Wolverine Publicity / Western Animation

• During the early seasons of The Simpsons, Bart Simpson constantly took front and center in publicity materials, even if the upcoming episode focused on someone else. Some of the more gratuitous examples include TV Guide's advertisements for "Old Money"^note where he hardly factors into the dynamic between Abe and Homer and "Lisa's Substitute"^note His campaign as class president is just a side story that has nothing to do with Lisa's crush on Mr. Bergstrom. The Simpons Guide showed how Bart dominated the ad for Marge-centric episode "Marge Gets a Job". (In later years, Homer has often replaced Bart.)
  • As a whole, The Simpsons franchise is this for Fox. They will be included wherever Fox is trying to promote themselves and gain an audience.
  • On the audio commentary for the episode "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy", then showrunners Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein discuss FOX's marketing for the episode, which featured a picture in TV Guide of Bart taking a peek under a doll's skirt — and the ad stated "Springfield goes mad over a sexy new doll" which was the complete opposite of the Lisa Lionheart doll's theme.
• Each episode of The Marvel Action Hour consists of one story featuring the Fantastic Four and one featuring Iron Man, but Netflix lists streaming episodes of the show under, Iron Man: The Complete Animated Series.
• Disney XD's updated opening of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes showcases Iron Man, The Mighty Thor, The Incredible Hulk, and Captain America, but not the superheroes who didn't have movies released before the premiere of The Avengers. Also, Nick Fury narrates, even though he sometimes goes several episodes without appearing.
  • Another egregious example involves a DVD titled, "Iron Man Unleashed". In actuality, three of the included episodes showcase other Avengers' Character Development, and the other three feature the heroes working together^note except for Black Panther, who had to aid his subjects in Wakanda to save the world from Kang the Conqueror. (Iron Man seems to have become The Smart Guy for most of that arc, except for a few times when he blasts Kang with his repulsors.)
  • Australia got a season 1 Blu-Ray with a case depicting all eight Avengers. However, it also shows Nick Fury and Black Widow standing alongside them. Black Widow only appears in six episodes of the first season (though she is rather important) and is not an Avenger.
  • The Australian season 2 Blu-Ray did the exact same thing, positioning Black Widow, Nick Fury, Spider-Man, and Wolverine next to the team, even though the former two were supporting players and the latter two only appeared in about 2-3 episodes each. Basically those four took prominence because people know them from the movies.
  • The cover for the sixth American DVD shunts Captain America for an alien disguised as Ultimate Captain America, whose costume inspired that worn by Cap in the live-action Avengers movie. It also features Black Widow, despite her not having any lines in the included episodes.
  • When Marvel finally released a DVD collection of The Avengers: United They Stand to coincide with the popularity of the MCU, Captain America and Iron Man were given the most prominent placement on the box, despite the fact that they only appeared in one episode each. The actual Avengers highlighted in the show like The Wasp, The Falcon, and Hawkeye were all shunted off to the side, including Ant-Man, who was actually the leader and the main character.
• Not that this is anything new. During the same year the live-action Daredevil movie came out, several episodes of Spider-Man: The Animated Series (as well as semi-relevant episodes of Spider-Man (1967) and Fantastic Four: The Animated Series) were collected on a DVD entitled Daredevil vs. Spider-Man.
• Iron Man, for a while, was a lead in no less than four series at once: Iron Man: Armored Adventures, The Super Hero Squad Show, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and Marvel Anime: Iron Man. Ol' shellhead gets around these days.
  • At the time, Cartoon Network used different symbols to represent its shows. For Pokémon: The Series, it used a Poké Ball. For Hot Wheels, it uses the Hot Wheels logo. For The Super Hero Squad Show (notably the last Marvel series to air on Cartoon Network following the Disney buyout)? A profile of Iron Man's face.
• For a time, The Incredible Hulk was a main character in both Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. and Avengers Assemble, while also making guest appearances on Ultimate Spider-Man (2012).
  • However, Iron Man gets a series of teamup movies. So far there's been Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes United, followed by Iron Man & Captain America: Heroes United.
• Spider-Man's not totally neglecting his crossover duties, popping up a few times in both Avengers series and Agents of S.M.A.S.H.
• One of the most controversial aspects of Avengers Assemble is that it largely focuses on heroes featured in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the seven lead Avengers being the six Avengers from the first movie plus Falcon (who was added in anticipation of his then-upcoming movie debut in Captain America: The Winter Soldier). The cast eventually expanded with new characters like Black Panther, Captain Marvel, The Vision, Ant-Man and The Wasp in later seasons, but only after they'd either debuted in the movies, or had movies officially greenlit and in production. There are a few exceptions like Kamala Khan or the Jane Foster version of Thor, but the show still heavily favors the MCU.
