The Millstone in Western Animation.
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: The title character himself tends to cause most of the problems in Retroville as the result of his inventions backfiring. In one episode, it's revealed that most of the Neutron extended family viewed him as a Black Sheepnote , pointing out that, while Jimmy may have saved the day quite often, he's typically the one who caused the problem in the first place.
- Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Scratch and Grounder are the villainous variety in this series. The two are so Lethally Stupid that typically when Robotnik's Evil Plans fail, it's because of their bumbling. Ironically, the two were intended to be super-effective soldiers who could beat Sonic easily, but they turned out to be the exact opposite.
- Coconuts serves as this to Scratch and Grounder near the end of the first episode. In it, Scratch and Grounder actually succeed in capturing both Sonic and Tails. However, Coconuts ties them up in a rope so that he can collect the reward for Sonic's capture for himself. Sonic then tricks Coconuts into locking Scratch and Grounder in the cage he's in by telling him the rope might break. Coconuts falls for Sonic's trick, resulting in Sonic escaping and locking him in the cage with Scratch and Grounder.
- Tails has a habit of being this to Sonic. While still often helping Sonic, his childishness or slowness on the uptake sometimes causes complications. Robotnik and his minions also capture him or use him as a pawn against Sonic on several occasions.
- Stan Smith of American Dad! This is most prominently shown in the hurricane episode, in which his attempts to save the family just keep making things worse and nearly get everyone killed. Francine even flat-out tells Stan to his face that, while his crisis-based decisions may seem reasonable at first, they always end badly. Unfortunately, after a speech from Klaus, Stan becomes dead set on mindlessly trying to help no matter how much worse it makes things, under the belief that eventually he'll get it right. The episode ends with him accidentally shooting Francine in the arm after she was just rescued by Buckle from the consequences of his actions.
- Roger is much worse, mostly because he often intentionally causes bad things to happen. In the 200th episode, he even accidentally caused the apocalypse. One episode did in fact have him leave the house and things were actually worse without him.
- Archer plays this up whenever he is on a mission with Lana. Sterling Archer will usually do stupid things like leaving their weapons and equipment behind for beer, make outdated assumptions on their objective (he thinks Italy still has a King, and the Swiss Guard actually use halberds instead of MP-5s), or go trigger-happy and start shooting everyone wildly. Despite this, it's Zig-Zagged as he's a Bunny-Ears Lawyer who's shockingly competent at what he does. This ends up being discussed at the start of Season 11 when Archer realizes that his antisocial behavior has made him The Friend Nobody Likes, but it's ultimately subverted as his presence throwing off their newfound synergy was what led them to realize they were being played by an enemy spy. It's subverted again at the end of the season, as after everyone is still being jerks to him after he saved the world he gives them all a "The Reason You Suck" Speech for using him as a scapegoat for their own toxic behavior.
- Also Cyril when he's promoted to field agent, pulling such stunts as wearing bright orange in the snow (in a misguided application of hunting-safety knowledge, as in this case the bright orange makes him an easier target). And never, ever let him handle a firearm. However, he Took a Level in Badass in Archer's absence in Season 11.
- Pam is a total loudmouth who shouts out everyone's secrets and tells criminals about what they're doing, and where they are. Cheryl is even worse, being directly responsible for the death of Nikolai Jakov.
- About eighty percent of Bob Belcher's problems in Bob's Burgers stem from the rest of his family doing whatever pops into their heads with no forethought, common sense, or respect for him. The other twenty comes from Bob himself letting Honor Before Reason get in the way, with this being the main reason why his family lives in Perpetual Poverty.
- The titular character of Bojack Horseman inevitably drags his friends into the same misery he constantly experiences. One person justifies leaving Bojack by comparing him to a drowning swimmer who won't be saved and will drag down anyone who tries to help them. Late in the series it gets so bad that his own therapist gives him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech after Bojack's shenanigans inadvertently destroy his marriage, with him flat-out telling him he "ruins people". Due to Bojack being a textbook narcissist (along with the fact that it was only partially his fault), this ends up being an Ignored Epiphany.
- Chowder: The Title Character tries to be helpful, but whenever he does try, it's almost a guarantee that he'll either screw it up or do something stupid to make the current situation even worse. Most of their problems happen because Chowder is so Lethally Stupid that he constantly ignores Mung Daal's warnings and teachings about the potentially dangerous foods they deal with. It's gotten to the point that Mung has started to blame himself for the trouble that Chowder causes because he should know better than to expect Chowder to listen.
- Codename: Kids Next Door: Numbuh 13. So much so that the possibility of him being Soopreme Leader is enough to cause many operatives to forgo their fear of the job and dogpile him immediately (the position was being decided in a game of tag), with someone explicitly shouting out "Anyone but him!"
