Was Once A Man / Western Animation

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• Adventure Time:
  • In "Holly Jolly Secrets", it's revealed that the Ice King was a normal human man named Simon Petrikov until he bought an old crown and tried it on. He was driven insane by the visions the crown produced, heard voices telling him the secrets of ice and snow, and was physically changed into the frigid, blue-skinned Ice King. The final moments of the video depicting his descent show his desperate plea to stop him from hurting anyone while he tries to overcome his growing insanity.
  • In "Finn the Human", it's revealed that the Lich was apparently a normal human who was mutated by the Mushroom Bomb's fallout into the undead Omnicidal Maniac we all know and fear. In "Jake the Dog", the alternate universe Jake is transformed into the Lich instead.
• The Amazing World of Gumball: During an anti-videogame rally, the crowd is asked to examine Ocho, an 8-bit spider, for evidence of what happens from playing too many video games. When it's pointed out that Ocho looks fine, they then reveal a photo of what he looked like before playing video games: a normal human child. It's entirely possible they were exaggerating as Moral Guardians tend to do, but in a show like this you never know...
• American Dad!: Klaus Heisler was a Gold Medal ski jump favorite in the 1988 Winter Olympics, representing East Germany. The CIA, not wanting to lose a Gold to a communist country, kidnapped him and swapped his consciousness with a goldfish. He subsequently was put in the custody of Stan Smith, who keeps him as the family pet. While Klaus has managed to settle in to his life, with a series of friends and lovers and the ability to move around and do many human things like cooking, several episodes focusing on him deal with his desire to be human again. He has gained a few different bodies throughout the series, from human to Stan's SUV, but they are inevitably destroyed by episodes end and he's back in a new goldfish body.
• Ben 10: Alien Force: The creepiest part of the series is the revelation that the DNAliens were all once humans who had brain slugs put on their heads. It's never really addressed after "Max Out", which was the most serious and darkest episode of the entire series, except for one where an amnesiac man who can only recall being taken by the aliens turns out to be a disguised DNAlien and is restored to being a human again at the end of the episode.
• Orso Knox from Big Hero 6: The Series was transformed into a monster by the biology company Sycorax, and the only vestige of his humanity is him quoting Shakespeare.
• Castlevania (2017): Night Creatures are human corpses that are magically reshaped by Devil Forgemasters into monstrous vessels for demons from Hell (many of which were damned human souls themselves) to possess.
• Conan the Adventurer:
  • Windfang, Wrath-Amon's literal Dragon, was once a famed general who was taken prisoner during a battle in Stygia and transformed by Wrath-Amon. His wife-to-be ran from him in horror, leaving Windfang with nothing but 200+ years of servitude to the evil wizard. Wrath-Amon's second lieutenant Skulkar also was a human before a double whammy of sorcerous empowerment and necromantic curse turned him into an undead horror; unlike Windfang, though Skulkar definitely prefers being a monster (the episode with his backstory is also the one where he gets temporarily remade human, which horrifies him).
  • On the heroic side, Greywolf's brother and sister also were cursed into wolflike monsters under a villain's control (although fortunately by the end of the episode their curse was mitigated into them being intelligent free-willed wolves for most of the rest of the series). Also, in one episode where Conan gets sent to a Bad Future, we see what happens when Jezmine's serpentman heritage is brought to the fore; she later turns into a giant snake in a Heroic Sacrifice to hold back Set so Conan can escape him — and then Fridge Horror hits you as to exactly why she would have that ability when she screams at Set as she "scales up" that she'd never let him touch her again...
• Futurama: In "Leela's Homeworld", Leela encounters an octopus-like creature in the sewers that claims (in a deep, growly voice) that it "used to be a little blonde girl named Virginia".
• Generator Rex: After the Nanite event, every living thing was infected by nanites. Many EVOs were human at one point. And any one can go EVO at any time. And the only one who can cure them is a teenaged boy, and sometimes not even then.
• Hotel Transylvania: The Series: In "Fangceañera", Mavis Dracula mentions in passing that her Aunt Lydia's pet chicken Diane used to be human.
• The Incredible Hulk (1996): Said by Walter Lankoswski (aka Sasquatch) after choosing to exile himself from humanity after he's permanently transformed and injures a child while fighting the Hulk.
