high risk of dying, some will kill themselves if an album is delayed, a secret agency exists whose sole goal is to kill Dethklok, they have thousands and thousands of workers constantly putting their lives in danger just to serve every single one of Dethklok's (often ridiculously stupid) desires, Florida's governor was killed by rabid fans just for a negative comment about Nathan, people who download their music are tortured (often by Dethklok themselves), and the band themselves are the world's twelfth largest economy. In Metalocalypse, everything Dethklok related is very Serious Business.
      • It's subverted as well, because the band members themselves do not take anything seriously and frequently display outward hatred towards everyone who worships them. They are, in fact, in it only for the music, the money, and the sheer decadence that comes from the first two.
      • There's one thing that Dethklok (or at least/especially Nathan) takes very seriously: making their music as brutal as humanly possible. They'll spend months under the sea in a nuclear submarine just to get the right ambience.
    • In fact, Dethklok IS a nation, with the world's 12th highest GDP. And it's just 5 guys and the people that work for them.
    • Dethklok is also a god, their songs have the power to form whirlwinds and summon ancient beings.
  • In Mighty Ducks: The Animated Series, the titular Ducks' homeworld of Puckworld (It Makes Sense in Context... sorta), ice hockey is a way of life.
  • Rokit from Mixels treats everything as the most important thing he can do, even things such as petting a kitten or getting a cup of coffee. It bugs him to no end that the other Orbitons don't share this viewpoint with him.
  • Molly of Denali: In "The Funny Face Competition," funny face reigning champion Aunt Merna treats the contest like this, despite its theme. She even travels hundreds of miles from Sitka to compete, and it's implied she's been traveling for this competition since she was a child (she grew up in the Yukon).
  • ¡Mucha Lucha!. Lucha Libre has saved the world several times, and the characters center their lives around it. Even the opening theme's lyrics say Mucha Lucha, Mucha Lucha! It's a way of life!. On occasion, the characters refer to "HONOR! FAMILY! TRADITION! AND DONUTS!" as the motivation behind their actions (yes, the donuts are Serious Business too).
  • Many examples in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • In "Green Isn't Your Color", we see that secret-keeping is Serious Business to Pinkie Pie — so much so that she will issue Implied Death Threats and break the laws of physics in order to enforce it. "The Last Roundup" serves as a stark reminder that, if you value your continued existence, you never ever EVER break a Pinkie Promise.
    • "Winter Wrap Up" is Serious Business to the denizens of Ponyville, as noted by Twilight Sparkle. In fact, the whole show treats the whole "custodians of nature" thing the ponies have going on incredibly seriously. The forest just outside of town seriously freaks the ponies out because hibernation, seasons, weather, and nature in general get on with things, completely devoid of pony assistance. Also it's home to a number of dangerously mythological creatures, but that's just, you know, wildlife. Justified in-universe: It's implied that the whole world is like this, so if the ponies don't take care of things, everything will stay the same. Unchanging. Forever.
    • Twilight Sparkle herself has a few examples of her own:
      • Studying. Before you say "but studying is important in Real Life too," consider that Twilight honestly believed she would be sent all the way back to Magic Kindergarten for just ONE late homework assignment. This proves severe enough that she decides to make a problem if she can't find one, which ends up in her accidentally brainwashing the whole town, requiring the intervention of the Physical Goddess who also happens to be her teacher — all of which nearly gets her in trouble for real. In fact, her final mental plunge is triggered by a scene wherein she expresses her fears to her friends, who promptly dismiss these worries as mere paranoia.
      • In this same vein, she spends her first-ever slumber party consulting a book about throwing slumber parties, which she is so insistent on following to the letter that she is unable to help remove a tree that's crashed through her bedroom window because she's desperately searching the book for advice on how to respond. Justified since not only is this the first slumber party of Twilight's life, but she's gone most of her life without any appreciable level of social interaction in general (thanks to her aforementioned obsession with studying). Moreover, it's probably safe to assume that Twilight Sparkle has a book about EVERYTHING, and that mostly everything to her is Serious Business.
      • Universal comprehension. After being faced with a series of phenomena that confounds her logic (courtesy of Pinkie Pie, of course), she devotes the entire length of "Feeling Pinkie Keen" to her investigation — even after repeated instances of serious bodily harm — before finally conceding that there are some things that defy an easy explanation, and that's okay.
