History Main / FelonyMisdemeanor

* In a story arc across several Marvel titles in the late 1970s/early 1980s ComicBook/ThePunisher suffered a psychotic break and began dispensing his brand of lethal justice for such heinous crimes as littering and jaywalking.

* PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad

* Subverted in ''Film/MyCousinVinny''. Bill realizes he accidentally shoplifted some tuna fish while he and his friend Stan stopped at a convenience store, and are promptly arrested by a police officer, thinking that's why they're arrested. In actuality, there was an armed robbery that took place shortly after they left the store and the witnesses said they saw two people that looked like them driving away in a similar-looking automobile. [[MistakenConfession While he's interrogated, Bill confesses to the shoplifting]], [[OneDialogueTwoConversations not realizing they're asking about the armed robbery till the sheriff specifically asks "When did you shoot the clerk?"]].

* Subverted in ''Film/MyCousinVinny''. Bill realizes he accidentally shoplifted some tuna fish while he and his friend Stan stopped at a convenience store, and are promptly arrested by a police officer, thinking that's why they're arrested. In actuality, there was an armed robbery that took place shortly after they left the store and the witnesses said they saw two people that looked like them driving away in a similar-looking automobile that actually did it. [[MistakenConfession While he's interrogated, Bill confesses to the shoplifting]], [[OneDialogueTwoConversations not realizing they're asking about the armed robbery till the sheriff specifically asks "When did you shoot the clerk?"]].

* In ''Film/{{Holes}}'', Stanley has the book thrown at him after getting hit in the head with a pair of shoes that happened to have been stolen.

* ''Film/TheBigLebowski'', Walter pulls a gun on a fellow bowler for stepping over the line in a league match and refusing to take the penalty. "MARK IT ZERO!"

** The "Vegan Police" treat vegans who don't adhere to a vegan diet as criminals. Since veganism gives people superpowers in the series' universe, it seems reasonable to take it seriously.

