Unknown Rival / Western Animation

#-L

• In the Adventure Time episode "Duke of Nuts", a red squirrel hates Jake because Jake never prints the squirrel's letters in his advice column. The squirrel considers Jake his mortal enemy, while Jake has no idea the squirrel even exists. When the squirrel appears again in the Season 5 episode "Princess Potluck", he is even more fixated on Jake, and Jake still doesn't know who he is.
  Squirrel: You son-of-a-blee-blob! JAAAAKE!
  Jake: Hey...you.
• Arcane: Jinx thinks Caitlyn has replaced her in Vi's heart and tends to view her as her Arch-Enemy, while Caitlyn just thinks Jinx is a crazy terrorist.
• Ben 10: Omniverse:
  • Billy Billions has spent a quarter of his life scheming and vowing revenge against Ben for the "horrible crime" of being more popular than him in grade school. After an attempt to send Ben to Dimension 12 ended up with him going there instead and spending five years in a wasteland, he returns to earth and claims that he is Ben's Arch-Enemy and final destroyer. Ben never even knew he existed.
  • There's also the business with Dr Psychobos and his entire species, the Cerebrocrustaceans and their one-sided rivalries with Azmuth and his species, the Galvans, respectively. The Galvans, while obviously smarter, pay little to no attention to the Cerebrocrustaceans and their delusions of grandeur.
  • This situation is mirrored yet again with Ben and Attea. Attea, with how many times Ben has thwarted her plans, considered him her mortal adversary and vowed vengeance. Ben, on the other hand, isn’t nearly as passionate about their feud and just considers her a tedious obstacle to get by, especially when you compare her to all the other villains Ben has faced...
• Bojack Horseman: Princess Carolyn holds a professional rivalry with Vanessa Gecko, who she perceives as a bottomfeeding Alpha Bitch. When they finally have a heart to heart and Carolyn admits she's not as bad as she seems, Vanessa is surprised to find Carolyn hated her at all.
• In certain episodes of Butterbean's Cafe, specifically "The Grand Opening!" (the first episode), "The Perfect Picnic!" and "Poppy's Lost Cookbook!", Butterbean and her friends are unaware that Ms. Marmalady is around and trying to ruin their fun.
• Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars!: The Air Marshal considers Bucky to be his greatest enemy. Bucky considers the Air Marshal to be a minor speed-bump on the path to taking down KOMPLEX.
• Celebrity Deathmatch:
  • The Season 1 episode "Presented by Big Bull Beer" provides a weird version of this during the Bill Gates and Michael Flatley fight. What was the reason for the match? Well, at first, even they had no idea. (There was no history between them, and each admitted they had no grudge against the other.) Right before the fight, however, Nick and Johnny found out it was due to a clerical error in the scheduling. Still, why not? They simply called it "The Battle of the Clerical Error".
  • Played straight in the Season 3 Halloween Episode where an undead Stacy Cornbread came back leading an army of zombies to get revenge on Debbie Matenopoulos, claiming Debbie had stolen her job. The biggest thing wrong with this was that it wasn't Debbie's fault; she hadn't even appeared on the show until several episodes after Stacy's death and had never even mentioned her. Still, if Stacy came looking for a fight, she certainly got one; Debbie was only too willing to kill her again.
• Leonardo Leonardo in Clerks: The Animated Series, whose plots against the clerks were always inadvertently defeated, even though they didn't realize (or, more likely, didn't care) he considered himself their sworn enemy. ("Well played, clerks, well played!")
• On Doug, the titular character thinks of Guy Graham as a rival, particularly because Guy also has his sights set on Patti Mayonnaise. However, Guy is completely unaware that he's such a burden to Doug.
• DuckTales (2017): Flintheart Glomgold to Scrooge McDuck. Scrooge knows he's a rival, and is even willing to offer him some grudging respect as the "poor man's version of [him]." Donald, however, doesn't know who Glomgold is, even though he was Scrooge's sidekick for years prior to the series; Donald even claims that he can't keep track of all of Scrooge's sworn enemies. It's made clear that while there may be some dislike, Scrooge doesn't care enough to make the conflict personal the way Glomgold does. In Season 2, it turns out Scrooge didn't realize exactly who Glomgold is; the shoeshine boy he once tried to inspire hope and self reliance instead turned into one of his most obsessive enemies. It gets even worse when Scrooge realizes that Glomgold had bested him once; when Glomgold was a child, which does start to escalate the conflict.