      • "It's About Time" has Twilight becoming increasingly panicked and unhinged (not to mention injured) in her attempts to prevent an unknown disaster she was warned of by her time-travelling future self. The other characters put themselves under no such stress worrying about something they can't prevent, and at the end it's revealed that the very reason Future Twilight went back in time was to warn her past self not to worry about Future Twilight's warning.
    • Cutie marks work recursively since they are an indication of what the bearer considers serious business, be it apple-farming, fashion, or even popping balloons.
      • The only ones who really consider cutie marks themselves to be Serious Business are the Cutie Mark Crusaders. True, everyone looks farward to getting their cutie mark, but the Crusaders are the only ones who actively seek them and freak out about not already having them. But given the way they're treated by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon for not having theirs, it’s hard to blame them.
    • In "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000", apple cider is this for Rainbow Dash. Hell, her frustration with Pinkie Pie, who beats her in line every year for its sale, is such that she looks forward to rubbing her acquisition of the cider in her friend's face almost as much as she looks forward to actually drinking it. And in the episode "Bats!", Rainbow Dash is convinced that they need to get rid of the vampire fruit bats because the infestation could cause cider season to be cancelled.
    • In the episode "Pinkie Pride", party planning is this to Pinkie Pie. She felt that Cheese Sandwich was going to replace her as Ponyville's Party Planner, so she challenged him to a "Goofoff." This is also seen in "Party Pooped". While Pinkie going to absurd lengths to throw the Yakyakistan ambassadors a party they will appreciate is not necessarily this (the price of a failed reception could well be a war between yaks and ponies), the fact that she has a whole Batman-style cave beneath her house dedicated to preparing parties, complete with files about the party preferences of every single pony in town, definitely is.
  • In Numberjacks, Four takes birthday parties very seriously, as in two different episodes ("Four He's a Jolly Good Fellow" and "A Game of Two Halves"), he went out of his way to make sure two little girls (who, coincidentally or not, were celebrating their fourth birthday) had fun parties. In the former, he actually put his life in danger by acting as the number 4 on a cake, and came two seconds away from being cut with a knife.
  • Inverted in the superhero installments of Peg + Cat, in which several of the times that Super Peg and Cat Guy encounter shape-based crime, such as stacking the 100 chicks in a pyramid, they point out that it really isn't that big a deal, though they still have to stop it.
  • The Penguins of Madagascar episode "Mr. Tux" turned Miniature Golf into this when an armadillo (The Amarillo Kid) showed up demanding Private give him the satisfaction of one last game of mini golf with Mr. Tux (Private's alterego in a former life). Even Mort remarks on the "high stakes" of the situation when the Amarillo Kid threatens to blow up the zoo if Private loses.
  • Phineas and Ferb:
    • In "Does This Duckbill Make Me Look Fat?", Perry (in Candace's body, but that's another story) stops Doofenshmirtz from stealing every fast food restaurant clown figure in Danville. Even though we are talking about a massive theft of property here, it still seems rather silly that Major Monogram gives this matter top priority.
    • Speaking of Candace, the whole "busting my brothers" dream is practically her way of life.
    • This is Dr. Doofenshmirtz's whole schtick. Often, it's lampshaded that he could solve whatever's bugging him quite simply (e.g. moving a chair to another window), but usually dismisses it as "too much hassle" and instead builds his Inators to change everything else (e.g. moving a building blocking his view).
    • The episode "Nerds of a Feather" is essentially real life instances of Fandom Rivalry taken to a cartoonish extreme in which at a convention the Space Adventure and Stumbleberry Finkbat fandoms go as far as to have a physical war over which is the better movie. Ultimately, though, the episode is essentially An Aesop to not take real Fandom Rivalries so seriously.
  • Ready Jet Go!: Mr. Peterson treats mini-golf as such as shown in "Mini-Golf at the DSA". The kids even lampshade it.
    Jet: Isn't mini-golf supposed to be goofy fun?
    Mindy: Isn't pretty much everything supposed to be goofy fun?
    Jet: I certainly think so!
  • On paper the games in ReBoot sound like it is serious business, but it is justified because these games are a life-or-death matter for the people inside the computer.
  • Recess
    • Everyone slowly becomes addicted to a jigsaw/card game thing called "Ajimbo", becoming like zombies that forget how to play other games like kickball. Subverted (somewhat) with the implication the puzzle is an addictive Artifact of Doom.