** The "Vegan Police" treat vegans who don't adhere to a vegan diet as criminals. Since veganism gives you superpowers, it seems reasonable to take it seriously.
** While she was callous to them, all of Ramona's ex-boyfriends (and one ex-girlfriend) unite to destroy all her subsequent boyfriends and ruin her romantic life.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Episode 4 of ''WebVideo/ChobitsAbridged'' has this. Loitering is so heinous, the police pull and cock their guns just to be sure.
* ''Website/TheBestPageInTheUniverse'': Maddox's [[http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=quantum_of_phallus article about]], among other things, the dubious villainy on display in ''Film/QuantumOfSolace''. "It's like the producers are challenging you to give less of a shit."
* There was a TV advertisement in Poland: the man asks his wife if she wants Earl Grey since the kids are asleep. After some MemeticMutation, Polish Internet was full of pictures of a man in jail for drinking Earl Grey in the presence of children.
* Inverted in the fifth episode of the Irish comedy series ''I Am Fighter'':
-->'''Barry 'The Blender' Henderson:''' This here's a picture of Thomas 'The Tanker' Smythe driving a tractor at the age of three, which you might think is completely illegal. But when you're on the fucking outskirts of Limavady, anything goes. Know what I'm saying? Keep it on the DL.
* In ''Roleplay/AGameOfGods'', when the group is in [[WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas Halloweentown]], listening to Jack's speech on Christmas getting bombarded by the questioning mob, [[Series/KamenRiderDouble Narumi]] fires a gun at nothing just to get their attention. Needless to say, [[VideoGame/HaloReach Jorge]] is displeased with this as to give him a WhatTheHellHero line.
* ''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic'':
** The "Bat Credit Card" gag of ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'' has become his personal BerserkButton.
** The StrawFan Douchey [=McNitpick=] is a spoof of how some commenters act like even a small error is a horrible thing.
** His review of ''Film/JamesAndTheGiantPeach'' opens with the Critic in jail for making a bad Let's Play.
* Jen of Blog/CakeWrecks writes out phonetic [[SpitefulSpit spitting sounds]] ("ptooey") at the mere mention of the dreaded cupcake cake.
* LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!
* In ''WebAnimation/MegaManDiesAtTheEnd'', VideoGame/{{Bomberman}} ([[NamesTheSame not]] [[VideoGame/MegaManClassic Bomb Man]]) is a psychopath with a fondness for StuffBlowingUp, yet people seem most upset at the fact that he uses the metric system.
* In ''WebVideo/MidnightScreenings'', Brad and co. liked seeing ''{{Film/Prometheus}}'', and got some FanHater flack for enjoying the movie. They then made a follow up to mock the complainers, but nitpicking irrelevant parts of the movies.
* The WebVideo/TheMusicVideoShow has an example in episode 8 when Music/FallOutBoy is about to be burned alive.
--> "You guys do kind of deserve it after you butchered a Music/MichaelJackson song...and getting John Mayer to do the (guitar) solo."
* ''Podcast/WelcomeToNightVale'': Cecil is so enraged that the local barber had the temerity to ''cut [[LoveInterests Carlos's]] hair'' that he basically arranges for the poor dude to be run out of town to wander delirious in the desert.
* Arthéon from ''Franchise/{{Noob}}'' considers getting his previous avatar permanently banned for RealMoneyTrade was this. The feeling is understandable considering that his old guild went on to be the best of the game while he ended up becoming the leader of the worst one, but whether he's right or not is left to the audience's appreciation.
* WebVideo/{{Retsupurae}}: In "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_TysWmz-dw Let's Play Contra using 1950's recording technology]]", the duo notices that the [=LPer=] is choosing to play the game on Easy difficulty, and after mentioning that this means he won't be able to actually beat the FinalBoss, slowbeef chooses to indulge in some EasyModeMockery:
-->''And playing Contra 3 on Easy is like [[BrotherSisterIncest kissing your sister]], you just don't do it. [[DisproportionateRetribution I think there's even laws against it.]]''
* Parodied in an episode of Luigi's Engine Room with ''LetsPlay/TheRunawayGuys''. Chuggaaconroy thinks being Canadian is a horrible offense.
-->'''Chuggaa:''' Well, you say "zed".\\
'''Jon:''' Gasp! I'm Canadian!\\
'''Chuggaa:''' Hide your children!
* ''WebVideo/StacheBros'': In the ''Super Mario'' episode of "Luigi Time!!!", Princess Peach sentences Luigi to 20 years in the dungeon for insulting her. However, in the ''VideoGame/WiiParty'' episode (which takes place 3 weeks later), she decides to set him free for good behavior.
* The entire M.O. behind the [[FunWithAcronyms Eradication of Repulsive Evil and Corruption Team]] in ''Hard Justice''. Got your music too loud? Turn it down or get a point-blank rocket to the face. [[spoiler:This ends up being deliberate and a plot point as the BigBad created the Team and filled its ranks with idiots to prevent actual police investigations of his crimes.]]
* In ''Fanfic/FarceOfTheThreeKingdoms,'' the justification Dong Zhuo gives for executing ex-Emperor Bian: He was writing mildly emo poetry.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'': ''[[http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/15p7/ King Radical is subverting our country's rich history for his own devious purposes!]]''
* Type 3 from ''Webcomic/SkinHorse'': Sweetheart's idea of a "rampage" is [[PokeThePoodle spilling coffee next to a "no littering" sign]]. The Chimeric Anti-Defamation League hears about it and tries to revoke her membership. You know things are bad when ''Unity'' is the voice of sanity--her reaction is, "Who called you, and how could they tell it was a rampage?"
* In a ''Webcomic/UserFriendly'' arc, Erwin the computer dreams of being {{Mercy Kill}}ed for having an incurable case of Windows NT and then being brought before the JudgementOfTheDead. When his personal ListOfTransgressions is examined, installing NT turns out to have been the greatest sin on the list, ranking above nearly starting a border war in Africa.
* In an ''Webcomic/EerieCuties'' arc, the evil spirit of a mirror steals Nina's body to unleash her evil on the world. However, seeing as it's ''[[GenkiGirl Nina]]'' she's in, all she can manage are lame practical jokes. [[spoiler:And one accidental murder, but that was {{retcon}}ned.]]