- Muttley is usually in this position on Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines, as he always wants more medals for catching the pigeon.
- The Tagalong Kid in the Donkey Kong Junior
cartoon. In the example linked, watch as he screws up Junior's plans quite a few times. - Duck Dodgers: The title hero is a bit of a subversion. While he often causes the trouble of that particular episode (or makes it worse), he's also usually the one who saves the day in the end and can be quite competent when he's not screwing up.
- Uni in Dungeons & Dragons (1983). It's sometimes so blatantly obvious that she is the only reason for the heroes' inability to go back home that some crazy theories about the missing last episode depict her as being an evil servant of the Devil himself.
- While all of the Eds of Ed, Edd n Eddy screw things up throughout the series, Eddy seems to fill this role the most often. Many of the Eds' failures come from Eddy's impatience, arrogance, and greed taking the scam far beyond their capabilities. Many of the scams would actually be legitimate business ventures if not for him trying to be dishonest, and there were several times when Eddy's ideas would have been highly successful if he wasn't so obsessed with making as much money as possible.
- Deconstructed, harshly, in The Movie, in which Eddy admits that he is nothing but a selfish loser and that Ed and Edd are pretty much his only friends. All three Eds are eventually accepted by the other kids after they learn that Eddy's behavior stems from being abused by his utterly cruel older brother. In other words, Eddy being The Millstone in the movie is rather important to his Character Development.
- In fail of that, usually Ed's stupidity or clumsiness will end up tearing the whole plan apart. A long overly-elaborate scheme to get an egg is destroyed in one fell swoop by Ed immediately afterwards trying to manually "hatch" the chick inside. In less common instances, Edd's conscience or finickiness will lead him to lose focus or even intentionally hinder a scam.
- And then, every once in a great while, the Eds will do something right without any one of them screwing it up. In those cases, one of the other kids screws it up. Most commonly Kevin, Sarah, or the Kanker Sisters, but Jonny and Rolf do it a lot, too.
- The Fairly OddParents!: Timmy tends to be this, to himself. A lot of the wishes he makes that go wrong are actually pretty decent wishes, but usually it's something he does in stupidity that brings out the bad sides of the wishes and sets up the plot of the episode. This is occasionally lampshaded, as some episodes feature Wanda confronting Timmy about his thoughtless, reckless, fundamentally flawed wishes.
- Cosmo, as well. Many of the problems that occur in the series are due to his sheer stupidity. Granted, he is a loving godfather and he means well, but that doesn't excuse the number of problems he's caused, including essentially being the one who caused Mr. Crocker to lose both him and Wanda as a child but also indirectly causing Crocker to become the fairy-obsessed lunatic he is today. Oh, and he does this twice (due to Timmy time-traveling to prevent said incident).
- A whole episode even centers around him helping Timmy with his homework. His "help" includes creating super-intelligent cockroaches that want to take over the world.
- Cosmo, as well. Many of the problems that occur in the series are due to his sheer stupidity. Granted, he is a loving godfather and he means well, but that doesn't excuse the number of problems he's caused, including essentially being the one who caused Mr. Crocker to lose both him and Wanda as a child but also indirectly causing Crocker to become the fairy-obsessed lunatic he is today. Oh, and he does this twice (due to Timmy time-traveling to prevent said incident).
- Quite a few of the plots in Family Guy stem from Peter Griffin doing something incredibly reckless or stupid, ruining things for everyone in the process.
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends:
- Single episode example: "Berry Scary": Berry convinces Bloo that Mac is The Millstone in his attempts to set a world record at something, and he actually falls for that, even though it's her who's been sabotaging Mac and Bloo's efforts.
- Which is ironic, as Bloo is generally The Millstone for everybody else at Foster's in just about every other episode. That is, for every episode not involving Cheese, the show's resident Ditz.
- Subverted in several episodes of Inspector Gadget. The title character is often an Idiot Hero and Useless Protagonist, but there are multiple examples of his screw-ups either helping his Hypercompetent Sidekicks save the day, or simply destroying the villains' plans outright.
- Invader Zim:
- Zim being the Millstone on his home planet is actually what sets off the whole plot; his leaders send him into deep space (unwittingly, to Earth) simply to get him out of their antennae. He's such a Millstone to the planet Irk that his introduction has the population literally groaning in horror at his arrival. His tendency to singlehandedly foil entire military ventures is so extreme that the Armada thanks him every time they succeed at something — for "being so far away" while they did it.
- Although he does prove useful now and again, one could wonder why Zim keeps giving GIR crucial roles in his world-conquering plans. Though, when it's not GIR that's the problem it's usually Zim foiling his own plans- to the point that when he turned GIR competent, he was forced to revert it because GIR tried to kill him for being his own biggest obstacle.