    • In one episode, collecting and trading "Monstickers" escalates to the point where it became the playground's currency. Everything has a fee, even such activities as laying on the grass. It gets even worse when T.J., driven to become the richest kid on the playground, monopolizes every activity, and starts charging kids stickers for standing around because they can't afford to play anything (he calls it a "loitering fee").
    • There's also the episode where they find the book of King Morty's rules. In the world of Recess, playground monarchs are serious business. Taken a step further with King Morty's rules. He was the first king, so his words are akin to gospel.
    • In the episode where the word "Whomp" is branded a swear word, SWAT helicopters come in when the word goes out of control.
    • Missing recess in general? Having your soul ripped from your body is a better fate than missing recess!
  • In Regular Show, anything and everything can be serious business, Rock paper scissors summoning an Eldritch Abomination, Death's preferred method of gambling for souls being arm wrestling, posting viral videos being grounds for an And I Must Scream. Most of the plots start with something harmless before snowballing into a Cosmic Horror Story.
  • Extreme sports are very much serious business in the world of Rocket Power, especially to Otto, who takes it to such an extreme that he tries to go pro just after his 11th birthday.
  • In an episode of The Simpsons, barbershop quartet music is Serious Business: Homer and the Be-Sharps start touring around the world, and as Homer's agent put it, "women are going to want to have sex with you". Granted, it was a spoof of Beatlemania, but still.
    • In the episode "Catch 'Em If You Can", during a We Need a Distraction moment:
      Airport Worker: I'm sorry. We're not supposed to give out passenger's itineraries.
      Bart: I understand. Hey, what's that crazy girl doing?
      Lisa: I'm going into the gold medallion club, with silver level membership! [laughs]
      Airport Worker: The hell you are! (grabs a gun)
    • Happens again in "Homer at Bat" when Barney Gumble and Boston Red Sox third baseman Wade Boggs get into a fistfight over whether the greatest British prime minister was Pitt the Elder or Lord Palmerston (which would be pretty ridiculous even if they were actually British). Becomes especially absurd when Moe the bartender, who agrees with Barney, contemptuously says "Pitt the Elder!" over Boggs's unconscious body — and Barney bellows "Lord Palmerston!" and punches him out too!
    • Really, Homer is this trope. Due to his Hair-Trigger Temper, he becomes angry over literally anything, including things that happened entirely within his imagination. A common gag is him menacingly shaking his fist at a person or group of people, warning that they'd better do something he asks.
    • In "Dog of Death", just about everyone was obsessed with the lottery.
    • Little League Baseball to Springfield in the Boys of Bummer: when they were winning the kids were allowed to throw eggs at people's faces (and they gladly took it), Bart mooned the audience and asked them to worship each cheek, and when Bart cost the game the dollar apparently weakens and townspeople push him to suicide.
    • One episode saw the Simpson family visit a state fair, and they attend a cornucopia competition. Marge pats the winning entry, causing a styrofoam cone to pop out, revealing heinous, heinous cheating.
      [crowd gasps]
      Homer: [aghast] You stuffed your horn?!?
      Cheater: [nervously] Aw. c'mon! Everybody does it!
      [crowd growls, then seizes the cheater, hauling him away as he screams]
      Marge: [yelling after the mob] I can testify at the trial!
      Bystander: Ain't gon' be no "trial".
    • The ninth season episode "Trash of the Titans" saw Homer determined to get elected as Sanitation Commissioner of Springfield. To this end, he schemes to crash a U2 concert so that he can plead his case onstage. He bluffs his way past the two Irish bouncers disguised as a "Potato Man", who swiftly usher him in shouting "Where the hell have you been?"
  • South Park:
    • Really, at this point making a list of episodes that DON'T feature this trope would be much, much shorter.
    • Special mention must be given to Randy Marsh who is so melodramatic and over-the-top, he's virtually a walking example of this trope.
    • A clear sign of this trope is whenever Eric Cartman belts out his infamous "No! Noooooooooooooooo!" catchphrase.
    • What really takes the cake is "Cartoon Wars". Many characters treat Family Guy having an episode with Muhammed in it like the start of World War III, and Kyle nearly dies trying to stop Cartman from getting it canned.
    • In "Douche and Turd", Stan's refusal to vote got him threatened, banished and nearly killed.
    • At the end of "Quest For Ratings" when Craig's show falls in the ratings the AV teacher orders him to be suspended from school and puts in a request for the surgical removal of his testicles, just to reinforce how important ratings are.