* ''Edmund Finney's Quest'' quadruply does not subvert this [[http://eqcomics.com/2011/09/02/an-arrest/ here]]. (The "fake bomb threat" was part of a [[Creator/MontyPython Four Yorkshiremen]] argument and was neither a fake bomb threat nor a real one.)
* Downplayed example in ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'': Elliot and Tedd broke into a government facility and through ''shenanigans'', created an opposite-sex clone of Elliot. Elliot's dad is furious... that he lied about having a sleepover with Tedd. The actual felony doesn't register with him at all.
* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' - [[AGodAmI Petey]] warns a Toddfraug captain who was going to wipe out a planetary population with [[DeathFromAbove kinetic warhead bombardment]] to [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2006-04-08 not add "rounding 'Pi' down to three"]] to his list of crimes.
* ''{{Webcomic/Freefall}}'':
** [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2000/fc01924.htm "A robot named Qwerty. wrote the first. of his epic. rap yodeling. operas. It was then. I knew conflict between [robots and humans]. was inevitable."]] He didn't force anyone to listen to it. Just writing it was enough to justify genocide.
** Later, some of the robots in charge of the distribution center for produce decide that the practice of [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3100/fc03097.htm discarding slightly imperfect vegetables]] is wasteful, and arrange for someone to "steal" them before they're thrown away so that they can be made into healthy salads and given away for free. [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3200/fc03169.htm When some of the robot police officers finds out...]]
--->'''Officer Green:''' DEVIL! How can you live with yourself?!\\
'''Officer Red:''' Excuse my partner. He was not expecting to see this level of malfeasance displayed openly.
* In ''Webcomic/ScandinaviaAndTheWorld'', [[ChasteHero England]] freaks out when he briefly touches [[AllWomenAreLustful Sister Denmark]], accusing himself in despair of being a rapist. She barely notices. According to WordOfGod, English people are really sensitive to touching strangers, if just a little; fearing they might offend them.
* In ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'', Gabe is reading his son the new ''[[Literature/TheBerenstainBears Berenstain Bears]]'' book, and is horrified when the father turns off the Internet except for an hour a day.
-->'''Gabe:''' Son, what Papa Bear is doing is child abuse. Brother and Sister Bear need to call the...Bear Police.
* In ''Webcomic/PerfectionEngine'', the Eidolons —angelic beings prevalent in the story— strive for a perfect society of perfect order and morality. As such, all citizens are subject to "corrective measures" should they show any flaw whatsoever, including inner or outer expressions of negativity. One is literally not allowed to experience negative emotions or thoughts towards themselves or others, lest they undergo said corrective measures if caught.
* ''Webcomic/{{Paranatural}}'': As the Vice Principal is telling Hijack various ways he could end up taken to the principal's office (wearing normal clothes on pajama day, injuring a fellow student), she is horrified to realize that she's just giving him ideas.
-->'''Vice Principal:''' I swear to various lesser demons, if you wear normal clothes on pajama day I will hunt you down.
* ''Webcomic/TwoGuysAndGuy'' has the RunningGag of Guy [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown hospitalizing]] Wayne for misusing the word "literally".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* Violet Beauregarde in ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory''. The other "bad" kids are SpoiledBrat Veruca Salt, gluttonous Augustus Gloop, and TV-obsessed Mike Teavee. Violet's flaw is [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking chewing gum at all hours]], little more than rudeness and {{Pride}} with regard to her holding a record for chewing, but she winds up getting just as nasty a case of LaserGuidedKarma as the other three when chewing a still-in-the-testing-phase piece of gum turns her into a giant blueberry! Since the TurnOfTheMillennium, adaptations tweak the character to make her more obnoxious (and thus more deserving of her fate) -- in [[Film/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory the 2005 film]] and [[Theatre/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory 2013 stage musical]] she's a CompetitionFreak, as well as a SmallNameBigEgo starlet in the musical.
* In ''Literature/TheDaVinciCode'', Sophie Neveu is disgusted with her grandfather and has not talked with him for ten years. Why? She saw him having sex.
* In ''Les Malheurs de Sophie'', Sophie is forced to wear a necklace of the parts of a bee she dissected until they fall off because obviously, that is one of the biggest crimes that a six-year-old kid can commit.
* In ''Literature/BlackLegion'', evil Chaos Marines and sorcerers Khayon and Ashur-Kai are absolutely appalled when they learn that one of the visitors at Gallium called his ship ''The Skinner''.
* A short story by a local writer in Singapore is about [[AttackOfTheKillerWhatever killer hamburgers]] attacking the protagonist because [[spoiler: he switched his favorite food from burgers to fried chicken.]] [[{{Narm}} It's supposed to be a horror story.]]
* The ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Literature/MenAtArms'' notes that Ankh-Morpork law has "a whole quiverful of offences available to a policeman who wishes to pass the time of day with a citizen, ranging from Loitering With Intent through Obstruction to Lingering While Being the Wrong Colour/Shape/Species/Sex".
* See ''Literature/TheScarletLetter.'' It's a Victorian novel written about fictional Puritans. Most people forget that it's a historical novel, though, as the present becomes almost as far removed from the book's publication, as the book is from the time of its setting, and think of it as a strictly factual account of Puritan life.
* ''Literature/TheBookOfLordShang'' advocates punishing minor offences severely, the idea being that the punishments will deter people from committing small crimes and thus keep them off the slippery slope towards major offences.
* Creator/DaveBarry, in his 1987 year-in-review column, recounts a Reagan administration official's shocking admission:
-->[June] 8--In the most dramatic Iran-contra testimony to date, Fawn Hall, played by Farrah Fawcett, testifies that, as Justice Department investigators closed in, she and Oliver North stayed late in their White House basement office and "colorized" a number of classic black-and-white films.