  • Don Karnage had declared Dewey Duck his arch nemesis ever since he got his crew to mutiny against him and took temporary control of his airship. Dewey however had never once shown he feels the same way.
  • Darkwing Duck to Gizmoduck. Once he decided to fight crime for real, Drake Mallard got the competion of Gizmoduck - who's completly unaware that there is some competion between them. Darkwing holds a grudge against him anyway.
• Family Guy: Played With: Peter and the Giant Chicken are both fully aware of their rivalry. However, since their fights have never been relevant to the plot of any episode, Peter's family are unaware of the Giant Chicken, so Peter celebrating the Giant Chicken's upcoming death in "Fecal Matters" is lost on them.
• In Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends Pilot Movie House of Bloo's, when Duchess reveals herself to Bloo and talks about her plan to get rid of him, it takes a while for him to figure out who she is and why she hates him. He's even apologetic when he does.
• Used in the Futurama episode, "A Taste of Freedom" when Fry, Leela and Bender ready their secret weapon against the invading Decapodians.
  Fry: You haven't won yet, Mervin! You didn't expect us to even go to a museum, much less steal this ancient heat-seeking missile.
  Ambassador Mervin: I don't even know you.
• Gargoyles:
  • The original Hunter wanted to kill Demona as revenge for slashing and scarring his face. During his final fight with Demona, Demona confesses that she doesn't even remember that act, that's how insignificant it was to her^note She was hiding in a barn scrounging for food when the stableboy stumbled into her, she quickly slashed at him before fleeing into the night.
  • Later Vinnie Grigori pursues Goliath throughout the episode "Vendettas", wanting revenge on Goliath and the Manhattan Clan for unknowingly causing a lot of trouble for Vinnie. He ends up shooting Goliath with a cream pie, then walking away with Goliath still having no idea who he is.
• The Ghost and Molly McGee: During the first season, Molly viewed herself as having a rivalry with local popular girl Andrea Davenport, as the latter's Spoiled Brat tendencies often rubbed her the wrong way. However, while they did start off with mutual animosity, not only did this quickly fade on Andrea's part, but Molly going out of her way to interact with the girl whenever she felt slighted resulted in Andrea believing that they're Vitriolic Best Buds. Molly is shocked when Andrea expresses this sentiment, but is wholly receptive to this revelation.
• Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law: X the Eliminator started out as a villain hired to steal Birdman's crest. After years of failure, X becomes an obsessive stalker, initially unknown to Birdman.
• On Hey Arnold!, Helga is this to Lila, since Arnold has a crush on Lila while Helga has a crush on him. Her rivalry with her sister Olga falls into this as well.
• Dr. Claw is so focused on Inspector Gadget that he and most of his cohorts pay barely any attention to the meaningless blonde girl who actually solves all the crimes (that is, Penny). Lampshaded in the 2015 CGI version, where Talon (the one member of MAD that does know who Penny is) sees her on his security camera and points her out to his uncle Claw, who in turn says that he has no idea who she is or why Talon is suddenly so obsessed with low-value coins.
• On Jimmy Two-Shoes, the eponymous character considers Lucius a friend. This is because he's such a pollyanna that he's completely unaware of just how much he is loathed by him.
• Dr. Destiny in the Justice League episode "Only a Dream". When the Justice League originally busted him, he was just another of LexCorp's many mooks. He wants revenge for this. They have no idea who he is, or why he's so intent on killing them. Though Batman, being Batman, is quick to realize that it's this trope that makes Dr. Destiny dangerous and only by his willingness to treat Dr. Destiny as a genuine rival does he saves the Justice League from Dr. Destiny's mind rapes.
• Kim Possible:
  • Dr. Drakken can never remember Ron Stoppable's name — although he may have just trouble with sidekicks in general, as seen when Kim teamed up with her mom:
    Dr. Drakken: And so, Kim Possible and her... sister?
    Dr. Possible: Is he hitting on me?
    Kim: No, sidekicks really confuse him.
  • This is something of a recurring theme among Kim Possible's enemies. The only ones who can remember Ron's name are the Seniors, and that's only because they ASKED. They're polite that way.
    SSJ: We are being followed! It is Kim Possible, and her sidekick-type-friend whose name escapes me.
    SSS: (leaning out the helicopter window) What is your name again, young man?
    Ron: It's Ron! Ron Stoppable!
    SSS: That's it!
  • Monkey Fist remembers Ron too, but then he's more Ron's enemy than Kim's in the first place.
