Times where characters want their jerk back in Western Animation Television Series.
- 6teen: Nikki sticks out like a sore thumb at the Khaki Barn she works at, as not only is she lazy and openly apathetic at her job, her coworkers are a trio of simpleminded and overly-excitable "clones" who only marginally tolerate her because she makes them look better by comparison. In the episode "Welcome to the Darth Side", they actually do properly fire her when a fourth likeminded "clone" applies for her position, but by the end of the episode, they end up firing the latter and rehiring Nikki as they genuinely missed her (and because the new girl was so hyper-competent that she raked up all the commissions).
- In the Aaahh!!! Real Monsters episode "The Master Monster", when the Gromble is sacked by his supervisor Balook the Grand Falloon in "The Master Monster", the students go insane from Balook's insultingly simplistic instructions, as they are forced to read textbooks years below their skill level and are expressly forbidden from performing fieldwork. Ickis, Oblina, and Krumm end up seeking out the Gromble and begging him to give them more intellectually stimulating assignments and he starts leading them on secret midnight scare raids. When the status quo returns at the end of the episode the trio expresses relief as they listen to the Gromble's sadistic rantings, which normally leave them frightened.
- Nicely played with in Adventures of the Gummi Bears. A magic spell is supposed to make Gruffy behave more socially considerate. It works perfectly, by saying "Please" turns him into a really helpful (albeit slightly annoying) Nice Guy. However, the spell comes with the side-effect that saying "Thank you" makes him behave the opposite way.
- In the Adventure Time episode "Donny", Finn and Jake stop a grass ogre named Donny from beating up a town of house people and reform him. Then Finn discovers that the ogre's jerkiness was the only thing keeping a pack of whywolves from attacking the house people (by producing a gas named "obnoxygen" that poisons them). They end up having to make Donny a jerk again to save the house people.
- In The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Poltergeist" Gumball and Darwin stumble upon a depressed Mr. Robinson hiding in their attic. After several failed attemps to cheer him up, Gumball and Darwin eventually find out that the whole reason Mr. Robinson hid himself in their attic is that he was depressed after his wife kicked him out since he was no longer the Grumpy Old Man she loved bickering with and thus lost his "spark". Realizing this, Gumball and Darwin then try to make him look angry to impress Mrs. Robinson, only for her to immediately see through it and strut off. Feeling more dejected than ever, he tries to cover himself in a bedsheet which makes Richard mistake him for a ghost and attack him. After getting hit by both Gumball and Richard in the process, he snaps and gets his anger back, winning Mrs. Robinson's love back and saving his marriage.
- In an episode of The Angry Beavers, Norbert suffers from "Damnesia" (where you forget everything except what damnesia is) and, horrified to see the way he treats Daggett in home videos, resolves to become the perfect brother. Daggett enjoys it initially, but ultimately wants his old brother back.
- Archer gets one with Malory. In a drunken fit, she sends out a burn notice on her son, and, once she sobers up, is horrified at what she does and begins moping endlessly. Ray and Cheryl remark that they liked her better when she was mean.
- Done in Archie's Weird Mysteries. Reggie is kidnapped by aliens who create a clone to replace him so nobody will notice. However, they literally ask him what he is like, and thanks to Reggie's raging ego, he describes himself as a literal saint. Suffice to say, the gang loves this new Reggie, with the exception of Archie, who notices the difference immediately. Bonus points that the real Reggie actually beats the clone in a nice contest, by telling the clone that if it really was the nicest it would let him win, which makes it punch him in the face to throw the contest.
- On Arthur, this happens to Binky occasionally.
- This occurred to Francine in the episode "Meek for a Week", where a large bout of jerkass behavior led to Muffy betting her she couldn't be nice for an entire week. Arthur and his friends are concerned, not because she's being nice or her new behavior is destructive, but because she is clearly bottling a ton of stress and anger under her new demeanor and fear she could "pop".