* In ''Literature/OliverTwist'', Oliver's famous request for a second pitiful helping of porridge is treated like a high crime by the miserly workhouse staff. "He asked for ''more?''"
* For an epic example of Type Three, look no further than Alexander Pope's ''Literature/TheRapeOfTheLock.'' The Baron sneaks up behind the beautiful Belinda and snips off a lock of hair - and this divides the entire court down the middle and results in an all-out war of the sexes (fought with fans and scornful glances). To top it all off, it's BasedOnATrueStory.
* ''The Return of the Home Run Kid'' by Matt Christopher runs into this problem not on its own merits, but when considered in light of its predecessor. The focus of the story is the main character's baseball training under a fellow who was kicked out of the major leagues for betting against his own team and said fellow teaches dishonorable tricks like pretending to have been hit by a pitch. Fairly bad, sure? But in the previous book, ''The Kid Who Only Hit Homers'', our hero used magic to ensure that he never struck out, and this was treated as entirely proper. Anyone who considered that poor sportsmanship probably wasn't still reading the books, and anyone who accepted it would have a hard time telling how physical cheating is worse than magical cheating.
* ''Literature/AlexAndTheIronicGentleman'' has the heroine spending most of the book repeatedly running away from the same [[SternChase implacable pursuers]] -- [[spoiler: a bunch of little old ladies who want vengeance because she stepped over the velvet ropes in a museum]].
* The infamous tunnel disaster scene in ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'' does this by claiming that [[AssholeVictim every passenger on the train died justifiably]] due to their beliefs.
* The novel ''The Last Catholic in America'' has a scene in which the main character is despairing over his imminent damnation for stealing a dollar after being told by a nun that a dollar is about the amount that would qualify for a mortal sin. The priest he confesses this to disagrees.
* If you're reading a novel, short story, fluff piece or fanfic set in the TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} universe, you've got about a 2-in-3 chance of this happening, normally type 3 but sometimes type 2. Crowning highlights: a Guardsman is ordered to defend an outpost, but facing an overwhelming attack he pulls back and cleverly defeats them, only to be executed for not staying put and allowing the base to be overrun because ''those were his orders''; a Space Marine stranded on a Death World is severely chastised for picking up an alien weapon and using it after his own weapons are out of ammo; any time the Eldar get pissy over the Imperium "selfishly" wanting to save a world housing tens of billions of humans they were willing to sacrifice to save a couple thousand (or less) Eldar.
* {{Subverted|Trope}} in ''Literature/StarshipTroopers''. An officer tells some officer candidates a story from the Napoleonic era: a junior navy officer during ship battle picks up his heavily wounded commander and carries him to a safe place. During that time all other officers on the ship are killed, so the young guy winds up a commanding officer on the ship--and, because he left his post, he stands trial and is cashiered (and is lucky not to be hanged). It seems a gross injustice for the candidates--but the officer explains that the punishment was completely justified: for an officer to have left his post without an order is really very SeriousBusiness because if a sudden catastrophe happens, it is much more likely to disrupt a unit without a commanding officer.
* In a Creator/RichardScarry book called ''Richard Scarry's Please and Thank You Book'' (covers proper etiquette) a mom absolutely freaks because her kid dared to ask why he had to do something as a bad example.
* Literature/HarryPotter worries this will happen to him when he blows up (as in inflates until she floats away) his aunt in ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban Prisoner of Azkaban]]''. As Fudge puts it, "We don't throw people in Azkaban for blowing up their aunts." While it's definitely not portrayed as a good thing, the fact that he didn't do it on purpose means they cut him some slack, and they were more worried about protecting him from Sirius Black at that point than anything minor. On the other hand, [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets in the previous book]], Harry was nearly expelled for [[ItMakesSenseInContext a house elf dropping a cake on a dinner guest's head]], and his aunt and uncle freak out if he even uses the word "magic" or references anything remotely fantasy-related, like flying motorcycles.
* ''Literature/JeevesAndWooster'':
** Tuppy Glossop once tricked Bertie into falling into a pool, and Bertie's been nursing the desire for vengeance ever since. (A bit of HypocriticalHumor when you recall that this is the guy who pushed Tuppy's cousin Oswald into a lake.)
---> ''I am not a vindictive man, but I felt, as anybody would have felt in my place, that if fellows like young Tuppy are allowed to get away with it the whole fabric of Society and Civilization must inevitably crumble.''
** In his very first appearance, Bertie is forced to face a judge who treats his having pinched a policeman's helmet while drunk the night before as an unforgivable sin and acts as if he's going to pass down a death sentence... before fining Bertie five pounds.
* Since ''Literature/MommieDearest'' is about growing up with an abusive mother, a lot of the things that set Joan off come off this way, including the infamous wire hanger scene from the film adaptation.
* In ''Literature/{{Thud}}'', workaholic copper Sam Vimes is steadfastly unwilling to ever be home late for his daily book reading with his very young son, and in one scene his guards end up manipulating traffic just to give him a clear route home. Vimes does this-- takes all possible measures to be home to read to the boy-- to avoid a slippery slope; "If you start breaking the rules for good reasons, you'll soon start breaking them for bad reasons." So he will not allow himself to be late for his reading time with Young Sam, for fear he'll eventually stop spending time with the boy.