• My Little Pony:
  • Firefly was on everything in the first Generation. Her only appearance in the cartoons was the pilot where she was the Spotlight-Stealing Squad and protagonist, but she appeared on the most merchandise for sure.
  • Pinkie Pie seems to appear on most of the promotional material for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Even moreso than Twilight Sparkle (who's supposed to be the main character). Mostly because of her bubbly personality. And she's pink.
    • She was also quite popular in G3. She went from a cute background pony with a lisp to being the leader of the generation within a few years, appearing on most merchandise and even being on toothpaste (her G4 counterpart has replaced her on the toothpaste now).
  • Rainbow Dash, an Expy of Firefly, seems to be inheriting this trope from her as well. She's on most of the official t-shirts and was the center of the hype leading up to "Cutie Mark Chronicles", a popular episode expanding on the mane cast's backstories. However, she did turn out to be vital to all of them.
  • Hasbro seems to want to use their pretty pink pony Princess Cadence for all she's worth. She has two toylines centered around her, the logo for one of them (The Crystal Empire) is just a picture of her. She's also on the DVD artwork for one of the Season 1 box set DVD's. She's not introduced in the series until the Season 2 finale.
  • Hasbro is also well aware of bronies' love for background ponies and thus have started using them quite a bit in merchandise and advertising, usually Derpy, Time Turner, and Vinyl Scratch. Vinyl in particular has a bunch of t-shirts, a brushable toy that came in a "collector's set", was the first to get an Ascended Fan Nickname ("DJ-Pon3" in a commercial), and appears on several comic book covers (see the comic books folder). Her three appearances in the show barely make up a minute of screentime. At least Derpy & Time Turner are Recurring Extras!
  • Bizarrely, Fluttershy seems to be receiving this favorable treatment too. The Topps trading card and sticker packs and related merchandise (such as tins and lunch boxes) all feature either Fluttershy only or Fluttershy (sometimes accompanied by Angel) with everyone else to the side. If you didn't know any better and you were just in a department store's trading cards and tins shelf, you might think Fluttershy was the main character—and not shy at all, considering the way she hogs the spotlight for these materials. (The lunch box even has the other five main characters visibly annoyed at her smiling front and center!)
• Looney Tunes:
  • During the intro sequence of Daffy Duck's Quackbusters, they've called more attention to Bugs Bunny's presence than Daffy Duck's. Which is, of course, the point.
  • Duck Dodgers has a Movie Within a Show example, actually. Though Duck Dodgers had the lead role in a movie, Bugs Bunny was announced as the star. It was lampshaded when Cadet explained to Dodgers that it was to attract a larger audience.
  • Cartoon Network had an installment show called Bugs and Daffy ^note  formerly Bugs and Daffy Tonight which actually aired more than shorts featuring Bugs or Daffy but was just called that (possibly) because they are the most popular characters. Considering that the show used to be one of Cartoon Network's highest rated shows, it worked. It wasn't until 2001, that they began airing a show (The Looney Tunes Show, not to be confused with the 2011 animated sitcom) that acknowledged the franchise as a whole.
• Brian and Stewie have become this for Family Guy: if a story has a B plot with these two and the main plot with somebody else, the promos will focus on the Brian and Stewie (sometimes only Stewie) plot. "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven" and "Stew-roids" were the most egregious examples. There was also a time when almost all merchandise only featured Stewie, similar to the Bart example above.
• Tinker Bell is another example. She only appeared as a secondary character in Peter Pan, but a few years later, she has been used for basically every Disney TV special's introduction as of the past several decades.
• Despite only appearing in two of his shorts, the bombshell character of Red Hot Riding Hood is prominently displayed in packaging and artwork of the Droopy DVD collection.
  • Speaking of Droopy, although he gets his own anthology on Boomerang and sometimes appears on MGM Cartoons, his cartoons (mainly the ones from Filmation's series in the 80's (which stars Tom and Jerry but also featured Droopy shorts)) and some of Tex Avery's MGM cartoons (mainly ones that feature a cat) sometimes air with the more popular Tom and Jerry cartoons. The Tex Avery cartoons have since ceased airing, as of 2014, for the most part, but Droopy still airs on Boomerang from time-to-time. The Droopy short "Scared Bear" tends to air more often than the other Droopy shorts in the Tom and Jerry block.
    • The Tex Avery MGM cartoons with a cat are also listed under the Tom and Jerry section on HBO Max and the Boomerang streaming service.
• During 2005, Cartoon Network made a summertime song as a promotion that around the time, the Cartoon Network original shows that were running consistently around that time included Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, and Codename: Kids Next Door. Well Cartoon Network tended to give a lot of emphasis to the older characters like Dexter, Johnny Bravo, and The Powerpuff Girls that didn't have their shows running as consistently. And that was also the same summer that introduced Camp Lazlo.
• Cartoon Network:
  • Steven Universe gets this, with four seasons, a movie, an epilogue seasons, and is frequently featured on social media posts and advertisements for the network.