    • In "Super Fun Time", the Pioneer Village employees have a strict rule of never breaking character, even if their own lives are at stake. When one employee breaks character to give the terrorist the code for the back door, he is shot dead by Pioneer Paul for it.
    • In "The List", Stan just asks Wendy why Kyle was placed last on the girls' list of cutest-to-ugliest boys, but Wendy quickly uncovers a conspiracy; the high-ranking members of the girls' Pleases and Sparkles Club (Bebe, Jenny, Lola, and Red) forged the list in order to put Clyde at spot #1, boost his confidence and poularity, be able to date him, and convince him to give them free shoes from his father's store. Apparently there is a very complex process as to how the members of the Pleases and Sparkles Club create a list, and tampering with one is considered a serious violation (Bebe outright says that Kyle ending last on the list was simply just a coincidence produced by the tampering). Wendy calls the police on Bebe for abusing her authority, and the police are willing to arrest her for forging the list. Bebe on her part tries to kill Wendy so she doesn't expose the real list to the public.
    • Played for Laughs in "The Death of Eric Cartman", when the boys finally decide to disown Cartman and give him the Silent Treatment. While this was arguably a long time coming given all the atrocities Cartman has committed upon them, it was eating the skin off of their KFC that was the last straw.
      Kyle: [horrified] The skin's the best part!
      *Kenny bursts into Inelegant Blubbering*
  • The special assignments on Special Agent Oso that Oso helps children with range from mundane chores such as washing breakfast dishes to stuff like teaching a kid to use chopsticks. Despite this, each is treated with full urgency complete with traveling there on a bullet train or high-speed helicopter, to the use of James Bond-style gadgets.
    Mr. Dos: It's a serious matter... Your special assignment: help Katie build a sandcastle.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants:
    • Played for Laughs in an episode where Spongebob loses his Krusty Krab nametag. Spongebob spends most of the time searching for said nametag while also lamenting his supposed Loss of Identity. At the end of the episode, after telling the story to a bunch of people at a diner, he addresses the waitress by the name on her nametag. The woman corrects him, pointing out that she is wearing another waitress's uniform and nametag because her own was dirty. Spongebob is utterly baffled at how nonchalant she is about it.
    • SpongeBob, himself, is a walking example of this trope, actually. He cries and freaks out over things that aren't that serious. He once cried about arriving to the Krusty Krab one minute late. Even Mr. Krabs lampshades this and says that Spongebob arriving one minute late wasn't that serious.
    • SpongeBob is also very serious when it comes to receiving mail; the episode "Waiting" reveals he wants to see the mailman deliver his free Kelpo toy while waiting for it, and he thinks if he leaves now, he will miss the delivery and it will come without him witnessing it. This causes him to stay in one place throughout the whole episode and even scream at his friends when they ask him to join them for any reason.
    • The police are mostly useless, but it's shown several times that they take littering very seriously.
    • Mr. Krabs falls under this trope. He will put other people's lives in danger, even his own, just to get the least amount of money (which can be Truth in Television, unfortunately).
  • Teen Titans (2003): In the episode "Date With Destiny" Starfire has a Cat Fight with Kitten and ends up getting chocolate cake onto Kitten's dress. Kitten's response? "YOU! RUINED! MY! DRESS!" She then attempts to unleash a horde of genetically engineered moths on an entire city.
  • Teen Titans Go! had an episode that was actually called "Serious Business" in which Robin showed he feels this way about too much time in the bathroom (due to constant Potty Emergencies) to the point that he put a timer that would explode if someone didn't get out in five minutes.
    • Really, it would be quicker to list the episodes where Robin doesn't treat the topic of the episode as serious business.
  • In Thomas & Friends, everything on the Island of Sodor is somehow connected to the railway to such an extent that every delivery made on Sodor is delivered by rail.
    • Similarly, racing is something nearly all the locomotives take seriously.
  • The bad guys in Totally Spies! take completely mundane things seriously as part of their evil scheme/revenge. An evil toy maker brainwashes adults to be kids again, because they stopped playing with his toys. Or an evil fashion designer mutating people into animals and use their fur to make her design clothes.
  • Ranger Tabes from We Bare Bears takes her job as a forest ranger very seriously, even when she's dealing with relatively mundane stuff like getting rid of wasps' nests.

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