* ''Literature/{{Redwall}}'': In ''Marlfox'', in the C-Plot Lantur is trying to MindRape her mother Queen Silth by gradually making her believe the ghost of her dead husband (whom she murdered years ago) is out for her blood. The Queen becomes more and more paranoid and insane. She berates her rat guards for "Not protecting her" and then asks a random guard if he had seen the ghost, who by logic knew that if he said yes, she would ask him to describe it. So he says no. The Queen replies "Of course you didn't," berating the guard for not doing his job well enough. And immediately has him killed.
* The ''Literature/VattasWar'' series: The Cascadia system features felony ''discourtesy''. Seriously, their system is otherwise so lax that you could nearly get away with murder, but you'd ''damn well better formally apologize to your victim.'' After one character is convicted of an already serious crime, the punishment for it is never revealed because he backtalks the judge and is ''sentenced to death.'' Oddly, it's not really presented as a dystopia; the system is weird, but it works for the Cascadians. Also, the Cascadians are well aware that their social norms are weird by most standards and cut foreigners a ''lot'' of slack. The death sentence mentioned earlier was said captain's third count of felony contempt of court. That day. He had already committed a capital crime and been let off with a warning twice.
* ''Literature/{{Xanth}}'': In ''A Roc and a Hard Place'', Roxanne Roc is brought to trial under the charges of "obscenity against a minor". She's bewildered as to how this could have happened, as she has dedicated her life to hatching the egg of the Simurgh, the oldest and wisest creature in all of Xanth. (As it turns out, she'd uttered an ''extremely'' mild epithet, when she thought the egg was about to be broken due to a set of circumstances beyond her control, and the as yet to hatch chick was sentient enough to have heard it.)
* ''Literature/{{Edgedancer}}'' (a novella of ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive''):
** When a street urchin hits Nale with a fruit, he executes her on spot, stating that she has assaulted an officer of law.
** The city of Yeddaw is famous for its ten types of pancakes, and Lifts makes it her mission to sample them all. Upon learning that the tenth pancake is metaphysical in nature - it's the ideal one left out to honor their god - she's appalled and threatens to call Nale to town so that he might execute them for false advertising.
* Going with DeliberateValuesDissonance in ''Literature/{{Victoria}}'' where the problem of Black crime is solved by making all drug or violent crime offenses punishable by hanging if the perpetrator is Black, requiring the trial and sentence to wrap up within a week with no appeal (or on the spot, for failing a drug test) and banning Black families from cities. Since the book is an explicit TakeThat against all forms of liberalism, this works great and is accepted by all as a reasonable solution, particularly the [[LesCollaborateurs Council of Responsible Negroes]].
* In ''Literature/TheMartian'', Watney repeatedly states that he's not mad at Lewis for stranding him on Mars, as there was a violent dust-storm and everyone thought he was dead. What he ''is'' pissed off at her for is [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking her terrible taste in music]], leaving him with nothing but her collection of 1970's disco to listen to.
* ''Literature/{{Confessions}}'':
** Students from Augustine's childhood school would be caned by their teachers for playing games when they should be studying or learning, in the hopes those students would be able to grow up and get a job in the circus, gladiator arena, or the theatre. All of these being more advanced versions of the games students were playing.
** According to a disgruntled former member, the Manichees would be willing to put one of their own to death if they fed a starving man an apple since the apple was considered to a hold a piece of God.
* ''Literature/OneEightHundredWhereRYou'': Rob Wilkins is on probation for the first four books, and won't say why. Book 5 finally reveals that he and some friends were arrested for trespassing - they were swimming in a public pool after hours.
* ''Literature/TheCityInTheMiddleOfTheNight'', taking place on a TidallyLockedPlanet, is partially set in the city of Xiosphant. Due to their perpetual twilight, they have heavily regimented citizens' schedules, with set times for waking, sleeping, eating, working, etc. If you deviate from the schedule too many times, the punishment can be death. This includes sleeping at the "wrong" times. They essentially make napping and insomnia punishable by death.
* In the first ''Literature/CuriousGeorge'' book, George gets immediately thrown in prison for accidentally calling the fire department. However, being a monkey, [[CardboardPrison he quickly finds a way out]].
* ''Literature/DeathStar'': While treating stormtrooper Nova Stihl for mysterious injuries after Alderaan is blown up, Dr. Uli notices that Nova has a higher-than average count of midi-chlorians, and requests medical information on them since it's the only anomaly he's found. Within hours he becomes the subject of a criminal probe, having unknowingly aroused the attention of the Empire's Jedi-hunters. [[spoiler:Nothing comes of it because Uli escapes with the other defectors during the Battle of Yavin, before the investigation can conclude, and Nova dies covering their escape.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Manga/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind'' features the third kind: "Show no mercy to the insolent!"
* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'':
** The Team Rocket trio, in certain situations. Go after a group of WILD Remoraid to send to HQ? Ten thousand volts and a one-way ticket to the stratosphere. The ''Pokémon'' universe seems to [[JustifiedTrope have a rule]]: Use any method but a Poké Ball to catch Pokémon, and expect LaserGuidedKarma to get you. When Jessie snaked a Yanma right out from under the kid who was battling it (using a Poké Ball), not only did Jessie not get a comeuppance, the Yanma evolved into Yanmega in its first battle. ''All'' their blastoffs involving catching Pokémon also involve them either stealing other people's Pokémon or using a machine to grab them ''en masse''. You'd think TeamRocket would have made the association by now. Meowth mentioned once when they were trying to steal a migrating school of WILD Magikarp that Pokéballs cost money and they have none. Though it's more like they prefer snagging pokémon with traps because it's more evil that way. Otherwise, how could they afford all those mechs?
** Early in season 1, Ash made the mistake of voicing his opinions on thinking that perfume is stupid. He made the mistake of doing so in Erika's shop, and in front of Erika. Having pressed Erika's BerserkButton via ''gravely insulting what she does for a living'', she responds by not only kicking him out of her shop but '''[[DisproportionateRetribution indirectly banning him from stepping foot in her gym.]]'''
* Howard X. Miller in ''Anime/YuGiOhGX''... crushed a poor, innocent flower! [[AndThatsTerrible How dare you]]!