• Infinity Train: It is shown that the "Conductor" uses a Orb Cannon to transform others into life sucking creatures called Ghoms. Because of this, it is implied that the Ghoms we see in The Grid Car were once other Passengers.
• Invader Zim:
  • In "Game Slave 2", the rat people in the labyrinthine parking complex Dib gets lost in claim this happened to them, but Dib is unconvinced. A female one actually says "I was once a man". causing Dib to respond, bewildered, "but... you're a woman."
  • In "The Sad, Sad Tale of Chickenfoot", Chickenfoot claims that he "was once a man, like you!" He's just some guy in a chicken suit with a stuck zipper, however.
  • According to Word of God, the robotic Control Brains running the Irken Empire were once Irken themselves before evolving past the need for organic bodies. Since the average Irken is an Artificial Human being controlled by their PAKs, it begs the question as to whether they're responsible for their current state or continuing a cycle set by Abusive Precursors. Which came first, the Irken or the PAK?
• Looney Tunes: Played for Laughs in "Mutiny on the Bunny". A horrid-looking and clearly insane man runs down the gangplank from Yosemite "Shanghai" Sam's ship and has just enough time to turn to the audience and declare "I was a human being once!" before running off screaming into the night.
• Some Masters of the Universe villains used to be human depending on what part of their Multiple Choice Pasts you believe;
  • The Search for Keldor mini-comic strongly implies that Big Bad, Skeletor was King Rondor's long lost brother, Keldor. He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002)'' made this canon.
  • The Universe Bible for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983) said that Skeletor's goons Beast-Man, Evil-Lyn and Tri-Klops were originally Earth astronauts on the same ship as Queen Marlena but we're warped by the Fisher Kingdom planet, Infinita. The writers hated this idea and it was never mentioned in-story apart from the New Champions Of Eternia storybook.
• Pigeon from Mike Tyson Mysteries was once a man named Richard, whose ex-wife turned him into a pigeon as revenge for cheating on her.
• Samurai Jack: The titular creature from "Jack and the Lava Monster" was once the king of a prosperous land until Aku attacked. Amused by the king's attempts to fight back, Aku imprisoned him in a stone for eternity. The king found a way to form the rock around him into a giant body (thus becoming the Lava Monster), and can only be freed and allowed to pass on to Valhalla if he is defeated in honorable combat by a mighty warrior.
• Sealab 2021: Parodied when a talking tree cobra claims "I was once... a man!" before saying "Just kidding, I've always been a snake."
• Silver Surfer: The Animated Series: In one episode, the Surfer and a group of researchers come across an enormous green Blob Monster on a universal library planet built by Precursors. It's the precursors (and the crew of a pirate ship) themselves after they devolved into this form and linked up with each other in a Hive Mind of knowledge.
• In Steven Universe, it's eventually revealed that the gem monsters the main characters fight are actually corrupted Gems.
• Street Sharks: About half of the mutants, with the other half being sea creatures-turned-mutants. The good news is that the resident Mad Scientist keeps forgetting to include a brainwashing function when he transforms his test subjects, and the few he did brainwash during the change broke free after a while.
• Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go: Skeleton King was once a kind-hearted man called the Alchemist, who in fact was the one who created the monkey team to combat the monster he became. What makes his case really sad was that his transformation wasn't by choice.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987): This adaptation is the first one that makes Splinter a mutated Hamato Yoshi, instead of his former pet.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003), the Turtles find an underground community of monsters who were once human, victims of the Foot Clan who were transformed into these creatures to mine valuable minerals. They get lucky, however; it takes many episodes, but Donatello is eventually able to find a permanent cure. Of course, since mutants are one of its main concepts, the trope appears in some way, shape or form in pretty much every iteration of the franchise.
• This trope is a recurring one in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012), as the Kraang's mutagen plays a role throughout the series. Those subjected to this trope include Master Splinter (much like the original cartoon), Dogpound, Fish Face, Timothy/The Pulverizer/Mutagen Man, April's father, etc.
• Zak Storm: The titular hero's talking sowrd and mentor Calabrass used to be a human before being bound to the sword. According to himself, he used to have the finest looking mustache in all of the Seven Seas.

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