- In the As Told by Ginger, Ginger understandably feels this way about Miranda in the episode "Trouble In Gal Pal Land". When Miranda falls out with Courtney and loses all her friends, she desperately clings to Ginger, Dodie, and Macie, thus annoying the three.
- In the "Nice Butt-head" episode of Beavis And Butthead, Butt-head is prescribed medication by the school psychologist which makes him much nicer and friendlier. But Beavis can't stand his newly pleasant friend and resorts to various degrees of violence to return Butt-head to his former state.
- Beetlejuice:
- This happens to Beetlejuice in "Snugglejuice" after he's sent to a rehabilitation facility for a prank that goes to far. He becomes a polite, decent person, but everyone finds him mind-numbingly boring. The Mad Scientist Dr. Prankenstein tries several treatments to try to return him to his normal self so he can save Lydia, and after all of them fail, he uses something he's saved for an emergency - the Pranken-beetle. It works like a charm.
- "Them Bones, Them Bones, Them Funny Bones" has Beetlejuice become a humorless stoic after lending his funnybone to Lydia. Jacques LaLean, Ginger and Lydia aren't happy with how boring Beetlejuice is without his sense of humor, so they take measures to get his funnybone restored, which causes havoc in Peaceful Pines by cracking the denizens up (both in the sense that they are laughing at his jokes and in the sense that they are cracking apart).
- An episode of Beverly Hills Teens had Alpha Bitch Bianca trying to be nicer to people. Her chauffeur, Wilshire didn't like the change, preferring her old self.
- After being roasted by his friends, Buddy Thunderstruck comes to the incorrect realization that everyone hates his over-the top personality and makes an effort to act super polite in their presence. In reality, everyone loves the excitement his over-the-top antics brings to their lives to the point where Really Old Lady starts dying of boredom and doesn't come to until Buddy changes back to his old self.
- The Bunsen Is a Beast episode "Beastie Besties" has Mikey and Bunsen perform a ritual to make Amanda nicer. Much to their chagrin, the boys find that they preferred when Amanda hated them.
- In the Camp Lazlo episode "Parent's Day", after Lazlo and the Jelly Beans successfully fool him into believing they are his parents, Lumpus become a whole nicer, friendlier person. But his new persona becomes a huge danger to the rest of the Bean Scouts and Slinkman, to the point that Raj tells Lazlo that this newer, kinder Lumpus is even more of a problem than the original and even Lazlo admits that pretending to be Lumpus' parents and spending the day with him was not such a good idea after all. Lazlo (inadvertently) brings Lumpus back to his original grouchy self to avoid getting splashed in the Camper Dunk.
- Practically spoken word for word in the Care Bears: Unlock the Magic episode "Rain Rain Go Away". After his frustrations cause his belly badge powers to go out of control, Grumpy rebrands himself as Mr. Happyface. However, no longer being grumpy means he can't use his belly badge powers at all, even when they're needed to solve the episode's problem. In the end, he gets back in touch with his "inner grump," but still apologizes to the others for taking out his frustration on them earlier.
- Totally averted in the Dan Vs. episode "Dan Vs. Dan". When Dan's response to his identity thief is apparently to give up and reinvent himself as Nice Guy Biff, Chris is overjoyed that he has two nice friends instead of one Jerkass friend. Elise thinks the whole thing is an act and of course she's right. After the fake Dan gets arrested because the real Dan missed a court date, Dan promptly goes back to being a Jerkass. Chris falls to his knees weeping over the loss of his two new friends (especially because fake Dan baked him pie).
- Played mostly straight in Daria: in "Quinn the Brain", when Quinn happens more or less by accident to get a reputation as 'a brain' (while still remaining popular), Daria realizes that this is impinging on her self-image. She proceeds to do a turnabout on Quinn by dressing fashionably and pretending to go out on a date with The Three Js, causing Quinn to ditch the beret and black sweater and go back to the Fashion Club. Later in the series, it's established that Quinn really is intelligent and she finally lets go of her fear of embracing it. By that point, Daria has gotten over enough of her own personal issues to actually be supportive of her.