* ''Anime/FullMetalPanicFumoffu'': There's a horse-headed pervert walking the streets. Does he flash his victims, grope them, molest them? No, he gives them ponytails (though that itself can be construed as sexual battery). Sousuke suggests that they torture him. And then he actually gets arrested and is told that he'll be doing a long time in jail. The segment ends with Kaname saying how something about this situation doesn't feel right.
* Elsee from ''Manga/TheWorldGodOnlyKnows'' once used her demonic powers to skip class to bake a cake, and commented that she's a bad demon for doing so.
* ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'':
** Misaka 10032's reaction to Last Order stealing her visor is to chase after her with an assault rifle.
** Earlier in the same episode, three of the Sisters (10032, 10039 and 13577) react to the discovery that Misaka 19090 has been dieting and reading a women's magazine by chasing her down like red-eyed demons. We never find out what happened. On the other hand, it's a case of DeliberateValuesDissonance here: all Misaka sisters are part of a HiveMind and thus behave exactly the same, with the experiences of one affecting the experiences of all, so if one Misaka behaves differently, the ''entire HiveMind'' is at danger of being affected which could very quickly put them into a dangerous situation...[[GreenEyedMonster and they were well aware the reason she was doing it was that she was trying to get a leg-up on the other Sisters to seduce Touma, the guy they're all in love with]].
** At one point in the manga, Mikoto complains about the measures taken to prevent people like her from reading manga in the stores without buying it (which, obviously, reduces profit for the authors). Seeing how Mikoto is a manga character, the author immediately punishes her by a [[BoltOfDivineRetribution seemingly random falling object]] knocking her out cold. Uiharu and Saten immediately start panicking and babbling to no one in particular about buying the manga and its accessories.
* In ''Anime/TigerAndBunny'', Keith Goodman would like everyone to know that ruining birthday parties is a terrible, ''terrible'' atrocity.
* In ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'', Kyouko Sakura: "Don't waste food... [[DisproportionateRetribution Or I'll kill you.]]" Later on, we find out she has a very plausible FreudianExcuse to not want to waste food, being that she grew up poor, not knowing when she would get her next meal.
* ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'': [[EmbarrassingFirstName Pantyhose Taro's]] grudge with Happosai. His legitimate (potential) [[OneWingedAngel grudge (his curse)]] is a RedHerring to this.
* In ''Anime/SamuraiFlamenco'', superhero wannabe Masayoshi fights such crimes as littering, jaywalking or violation of the municipal code. It's partly because he can't take on anything more dangerous, partly because those crimes are often ignored by the police.
* ''Manga/CromartieHighSchool'' has a sequence in which the boys are swapping stories of how "bad" they are. Most of them are also in this category, but Kamiyama's story is the one that leaves everyone shocked; when made to work on a "most dominos toppled" world record project, he placed a bit of adhesive on the second-to-last domino.
* In ''Manga/PandoraHearts'', [[RealityWarper the Will of the Abyss]] made [[OurMonstersAreDifferent the Chain]] Albus [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath explode]] because [[DisproportionateRetribution he had interrupted her while she was talking.]] Nevermind that [[spoiler: [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished Albus was trying to protect her from his contractor, who was about to stab her]]]].
* Pretty much anything that might be considered offensive to the [[BlueAndOrangeMorality devils]] from ''Manga/{{Dorohedoro}}''. Whether it's selling devil shaped candy, spraying graffiti on a devil statue or even just plain impoliteness, the devils are very eager to introduce people to their [[DisproportionateRetribution death sentence]].
* ''Manga/DeathNote'': At one point, Mikami, the 3rd Kira, expands his killing spree to include innocent people who commit such minor crimes as ''being lazy''. Light disapproves of him doing so, but [[PragmaticVillainy only because he considers the move premature]].
* ''Manga/TisTimeForTorturePrincess'' is about a warrior-princess of a fantasy empire who finds herself tortured by the terrible Hell-Horde... except the "tortures" take the form of [[FoodAsBribe tempting the Princess with delicious food]], or letting her experience simple pleasures she missed out on due to her strict upbringing, like a trip to the amusement park or playing video games with friends. About the worst these "tortures" get is letting instant ramen get soggy, eating [[BlandNameProduct "Gorilla March"]] cookies without taking time to appreciate the little pictures on them, threatening to spoil her new favorite TV show, or making a baby polar bear cry by taking away his toy (and [[FluffyTamer Beast Master Krall]] is such an animal lover, [[EvenEvilHasStandards she quickly regrets that last one]]). All of these things the Princess declares horrible misdeeds.
* ''Manga/PopTeamEpic'': One strip has Popuko make a two-hour [=YouTube=] video where she eats potato chips while talking in an obnoxious fake voice and producing a lot of mic noise. The last panel shows her in ''jail'' - "Arrested for [=YouTube=] crimes".
* In the first chapter of ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', the hero Kamui Woods calls a criminal "pure evil" for stealing a purse. Granted, said villain did proceed to use his Quirk to turn into a giant monster, damaging some buildings and endangering bystanders, but it's still a rather minor crime compared to some of the [[CardCarryingVillain Card-Carrying Villains]] in the setting--especially since Mt. Lady, a superheroine who can also grow huge, ends up causing even worse property damage while apprehending the thief.
[[/folder]]