- Alexandra in Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space. Whenever the group figured out some way to get back to Earth, she'd invariably muck it up, ensuring that they'd have to continue wandering the galaxy and saving the universe one planet at a time.
- Kaeloo: Stumpy is this to Mr. Cat. In any case where he becomes an accessory to Mr. Cat's evil schemes, he ends up dragging both of them down with his sheer stupidity and bad luck.
- Mikey Simon in Kappa Mikey is the source of any number of bizarre and inexplicable predicaments. Of course, he's also wildly popular, and most of his castmates seem rather fond of him, so this one's got a reasonable explanation. It didn't stop a pretty nice Lampshade Hanging, though...Ozu: You make a good point... Perhaps we should start holding Mikey accountable for his actions?
(brief pause, then Ozu, Guano and Yes Man all burst into riotous laughter)
Ozu: That will be the day... - In Metalocalypse, Toki and Murderface are often this to Dethklok's recording process, as highlighted in "Dethsiduals". However, their hindrance turns out to be an essential influence on the band's creative process.
- In Milo Murphy's Law, the titular character's bad luck tends to be the source of all the conflict in each episode. It's to the point where, in the episode "Sunny Side Up", he helps keep their project intact by not helping.
- Pinky and the Brain: Pinky always manages to screw up Brain's plans to Take Over the World. This is partly averted in that frequently Brain's plans fail of their own accord or due to bad luck, and not through any fault of Pinky's. The Brain is sometimes too stubborn to listen to the plan's legitimate flaw that Pinky points out, which naturally occurs at the climax.
- Subverted in another episode when Brain builds a device to increase Pinky's intelligence so that Pinky will no longer impede the success of his plans. Pinky then reviews all of Brain's plans and points out that they were all flawed to begin with. Thus Brain is really his own Millstone.
- Also played for laughs in one episode where Brain gives up and decides to let Pinky make all the decisions for the next plan. This results in actually going through with several of Pinky's crazy comments (opening up a clam petting zoo, requiring everyone to wear shiny pants) which put them much closer to taking over the world through sheer luck (one of the clams had a valuable pearl, the shiny pants blinded a pilot whose famous passenger thought it was a religious breakthrough and proceeded to give everything to Pinky, etc.). Brain realizes that Pinky had just been incorporating elements of his old schemes, and thinks he can handle it from there. The plan almost immediately goes to hell when Brain takes back the reins.
- This gets lampshaded in a WB promo where Pinky admits he's actually not that stupid and instead deliberately sabotages Brain's plans because if they took over the world, the show would be over.
- Regular Show: Rigby, who is almost always the cause of all the bizarre stuff that happens to everyone and getting him and Mordecai into trouble. If Rigby is part of something mundane, he would slack off or do something that would escalate it to something beyond weird and life-threatening. Starts to shift toward Mordecai after Rigby socially matures and Mordecai fixates too hard on his love life.
- Rocko's Modern Life: Most of Rocko's problems are usually Heffer's fault, who only ends up exacerbating the situation when he tries to help. The most prominent example is the whole episode of "Hair Licked" where Rocko wakes up with a bad hair day and Heffer comes over to fix it, only to butcher it even worse than it already was. So Rocko goes to a hair salon and gets a great hairstyle right before he and Heffer go to Filburt's trailer for Rocko to get his picture. Filburt snaps a lot of great photos of Rocko, but has to start over because he forgot to fill up the camera. Right when Rocko is about to get a great photo of him snapped, Heffer ends up ruining it when he accidentally causes a fan to fall right on top of Rocko's head.
- Ashi from Season 5 of Samurai Jack is an assassin whose sole purpose in life is to kill Jack. When the two are swallowed by a massive creature, she goes out of her way to push Jack into a position where he can be killed (either by her or an environmental hazard), and when she ends up chained to Jack's back she spends most of her screen time making Jack's life hell by ranting about Aku's glory rather than trying to help them escape. Jack is normally even-tempered, even with his enemies, but Ashi's constant annoyances are one of the few times he's ever snapped and yelled at someone.
- Once her Heel–Face Turn is complete, she averts this gloriously, from aiding Jack in saving the children to going so far as to snap Jack out of his suicidal despair!
- Scooby-Doo:
- Subversion: Shaggy and Scooby always botch the plan to catch the Monster of the Week... and in the process of botching it, succeed at catching the monster.
- Daphne is a straighter example, with some Lampshade Hanging from Freddy. She is the one who is constantly tripping traps, or getting kidnapped — usually getting an exasperated "Danger-prone Daphne's at it again!" when it happens. What makes her a Millstone rather than a Damsel in Distress is that it's usually her own vanity that causes problems. Later incarnations generally avert this entirely, however.