- In an episode of Dave the Barbarian, Dave's little sister Fang, known for being the single most violent, fearsome being in all the land despite being pint sized, undergoes a transformation that makes her much more sedate and ladylike. Dave and his older sister Candy appreciate this greatly for a while, but then the kingdom is threatened by giant bugs. Fang, who the bugs are terrified of and would flee from on sight, refuses to go into battle and instead settles to make clothing for the beetles, as she's been putting clothes on every animal she possibly can. Dave and Candy try to make her snap back to her usual self, but fail until Fang sees both her siblings in danger and promptly goes back to her normal homicidal rage monster self to protect them.
- Donkey Kong Country: In "Best of Enemies", after learning that Cranky and King K. Rool used to be friends, DK and Diddy try to make them friends again, which they succeed at. However, Cranky and King K. Rool's antics quickly annoy everyone else on the island and they ask DK to break up their friendship again.
- Duck Dodgers when he got run through the "purifier" machine. (It took a day or two.)
- Not to mention the episode that he quits the Protectorate for a glamorous job in the family restaurant sector.
- And finally, the episode where the Martian Commander removes Dodgers' brain to study why he's such a "genius", swapping in an artificial brain in the meantime. Dodgers ends up far more competent and heroic with the replacement brain and defeats the Commander easily, retrieving his real brain, with help from the Commander himself getting more than he bargained for when he managed to get into the "intelligence cortex" of Dodgers' brain. At the end of the episode, Cadet realizes that this will just turn Dodgers into a useless Jerkass again, but can only remark "It was fun while it lasted..."
- Happens in the Ed, Edd n Eddy episode "My Fair Ed", where Edd tries to reform his friends, and they start becoming too friendly and helpful. Then it turns out they were just playing with him the whole time and hadn't really changed.
- The Fairly Oddparents:
- In "Frenemy Mine", where Vicky was kicked out of B.R.A.T. Timmy then calls her out as not being nice and therefore having no friends. She take it to the heart by becoming a Clingy Jealous Girl towards Timmy and forcefully turning him into her girlfriend-replacement. Timmy apparently has no choice but to make Vicky hate him again.
- In "Crocker Shocker", Crocker is hypnotized into not believe in fairies anymore. Because he is needed for the sake of Fairy World's energy crisis, Timmy, Cosmo, Wanda, and Jorgen von Strangle do their best to get him back into his fairy-crazed state.
- Family Guy:
- It happened to Peter Griffin about a dozen times, e.g. when he stopped being a couch potato, when he stopped being a chauvinist, when he tried to learn how to act sophisticated (though in that one, he just became a very different kind of jerk), etc.. It would seem that Lois has never heard the expression Be Careful What You Wish For. Given that when he has an excuse to act like more of a jackass he does (such as in "Petarded", when he finds out people will excuse him anything after he's diagnosed as mentally incompetent).
- It also happens to Stewie in the episode "Stewie B. Goode", when a near-death experience and a vision of hell scares him into being 'nice'. However, this makes Stewie look like a complete tool until Brian eventually snaps him out of it.
- Long before it happened to Peter, it happened with Fred in an episode of The Flintstones. Being hit on the head turned him into a polite, articulate gentleman... Who everyone found even more obnoxious than before. Barney suggested knocking him on the head again to try to turn him back to normal, but neither he, Wilma, or Betty could make themselves do that; but they managed to trick him into doing it to himself.
- This frequently happened to Bender on Futurama.
- When he found religion in "Hell Is Other Robots", though it had more to do with Bender being obnoxious in entirely other ways (like multi-hour sermons in stuffy, un-air conditioned rooms).
- In "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back", Bender's personality is downloaded and sent to the Central Bureaucracy. This reverts Bender to a simple "I am Bender, please insert girder" mode. When it is noted that Bender is now helpful and polite, everyone decides to get their jerk back. They even lampshade it by not being able to rationalize why they should.