!!Administrivia/InUniverseExamplesOnly:

* In ''Manga/PandoraHearts'', [[RealityWarper the Will of the Abyss]] made [[OurMonstersAreDifferent the Chain]] Albus [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath explode]] because [[DisproportionateRetribution he had interrupted her while she was talking.]] Nevermind that [[spoiler: [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished Albus was trying to protect her from his contractor, who was about to stab her.]]]]

* An infamously {{memetic|Mutation}} panel from ''Literature/TheSuperDictionary'' illustrates the word "forty" by showing ComicBook/LexLuthor stealing forty cakes. That's as many as four tens. AndThatsTerrible.

* ''ComicBook/AnnihilationConquest'' shows a Kree prison where several prisoners (whom will go on to form the modern Guardians of the Galaxy) were arrested for things like parking fines (Rocket Racoon), impersonating royalty (Groot), and attacking Kree soldiers (Captain Universe). Then we see [[KavorkaMan Bug]], who is in prison for getting a Kree woman pregnant. The Kree are absolutely serious about their "genetic purity".

--->"Kaka carrot cake, when I was a child he... he... HE DIDN'T INVITE ME TO HIS BIRTHDAY PARTY!"
--->[[ThisIsUnforgivable "YOU MONSTER, FRISBEE!"]]