  • Ben 10 seems to have become this for Cartoon Network. He's had four different series, a crossover with Generator Rex, and 2 direct-to-TV live-action movies. Plus, he's in both crossover games.
  • Before Ben, The Powerpuff Girls seemed to fit this trope. They were the only CN original to have their own comic series (before it merged with Cartoon Network Block Party), an anime remake, that time they saved Wonder Woman and Aquaman from the Legion of Doom. (You think we're kidding.) They also received a reboot not even ten years after ending. They were even mentioned briefly in the KND/Billy and Mandy crossover, and at the end of the Billy & Mandy episode "My Fair Mandy", the B&M universe becomes the PPG universe.
    Billy: (opening door) I'm so glad you're here- HEY! You're not the Powerpuff Girls!
    Numbuh 1: No, we're not.
• Raw Toonage's opening titles featured Webby from DuckTales, but she never actually appeared in any of the show's cartoons or host segments. At the time Raw Toonage was on the air, The Disney Afternoon was still going strong, and DuckTales was its flagship show.
• Rolie Polie Olie is a unintentional retroactive example. When the show was rescued by Disney and placed on their Disney+ streaming service in September 2021, it only came with the first five seasons of the show. Season 6 is not included on the service, and yet Disney still shows Coochie and Coo front and center when marketing the show. Coochie and Coo don't appear outside of Season 6 and the Finale Movie The Baby Bot Chase^note Also not included on the service, causing an accidental case that has yet to be amended.
• Transformers:
  • Four characters are primarily used to advertise most incarnations of the franchise — Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron, and Starscream. Even in Beast Wars, a series which takes place both millions of years in the future and in the past, the original Starscream still managed to get an episode starring himself.
  • In a well-stocked Toys 'R' Us in the US in 2014 it would have been possible to find no fewer than 9 different Starscream toys on shelves simultaneously^note Year Of The Horse, Generations Armada Starscream, Construct-Bots, Hero Mashers, Legends Class(G1), Legends Class (IDW), Titan Warriors, Beast Hunters Warrior Class and Cyberverse Commander.
• Yogi's Space Race isn't so focused on Yogi Bear as the title suggested.
  • It was originally a 90-minute umbrella show which featured Galaxy Goof-Ups (in which Yogi stars), "The Galloping Ghost" and "Space Race" (again Yogi is in it). It was split up at mid-season into three separate shows. A similar case was Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics, which some would argue on which Scooby-Doo is barely focused. But it was originally a two-hour show which featured Scooby in a full hour (repeats of Where Are You! followed by new eps and repeats from 1976) before handing it off to the show's co-stars (Dynomutt, Captain Caveman) and Laff-A-Lympics.
• Scooby-Doo is definitely no slouch in this department either. The franchise is still going strong, with at least one TV movie produced each year, new television shows being made at least every couple of years, comic books produced by several different companies (including DC and Marvel) and tons of merchandise, up to and including its own set of LEGO mini-figures. Averted with most of the new home video releases of shows that feature Scrappy Doo. Aside from Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (which has the misfortune of having Scrappy's name in the title), Warner Home Video really goes out of their way to keep Scrappy off the cover as much as possible.
• Teen Titans Go!:
  • Beast Boy has been treated this way. Because of him being the most popular character among the target audience, more episodes have been centered on him than any other character. They also gave him four birthday episodes and Cartoon Network has had an annual birthday marathon for him each year since 2015.
  • To a lesser extent, Beast Boy's best friend Cyborg is also advertised a lot. It also helps that he's become an original Justice League member in the comics, which means the show references this.
  • The entire main cast serves as this for Teen Titans Go! & DC Super Hero Girls: Mayhem in the Multiverse. All the promotional material makes it seem like the team-up between the Teen Titans and the Super Hero Girls against the Legion of Doom is the bulk of the plot. In the actual movie, the Titans' part of the story is just a framing device hosted by Control Freak; most of the runtime is dedicated solely to the Super Hero Girls, as the film also doubles as their show's Grand Finale. There is a minor detour into the TTG universe before the climax, wherein Raven gives Zatanna some advice about her powers, but that's the extent of their impact on the main plot. The Titans themselves lampshade this during one of their interludes, shocked at the realization that they're here purely to increase the ratings once they notice the movie is almost halfway over and two teams have yet to actually crossover.
• DC Super Hero Girls advertising puts a lot of emphasis on Batgirl, Wonder Woman, and Supergirl.
• Futurama: Given his status as the Series Mascot, Bender tends to be prominently advertised even in episodes or movies where he plays a minimal role. Notably, his name is on the titles for Bender's Big Score and Bender's Game, even though he's a Decoy Protagonist in the former and despite setting up the titular world is ultimately little more than comic relief in the latter.

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