- To a lesser extent, Professor Farnsworth in "Bendless Love", when Bender bends his spine so he continually faces upwards. This results in his brain being flooded with endorphins, making him obnoxiously cheery. By the end of the episode, Bender is so sick of listening to him he bends him back the other way, instantly making him very sad. Everyone is fine with it.
- Garfield and Friends:
- In "Forget Me Not", Garfield is hit on the head and gets amnesia, becoming a sweet, polite cat who only eats healthy food and wouldn't dream of kicking Odie off the table. Jon and Odie are worried and take him to the vet. The vet wonders why they want to restore Garfield to normal. By the end of the episode a second hit has him back to normal. Garfield promptly eats everything in sight and kicks Odie off the table. Jon and Odie couldn't be happier.
- Also happens in a U.S. Acres segment; "The Impractical Joker". Orson is tired of Roy's insults and has him fired. So Wade invokes this trope by hiring his annoying cousin Fred to replace Roy. After a few minutes of his insults, Orson is yelling to get Roy back.
- In "Next-Door Nuisance", Garfield and the Burnsides both fall into this trope regarding each other. Garfield causes the Burnsides to move away from their house when he steals their barbecue. Mr. Lark moves into the Burnsides' house and annoys Garfield with his singing. Whenever Garfield calls someone to stop the singing, they end up singing along with Mr. Lark. Garfield goes to the Burnsides' new house to return their barbecue in the hopes that it will get them to move back. Meanwhile, the Burnsides have gained weight as a result of Garfield not being around to steal their food, and they decide to move back to their old house so Garfield can help them keep their weight down.
- The Garfield Show episode "Whatever Happened to Aunt Ivy?" has Jon's aunt Ivy decide to be nicer to Garfield after the cat saves her from falling down the stairs. The nicer Aunt Ivy quickly starts to annoy Garfield because she makes food for him that is too healthy for his tastes and she interrupts his television viewing to read to him, leading to the remainder of the episode being about Garfield searching for a way to get Aunt Ivy back to her crabby old self.
- The Generator Rex episode "Robo Bobo" deals with the second version of the trope: Bobo decides to take a break and puts a robotic duplicate in his place, which unlike the original, is considerate and rule-abiding. Rex, having grown used to Bobo (and annoyed by how much of a goody-two-shoes his double is), slowly reprograms the robot to be more like the real ape. In the end, it ends up learning too well.
- In He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown!, Snoopy is sent away to the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm (at least, that was the plan) when his antics finally go too far in annoying the other kids. After Snoopy's departure, however, the kids realize just how much they miss Snoopy's antics and want him to come home later.
- Hey Arnold!:
- "Big Bob's Crisis", with Big Bob Pataki.
- In another episode this happens to Miriam when Bob injures his back and she takes over the Beeper Emporium. Bob stays on the couch glued to the soap operas while Miriam ends up staying late at the Emporium every night, too busy to pay Helga any attention.
- In "Helga's Show", the comedic imitations Helga performs showcasing her friends' idiosyncrasies cause them to shun her. Taking Phoebe's advice, she tries a kinder approach to her humor, which falls flat. Ironically, it's Arnold who suggests that she go back to the edgier material she used before, which works.
- Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi uses this trope in the short "Bad Manager" in which the girls have their jerky manager Kaz lose a bet and wind up with a new manager who treats them quite well and provides them with all manner of luxury. In the end they discover Kaz, down on his luck and they decide to try and get him back because he's "family". Standard use of Snap Back.
- Hotel Transylvania: The Series used this plot in the episode "Fried Mean Tomatoes", where Mavis makes a wager with Aunt Lydia that Quasimodo can handle a cooking class, but finds herself in danger of losing the bet because of Quasimodo being rude and tactless to his chosen class. Mavis has Tiffany help her make Quasimodo nice by removing his mean streak, but has to restore it when it turns out that the mean streak has taken control of Wendy Blob and that Quasimodo will die if he doesn't have his meanness restored.