  • Professor Dementor seems to regard Dr. Drakken as a second-rate wannabe, though at least he remembers Drakken's name.
  • Kim had something of a one-sided rivalry with Yori when it came to Ron and quickly became jealous of her, and still saw the ninja as a competitor even after her Relationship Upgrade with Ron. Yori on the other hand not only treated Kim as an equal, unaware of her jealousy, but she fully supported the two of them dating, believing it was destiny.

M-Z

• In Making Fiends, Charlotte is never aware of Vendetta's hostile attitude towards her, instead seeing her as a mere friend.
• In Max Steel, minor villain Woody Barkowski claims he is Max's Arch-Enemy. Max snarks that he barely qualifies as comic relief.
• Mr. Magoo (2019) has Fizz, an evil genius hamster whose schemes Magoo constantly foils by accident.
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode, "Friendship University", after being disguised as a student while infiltrating Flim and Flam's friendship school, Rarity throws off her disguise revealing herself and the duo have no clue who she is.
  Flam: Planity? My star pupil?
  Rarity: Not Planity, but (throws off disguise) RARITY!
  Flim: ...Who?
• Ninjago: Dragons Rising: Years ago, Sora was as an assistant to Dr. LaRow, but quit after learning the unethical nature of her work, namely draining dragons of their life energy. In the present, Sora returns to Imperium, where Dr. LaRow has a new lab assistant, Jordana, who claims to have been Sora's lifelong rival. Sora has no idea who she is.
• In Over the Garden Wall, nerdy Jason Funderberker seems unaware that he and Wirt are both interested in Sara, or else is really mellow about it.
• In the Pac-Man short "Picnic in Pacland", Pac-Man and his family are unaware that the Ghost Monsters are out to ruin their picnic.
• Phineas and Ferb
  • The title characters usually have no idea they're doing anything wrong with their outlandish projects, so they don't seem to understand why their older sister, Candace, is so dead-set on getting their mother to see them. They even help her sometimes, unaware that her goal is to get them grounded for as long as possible. The fact that their father and every member of their extended family except their mother is occasionally in on them probably has something to do with it.
  • Part of Heinz Doofenshmirtz's motivation for wanting to take over the tristate area is because his younger brother Roger is currently mayor. Heinz has resented Roger since his birth (Heinz was always The Unfavorite, he was forced to wear hand-me-up clothes when their mother couldn't put Roger in the dresses she'd gathered for her assumed impending daughter, etc.) and longs to see him knocked down a peg. For his part, Roger doesn't seem to think of Heinz much at all. He's obviously aware of his brother's existence, but doesn't consider him a threat or even an antagonist and mostly interacts with him on even terms as a sibling.
• Ready Jet Go!: Jet, for the most part, is unaware of Mitchell spying on him. The only kid who knows about it is Mindy.
  • However, in Back to Bortron 7, it is heavily implied that the other kids know that Mitchell spies on Jet.
• Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has Warren Stone, a former news anchorman mutated into a worm, who proclaimed himself as the ninja turtles' greatest foe. They barely pay much attention to him. April O'Neil actually does, as she's a total fangirl of Warren even after she sees that he's less than pleasant.
• Robot Chicken: One sketch has CD Man and Zune Man both seeking to eliminate Steve Jobs, since the iPod made both music storage formats obsolete. Neither Jobs nor CD Man is aware of Zune Man until he identifies himself, and even then neither one takes him seriously. When Jobs easily defeats them both, he even says Zune Man isn't worth a bullet.
• Rocko's Modern Life: Rocko's relationship with Ed Bighead downplays this. Rocko, Heffer, and Filburt all know that he's a prick (though they don't let it bother them), but "Wacky Delly" reveals that he has a team of scientists dedicated to exterminating them, which they probably don't have a clue about.
• In Rocky and Bullwinkle, the protagonists seem completely unable to recognize the show's only recurring villains, Boris and Natasha. It helps that the villains are spies who deliberately try to stay covert, and they typically only meet the heroes face-to-face in disguise (paper-thin or otherwise; doesn't matter too much when the heroes wouldn't recognize you if you were wearing no disguise at all.) Rocky occasionally remarks that he recognizes Boris' voice, but that's the closest they ever get to remembering the villains between episodes. However this starts to change as shown in episodes near the end of the series.
  • During the story arc Bullwinkle's Testimonial Dinner, Rocky and Bullwinkle do recognize the spies. And later are confronted by them.
    Rocky: Hokey smoke! It's our old nemesis!