- And, as much as we may want to, we can't forget about Scrappy-Doo. He would constantly make things worse by trying to fight the monsters himself and need Shaggy and Scooby to go back and rescue him.
- The Simpsons:
- In an episode that parodies Lord of the Flies, Milhouse. Pretty much every bad thing that happens after they get stranded on the island happens because of Milhouse. He's even the primary reason they got into the accident that left them on the island in the first place.
- Homer also invokes this when he's in the jury for Quimby's nephew's trial: he opposes the otherwise unanimous guilty verdict so he can stay for longer at a hotel with all expenses covered. Amusingly, he turns out to be innocent.
- In "Team Homer", Burns forces his way onto Homer's bowling team after he discovers Homer was paying the team fees using company funds. On top of replacing Otto, who was good enough to convert a 7-10 split, Burns is so Pathetically Weak he can barely even pick up a bowling ball, much less land it anywhere outside the gutter. Overnight, the team goes from excellent to complete garbage due to Burns dragging down their score.
- South Park:
- In "Crippled Summer", Mimsy is the villainous version of this trope. He screws up all of Nathan's plans, mostly by interpreting the instructions too literally.
- In "I Should Have Never Gone Ziplining", one man constantly holds up the ziplining group, arriving half an hour late to the trip and then constantly asking questions to the guides. The boys, who just want the trip over and done with as soon as possible, make it very clear that they're seriously holding back from telling this guy to go jump off a cliff.
- In South Park: Post Covid, Clyde becomes a Strawman Political for COVID vaccine skeptics and single-handedly causes the town to be placed under martial law over his refusal to even consider getting the vaccine or lie about having it. This leads to him becoming an Unwitting Pawn in Cartman's scheme to sabotage the others and protect his family from their attempt to Set Right What Once Went Wrong. After Cartman sends him back in time to kill Kyle, it's revealed his adamant refusal was the result of a bootstrap paradox, with the "expert" he cited as justification being his own future self.
- The Spectacular Spider-Man: Electro is this for the villains. Every time Doc Ock plans out a clever scheme, Electro is responsible for it falling apart. He's so insane and readily prone to rage that invariably, Spider-Man will piss him off and he'll start recklessly throwing lightning bolts around and will destroy whatever phlebotinum Doc Ock was relying on.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- Patrick Star fits more than the usual. Whenever SpongeBob or anyone has a plan, Patrick is sure to screw it up, or do something stupid to make it worse. In episodes like "Biddy Sitting" and "Goofy Scoopers", he does nothing helpful and only serves to make things worse (such as losing the person he and SpongeBob were babysitting, or repeatedly going against what SpongeBob claims).
- SpongeBob SquarePants himself can be this. Mr. Krabs lampshades this in "Krabs vs. Plankton"; when SpongeBob tries to tell Mr. Krabs he can be a good witness, Mr. Krabs tells him he is more of a liability.
- In recent years, Riddler's position in the Legion of Doom in Superfriends has been described as this. Basically, Riddler's only "power" is leaving puzzles at crime scenes that the Superfriends inevitably figure out, ruining the Legion's current Evil Plan. In the comic books, this is described as a manifestation of his OCD and malignant narcissism (he needs to leave riddles to prove that he's smarter than other people—it's how he defines his whole sense of self), but the show never got into the underlying issues, so it seems as though the Riddler's whole purpose is to muck up a perfectly good scheme. It didn't help that he was on a team with no shortage of Evil Geniuses (for a certain definition of "genius"), which made an Evil Genius that also has a bizarre need to handicap himself look even less necessary. Robot Chicken parodied this by showing the Legion voting to detonate a bomb to take out all of the Superfriends at once — with the exception of Riddler, who eagerly announces that he'll send a few cryptic clues about the plan to give the heroes just enough time to defuse the bomb.
- Bebop and Rocksteady from the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon are a classic example of the villainous variety. While the mutagen transformed them into a rhino and a boar respectively, it also gave them Super-Strength and Super-Toughness. Too bad for Shredder and Krang that it did nothing for their intelligence. As former street thugs, Rocksteady and Bebop are already in way over their heads helping Shredder, but they deliberately avoid learning even the most basic things about Dimension X or Krang's ultimate goal. This causes the two of them to screw up the villains' plans more times than they advance them. They're bad initially, but they become far worse after the show left syndication and came to CBS due to A) there being more restrictive rules about violence on network television and B) a backlash against violence in cartoons in the early 90s. In later seasons, they were so incompetent that several times they manage to screw things up badly enough that Shredder or Krang's latest scheme would get thwarted without the Turtles even getting involved.
- In the Wacky Races, it is Dick Dastardly (and his Expy, the Phantom Phink from Yogi's Space Race) who is the Millstone; if he had simply driven on without attempting to cheat, he could've easily won all his races.