- In "Captain Who?" on Jake And The Neverland Pirates, when Captain Hook forgets who he is due to getting a whiff of a Forget-Me Flower, he also loses all of his Jerkass tendencies. Smee, Sharky and Bones turn to Jake and his team to help because they went their jerk back. His memory is eventually restored by an encounter with his nemesis, Tic Toc Croc.
- This is forced onto Johnny Test when his sisters try to separate his bad "juju" for wrecking their lab. Johnny turns into an obedient, cheerful, and hug-happy shell of his former self. Unfortunately the bad juju ends up turning into a destructive Evil Knockoff and his sisters get sick of all the annoying hugs, prompting the yearning for the normal Johnny.
- Kaeloo: Pretty gives Mr. Cat a Love Potion disguised as a soda can to make him fall in love with her, but it backfires because he falls in love with the soda can the potion came in and he spends all his time with his soda can instead of being a jerk to the people around him and pissing Kaeloo off. Kaeloo is fairly distraught about Mr. Cat not trying to bully anyone because her entire sense of purpose relied on stopping him from bullying, and also because his attention isn't focused on annoying her and she loves being the focus of his attention.
- Kim Possible:
- Drakken in "Bad Boy", albeit because restoring Good!Drakken to normal is necessary to restore Evil!Ron.
- Ron has this attitude towards Shego in "Stop Team Go".
- Kim also has this attitude towards Bonnie in "Ron Millionaire," when the latter only acts nice to Ron because he won $99 million.
- In "Emotion Sickness", Drakken is much more terrified of Shego's random mood swings (especially when she starts getting affectionate toward him) than he is of her normal prickly personality.
- In Life with Louie Jen Glen is Jerkass and Large Ham so big that the entire town fears her. In one episode she loses her voice and it quickly turns out to have strange effects on the community, because many people starts acting like they have no purpose or turn into their certain opposites - Andy, the town's second Large Ham, even becomes calm and forgets about the war (leading to Alternate Character Interpretation that he may be a Shell-Shocked Veteran and that it's Jen's loud and angry behavior that constantly reminds him about some traumatic experiences from the war). The entire town works in the end to raise money for her operation.
- Looney Tunes
- In "The Big Snooze" Elmer Fudd gets tired of hunting Bugs Bunny and failing, so he tears up his Warner Bros. cartoon contract and decides to find something else to do with his life like fishing. Bugs is dead-set on getting Elmer back as a foe however, so he invades his dreams and plagues him with surreal nightmares so that Elmer will surely never rest until he catches him.
- In the short "Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers", Bugs is distressed to find his nemeses Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, and Daffy Duck have been replaced by cheerful, friendly, badly-drawn "pale stereotypes". And this is before his own badly-animated look-alike climbs out of the "strange-looking carrot" the Daffy doppelganger gave him and attacks him with an axe. Bugs is delighted to have his old foes back once he gets rid of the impostors."I never realized how lucky I was dat so many people wanted to kill me!"
- In "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too" from The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Rabbit convinces everyone that they need to un-bounce Tigger so they do. But bounceless Tigger is so sad that even Rabbit agrees he liked bouncy Tigger better.
- In an episode of The Penguins of Madagascar, King Julian is led to believe that the eclipse is caused by him being a jerk to everyone so he decides to be nice but he becomes very annoying trying to help everyone. An annoyed group of penguins and a made up "sign from the sky spirits" later he's back to normal.
- On Phineas and Ferb, This happens to Buford when he loses his goldfish in "Voyage To The Bottom Of Buford".
- Happens on The Proud Family after Lacienega loses her confidence after getting ridiculed for her big feet and Penny wanting her to be back to being herself again.