  • Also in The Weather Lady, Rocky immediately recognizes Boris when he and Bullwinkle sneak onboard Boris' steamboat.
  • Rocky and Bullwinkle confront Boris and Natasha in "Guns of Abalone" and eventually take them to justice. They see Boris and Natasha in no disguise in the "Treasure of Monte Zoom" story (Rocky even draws them in an attempt to refresh Bullwinkle's memory about the events leading up to the current situation). Rocky later pursues them.
  • Rocky is about to identify Boris as the culprit of the "Goof Gas" story when he suddenly becomes a moron, having been blasted with the gas.
  • In The Treasure of Monte Zoom Rocky immediately recognizes what Boris and Natasha are up to on a nearby dam and attempts to stop them. Later he even refers to them as spies and mentions the disguise they used on Bullwinkle despite not knowing their names.
• Inverted in the final season of Samurai Jack with the High Priestess of the Cult of Aku who is Aku's unknown ally. She's quick to claim that she's a trusted and highly valued follower of Aku, but in truth, the villain only visited her cult once and has since then completely forgotten about her. He spends most of the season being utterly unaware of her scheme to kill Jack. He does eventually remember her when her plan ends up benefiting him — albeit in a roundabout way.
• Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? has Simone, who generally shows up to antagonize the guest of the week for whatever specific reason that wronged her in the past, and otherwise has little-to-no relevance to the mysteries since she's always a Red Herring among the suspects. Downplayed in that being a Non-Ironic Clown makes her impossible for Mystery Inc. or anyone else to ignore, yet she's either brushed off or even treated fairly sometimes.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Adora defected from the Horde and became determined to stop Hordak after learning the Horde were the true villains and she had been lied to her entire life. Hordak doesn't care about her at all in spite of her stopping his armies as She-Ra, dismissing her as unremarkable and insignificant.
• The Simpsons:
  • Not quite enemies, but in "Who Shot Mr. Burns?", Mr. Burns is perpetually unable to remember his employee Homer Simpson. Eventually Homer breaks into Burns's office and writes his name on every wall in giant letters, then attacking Burns and shouting "MY! NAME! IS! HOMER! SIMPSON!" at him. Afterwards, Burns has this to say to his manservant:
    Burns: Smithers, who was that cow just yelling at me?
  • The situation is different when Homer changes his name:
    Burns: Ah! Max Power! How's every little thing?
    Homer: You remembered my name!
    Burns: Well, who could forget the name of a magnetic individual like you? Keep up the good work, Max!
  • Homer experiences the other side of this trope with Frank Grimes, who hates Homer's guts, while Homer thinks they're friends, but only in the first act. And then his son, who takes revenge on Homer, "How is old Grimey?"
• Sofia the First: The heroine Sofia is completely oblivious to the fact the sorcerer Cedric is out to steal the powerful Amulet of Avalor which she bears, and use its power to gain control of Enchancia. Even when he slips it out in front of her, he has to quickly cover it up. The Amulet however, sees right through him; Cedric soon learns the hard way should the Amulet ever get stolen, then it will place a curse on the thief which can only be broken if it is returned to its rightful owner. She realizes in time by the Season 4 premiere.
• South Park:
  • In the episode "Crippled Summer" Nathan is this to Jimmy.
  • The Director of Homeland Security, aka the Guinea Pirate, the Big Bad of the "Pandemic" two-parter is this to Craig. He believes him to be the only person who can stop him (based on the ancient Incans' predictions), but Craig doesn't even know him and couldn't care less about foiling him. Craig finds out You Can't Fight Fate and ends up stopping the Guinea Pirate anyway.
  • Cartman is this to Wendy in "Dances With Smurfs". He regularly calls her out and shames her publicly only for her to...go about her business. Everyone but Wendy sees this as a big deal. It's not until the end of the episode that she responds and she absolutely destroys him.
  • Likewise, in "Tom's Rhinoplastry," Ms. Ellen has no idea that Wendy sees her as a jealous rival for Stan's affections to the point where Wendy arranges for Ms. Ellen to be captured by Iraqis and launched into the sun. A shame Wendy never realized Ms. Ellen was a lesbian.
• In The Spectacular Spider-Man, when Spidey unmasks Mysterio as Quentin Beck:
  Beck: So now you know, it's me.
  Spider-Man: Right, um, who are you again?
  Beck: You put me away!
  Spider-Man: Wow, really? Heh, cool!
  Beck: Don't pretend you've forgotten, I was the Chameleon's right hand man!