- The Real Ghostbusters used this plot in the Slimer! short "Out With Grout". Fed up with Sedgewick Hotel head Morris Grout interfering with their fun, Slimer, Bud, and Fred manipulate him into accepting a job at a different hotel so that no one can tell them what to do. The three friends eventually start wanting Grout back when his replacement turns out to be Professor Dweeb, an enemy of Slimer who's obsessed with capturing him.
- Ed Bighead from Rocko's Modern Life is Rocko's next-door neighbor who openly despises Rocko and his friends Heffer and Filburt and often tries to ruin their fun. In "Old Fogey Froggy", Ed begins to feel the stress of age when he is turned down for a promotion in favor of somebody younger than him, so he tries to feel young again by hanging out with Rocko, Heffer, and Filburt. It isn't long before he gets on their nerves, to the point where the three actually prefer him the way he was before.
- Rolling with the Ronks!: "No More Magnon" has Mormagnon exposed as a charlatan when he is caught faking power over fire by having his pet lizard Godzi breathe fire on his master's command while invisible. This results in Mama banishing Mormagnon and Flash taking his place as the Ronk village's storyteller, only for Flash to be forced to get Mormagnon back when he learns that the Ronks prefer Mormagnon's fabrications to his blunt scientific explanations for the how heat works.
- The second Rotten Ralph special Not-So-Rotten Ralph (adapted from the book of the same name) has this kind of story, as it deals with Rotten Ralph being sent to a finishing school to curb his bad behavior while his more polite cousin Percy visits his owner Sarah's family. Sarah and her parents quickly get annoyed by Percy's overbearing and strict ways and try to get Ralph to slip back to his bad habits when they see that his time at Mr. Fred's Finishing School has brainwashed him into monotonously chanting "I am a good cat."
- Rugrats (1991):
- The episode "New Kid In Town" has the babies getting tired of Angelica's bullying and become friends with an older boy named Josh. However, Josh proves to be an even worse bully than Angelica, causing the babies to admit that they miss Angelica and the ways she used to bully them.
- In "Angelica For a Day", Angelica starts wearing Chuckie's shoes after Tommy has Chuckie wear her shoes to make him braver, having heard her say that the phrase "I wouldn't want to be in that guy's shoes" means that if you put on someone else's shoes, you act just like him/her. While in Chuckie's shoes, she becomes a lot nicer to Tommy, but also a lot less brave, eventually getting on Tommy's nerves. When some older boys come up to them and Chuckie, Tommy even says that he never thought he'd miss the old Angelica. Much of the episode's events are revealed to be a dream of Tommy's, and when he awakens, he is so glad that Angelica is still her mean old self, that he gives her a hug, much to her ire.
- Dil is Tommy's baby brother who tends to take what he wants and hit Tommy and his friends, but due to being the youngest of the babies, his brain isn't yet developed enough for him to understand what he's doing. In several episodes focusing on him, the babies assume something bad happened to him and they, especially Tommy, admit that they miss having Dil be a baby and want him to stay that way, bad behavior and all. Such examples include:
- "Dil We Meet Again" - When the babies feed him watermelon, Betty jokes that he will turn into a watermelon if they keep doing it. A watermelon is left in Dil's place when Didi takes him away to clean him up, and the babies try to turn the watermelon back into Dil.
- "Dil Saver" - Tommy wishes that Dil would go away when he knocks over a block tower he and his friends built. Following some trickery from Angelica and a photo of Dil being used as Stu's screensaver, the babies believe Dil to be trapped in the computer, and Tommy is desperate to get him out.
- "Hello Dilly" - Angelica tricks the babies into thinking that fairy godmothers turn bad babies into dolls. Following a visit from Aunt Miriam in a cowgirl costume and Angelica swapping Dil out with an identical-looking baby doll to one-up Cassie, one of her classmates at preschool, the babies believed Dil turned into a doll and try to turn him back to normal.
- The Simpsons:
- In "Grampa vs Sexual Inadequacy", following a fight with his father Homer resolves to be a more attentive parent to his kids. Being the iconic Bumbling Dad, this doesn't work out so well. Bart and Lisa soon comment that they preferred Homer's "Half-assed under-parenting" to his "Half-assed over-parenting".
- In "Jaws Wired Shut", a week of being unable to talk taught Homer to listen, after which he found the joys of a polite, sedate existence. However, as it turns out, Marge was so used to his shenanigans that weeks of dormancy drove her insane.
- Played straight and inverted in "Home Away from Homer": Flanders moves to ultra-nice Humbleton, PA, and a Jerk Jock moves into Flanders's old house and torments Homer himself. Both Ned and Homer realize how good they had it before and everything goes back to normal.
- This also occurs at least twice with Principal Skinner, of the "gets replaced by a worse replacement" variety:
- The first time, in "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song", he's fired and replaced with Ned Flanders, who refuses to punish anyone, which causes the school to descend into anarchy.
- The second time, in "The Principal and the Pauper" his replacement is voiced by Martin Sheen, they subvert (via exaggeration) Status Quo Is God by running the alt-Skinner out of town on a rail, and having Judge Snyder solemnly pronounce Let Us Never Speak of This Again under threat of torture. Literally, all of the above. Ironically, he was a rather nice and reasonable fellow who was exiled simply by... not being Skinner. He was Seymour Skinner, just not the Seymour Skinner that Springfield was used to.
- From "Weekend At Burnsie's":
Marge: Homer, you don't need drugs anymore. Your eyes are all better.Lisa: I want my old dad back. The one who was yelling all the time, and ... you know, I'm not really sure what I want.- In "The PTA Disbands", Bart sparks a strike by Springfield Elementary's teachers, prompting the hiring of substitute teachers. Bart spends time crushing the spirits of different substitutes such as Moe, but after Marge gets hired as his substitute, Bart starts thinking about stopping the strike and having his usual teacher, Mrs. Krabappel, back again.
- The Smurfs (1981): In "The Essence Of Brainy", Brainy once loses his Know-Nothing Know-It-All essence and the other Smurfs must find a way to bring back his usual annoying self.
- South Park:
- In the episode "Tsst!", Cartman is trained by the Dog Whisperer into a well-adjusted, polite, and friendly little boy. After being rejected by the dog whisperer, his mother then realizes that she can no longer treat her son like a "best friend," thus robbing her of her ONLY friend. A little bribery, however, reverts him back to normal.
- In "Timmy 2000", all the boys take Ritalin and become dull and attentive. Mr. Garrison misses their crude behavior and Chef helps them return to normal with help from an "antidote" drug named "Ritalout".
- Averted when Cartman's goateed "evil" mirror self showed up, who, being the "evil" version of Cartman, was extremely nice and thoughtful; Stan and Kyle like him so much better than Cartman that they actively try to send their universe's Cartman back to the mirror universe instead. It didn't work.
- In "South Park Is Gay" the women of South Park are at first pleased to see how neat and presentable their husbands become after catching the latest metrosexual fad, but soon the effimancy, vanity and general uselessness of males starts grating on their nerves and they are forced to take the only appropriate action in such situation: murder the cast of the gay show that started the fad.
- This has happened a number of times in SpongeBob SquarePants with numerous characters, sometimes as a whole episode plot and sometimes as a single sub-portion of the overarching story. A few examples are when Squidward was electrocuted by his own electric fence and developed a personality very similar to that of SpongeBob (at the end he was returned to normal by another electrocution, which also struck SpongeBob and Patrick, turning them both into Squidward personality clones), a time when SpongeBob tried to become "normal" and lost everything unique about his personality, and when Patrick's brain was accidentally replaced with brain coral after an accident, turning him into an arrogant super-genius who does not understand the concept of fun and is too smart even to be liked by Gadgeteer Genius Sandy. That one ends up being "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome, with Patrick using his newfound genius to mathematically determine his actual brain's location in the brain coral fields where he lost it so he can become his old self again.