  Spider-Man: Oh right, on the boat! You were...dressed as the crewman!
  Beck: As the waiter!
• In some episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants, Plankton is so pathetic that Krabs and SpongeBob see him as more of an annoyance than a genuine threat. Especially the case for Spongebob, who in many later episodes has trouble realising Plankton doesn't want to be his friend.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Brittney Wong hates Star for being just as popular as her, if not more so. Star is completely unaware of this.
• Static Shock:
  • In "The Big Leagues", a crossover with Batman: The Animated Series, Static gets increasingly annoyed that The Joker refuses to acknowledge him as an opponent. Joker keeps ignoring him and even forgets about him at one point, having to be reminded by his henchmen that he exists. When Static, Batman, and Robin are knocked out by a trap, Batman and Robin are captured, but Static is left behind because Joker didn't see any value in him. It is really cathartic for Static when he manages to capture Joker.
  • In "Toys in the Hood", a crossover with Superman: The Animated Series, Static again gets annoyed when Toyman refuses to acknowledge him or even bother to remember his name.
• Steven Universe: In "Beach Party", the Gems barely even remember the restaurant they've been banned from exists, nor do they care on account of not needing to eat (Amethyst, the only one who likes to eat, says the pizza isn't that good, anyway). Even at the end, they cannot recall what store the family owns after being unbanned.
• Teen Titans has Control Freak, he thinks he's an important villain, but the Titans don't think much of him. He even calls the Titans "my old arch-nemesis...es" the first time they meet. He is rather peeved when he's not put on the "list of notorious villains" and the Puppet King is.
  Control Freak: They only fought him that one time! I'm a recurring villain!
• Barry from The Tick, who is annoyed at the titular hero for having 'stolen his superhero name' while the Tick doesn't take him very seriously at all (and considering the things the Tick does take seriously, that's saying something).
• Total Drama
  • World Tour: Owen knows on some level that Alejandro is bad news, but underestimates just how badly the latter hates him. It's a combination of Owen's disgusting habits, repeatedly calling him Al, and inexplicable popularity that earned him Alejandro's ire.
  • Pahkitew Island: Ella seems completely oblivious to how much Sugar despises her (because Sugar thinks Ella's sweet personality is a façade like hers and wants to steal her spotlight).
• The Transformers: Optimus Prime may be Megatron's Arch-Enemy, but most of the other Autobots are hardly seen as a threat to the Decepticon commander and are usually beneath his attention. When Megatron creates a clone of Optimus Prime (which he controls by remote control) and tries to use it to infiltrate the Autobot base, this nearly gives him away. He calls the other Autobots by the wrong names (like addressing Ironhide as "Bumblebee") and acts like he barely knows them, causing them to quickly become suspicious.
• In Transformers: Animated, Megatron has this towards Optimus Prime. He knows who he is, and might have a certain degree of respect for him, he just can't be bothered to learn Prime's name. Megatron saw the Autobots in general as his enemy rather than having a specific nemesis — not even Ultra Magnus as the Autobot leader. He never even calls them by their names unless he has to. It's only by the final episode that Megatron develops a very personal beef with Optimus for thwarting his plans, thus establishing the true rivalry they're famous for.
• The Venture Bros.:
  • The Monarch considers Dr. Venture his mortal arch-enemy and embarks on several attempts to kill him and his sons for no particular reason. Through most of the first season, the Ventures repeatedly undercut the Monarch's claims to be their most hated foe. By the end of the second season, however, their status as nemeses has become much more solidified, though Dr. Venture still doesn't really care for him.
  • Henchman 21 is convinced that he is destined to destroy Brock Sampson, who almost always responds to 21's exposition with "Who are you again?"
  • One episode deals with the late roboticist Mike Soreyama's post-mortem revenge scheme against his former college roomates Dr. Venture, Baron Ünderbheit, Pete White and Brock Samson. In this case, everyone knows who Soreyama is (even attending what they think is his funeral,) but they had no idea Soreyama hated them so much as to concoct a multi decade-long revenge scheme especially when the ultimate reasons for his obsessive hatred turn out to be relatively petty, the worst being Brock attacking him (and everyone else in the dorm room) in an angry drunken stupor.
• The eponymous Wander of Wander over Yonder repeatedly considers Lord Hater as a buddy, despite the fact he's clear to be the villain. His partner Sylvia is well-aware, and constantly tries to show the truth.
• In the Where's Waldo animated series, Waldo and Wizard Whitebeard are completely unaware of Odlaw's existence.

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