- A minor variation also came when Squidward, after yet another disastrous run-in with SpongeBob and a door, recovers to find himself suddenly quite handsome. He enjoys the new attention it brings him, only to then find his admirers refuse to ever let him alone. He ends up begging SpongeBob to bash him with the door again.
- Star Wars Rebels: In "Double Agent Droid", Chopper, the obnoxious astromech droid, is remote-hacked by an Imperial specialist who plays him as being much nicer than usual. After Chopper is restored to normal, the crew is forced to admit they prefer Chopper as an obnoxious Jerkass.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
- An episode had this happen to resident Jerkass Raphael, when he accidentally blasted himself with a "Personality Alterator" ray, set to "Very Nice". His friends were happy at first, until they discovered that he was so nice he'd even help the criminals they were trying to capture. The episode's villain also used the ray to make the city's police and guards similarly docile and captures the Turtles with no effort. The Turtles finally get Raphael back to Jerkass by setting the ray to "Very Nasty" and getting him to shoot himself with it.
- That wasn't the first time it was used either. In an earlier episode Leonardo decides that everyone needs to train harder. The other turtles get tired of working so much and use the Personality Alterator to make Leonardo into a fun loving, laid back guy. He plays annoying pranks on the others, and doesn't care about fighting crime. Not only are they sick of him but they need the old Leonardo to help them beat the villain of the week.
- One episode of Tiny Toon Adventures had Buster, Plucky and Hamton trying to fix Dizzy Devil by combining their personalities and putting them in him using a machine, it works, the new Dizzy is polite, intelligent and good natured, but it is revealed that the old Dizzy was very popular with girls and said girls are rather unhappy with the new Dizzy.
- In one Tom and Jerry short, Tom is hit over the head with a broom and thinks he is a mouse. He immediately becomes totally harmless and takes a highly annoying liking to Jerry, who cannot stand this and spends the whole episode trying to turn Tom back into his arch-enemy.
- Total Drama: The Blue Harvest Moon in "Moon Madness" reverses the behaviors of the island's fauna, with carnivores becoming friendly and herbivores deadly. With the moon's effect as her guise, Heather pretends to have become a saccharinely happy-go-lucky ray of sunshine. Everyone on the Villainous Vultures is horrified, Alejandro in particular, and they're glad when she goes back to her normal bitch self.
- In one episode of Totally Spies!, Sam saves Mandy's hair from getting messed up in an Art class they were taking. While it was a Pet the Dog moment for Mandy to be grateful, Mandy becomes more clingy towards Sam and always declares that her and Sam are best buddies, much to the latter's chagrin. The episode just ends with Mandy's memories wiped (due to Mandy finding out about Sam, Clover and Alex being spies and her wanting to tell everyone at their high school) and her being a jerk again.
- In the episode "Changing Gears" of the original The Transformers cartoon, the Decepticons remove a critical component they need for their Weapon Of The Week from the Autobot Gears, changing him from his usual grumpy, complaining self into being a lot nicer. The other Autobots react negatively to this:Ironhide: What did you do to Gears, you monster?! You turned him... nice!
- Nearly inverted at the end of the episode, before Optimus Prime replaces the component anyway, and Gears begins grumbling again only to be left behind by the other Autobots:Trailbreaker: Well, we took a vote and... we decided we like Gears the way he is now.
- Nearly inverted at the end of the episode, before Optimus Prime replaces the component anyway, and Gears begins grumbling again only to be left behind by the other Autobots:
- In The Weekenders episode "Sense and Sensitivity", Lor's friends finally get fed up with her jerkish behavior. She spends the rest of the episode going out of her way to be kind and thoughtful, which drives her friends crazy and makes them wish for the old Lor back. And the catalyst that starts all this? Lor losing a basketball game by being a ball-hog. They're worried that she might start passing the ball... to the other team.
- Jack Spicer of Xiaolin Showdown briefly has all the evil removed from his body: however, the Xiaolin Dragons find his overbearingly good personality even more annoying than the failed attempts at evil.