* ''Manga/PopTeamEpic'': One strip has Popuko make a two-hour [=YouTube=] video where she eats potato chips while talking in an obnoxious fake voice. The last panel shows her in ''jail'' - "Arrested for [=YouTube=] crimes".

* ''Animation/BoBoiBoy'': [=BoBoiBoy=] rejects Fang from joining [=BuBaDiBaKo=] because it's for good people only, and Fang recently made [=BoBoiBoy=] pay for Fang's donut, pranked [=BoBoiBoy=] when he was asleep in class and made it looks like [=BoBoiBoy=] was giving roses to Papa Zola, which apparently makes Fang more evil than [[ExBigBad Adu Du]] ever was.

* {{Subverted|Trope}} in ''Literature/StarshipTroopers''. An officer tells some officer candidates a story from the Napoleonic era: a junior navy officer during ship battle picks up his heavily wounded commander and carries him to a safe place. During that time all other officers on the ship are killed, so the young guy winds up a commanding officer on the ship-and, because he left his post, he stands trial and is cashiered (and is lucky not to be hanged). It seems a gross injustice for the candidates-but the officer explains that the punishment was completely justified: for an officer to have left his post without an order is really very SeriousBusiness because if a sudden catastrophe happens, it is much more likely to disrupt a unit without a commanding officer.

* ''{{Webcomic/Freefall}}'' - [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2000/fc01924.htm "A robot named Qwerty. wrote the first. of his epic. rap yodeling. operas. It was then. I knew conflict between [robots and humans]. was inevitable."]] He didn't force anyone to listen to it. Just writing it was enough to justify genocide.

[[folder: Films - Animated]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* In an episode of the {{Narm}}tastic show ''Series/SeventhHeaven'', a TotallyRadical [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy wigger]] calls Lucy a bitch. For the rest of the episode, using the B-word is likened to raping someone. But, since this is ''Series/SeventhHeaven'' we're talking about, it turns out that [[spoiler: the bully was just hiding behind a "jerk act", pretending to be mean to fit in with the cool kids. Cue the {{Anvilicious}} [[AnAesop Aesop]] about [[PeerPressureMakesYouEvil not giving in to peer pressure]]]].
* On ''[[Series/ThirtyRock 30 Rock]]'', Kenneth becomes addicted to caffeine and starts acting... out of the ordinary.
-->'''Tracy:''' So you had a little bender!\\
'''Kenneth:''' It's not just the coffee. I also went to a PG-13 movie. I bought a pair of sunglasses. I tried a Jewish doughnut! I'd always been told that New York was the 21st-century city of Sodom, and looks what's happened... I've become one of them! [[AccidentalInnuendo I've been sodomized!]]
* ''Series/TheAddamsFamily'' uses type 3 on multiple occasions. Many times, the "offense" really isn't offensive at all (reading fairy tales, wanting to join the scouts, playing with puppies, ''looking like a normal adorable baby'')... it's just that, to the Addams' strange beliefs and values, these are actually sickening and wrong.
* ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': When Lance Hunter is forced to defend Phil Coulson from [[spoiler:a splinter of S.H.I.E.L.D. that wants to depose him as director]], he admits that Coulson sometimes chews with his mouth open and hogs the mic at karaoke night.
* Both contestants and fans of ''Series/TheAmazingRace'' are guilty of this. It's understandable for a team to overreact when they're Yielded or U-Turned (though calling a team "Dirty Pirate Hookers" was probably going too far), but there are those who are willing to vilify a team simply for copying another team's flight arrangements or, even worse, having a "bad attitude".
* In ''Series/{{Angel}}'':
-->'''Angel:''' I'm not perfect, Faith. Even with a soul, I've done things I wished a thousand times I could take back.\\
'''Angelus:''' Yeah, like those Manilow concerts, you ''son of a bitch!''
* Type 3 happens in several episodes of ''Series/AreYouBeingServed'', including an instance of Mr. Humphries was once detained for having a "suspicious-looking bulge" from an orange in his pocket.
* ''Series/AsTimeGoesBy'': Lionel is detained while trying to find Jean. Jean, who is angry at him, refuses to vouch.
* A minor example played for laughs in ''Series/BandOfBrothers'': Webster is berating himself after getting shot. Not for getting shot, which he couldn't have avoided, but for in the heat of the moment shouting out "They got me!", which he finds horribly cliched.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
** [[AffablyEvil Mayor Wilkins]] makes a platitude-rich commencement speech right before Ascending (metamorphosing into a giant demon who means to eat the town).
--->'''Buffy''': My god! He’s going to do the entire speech!
--->'''Willow''': Man just ascend already!
--->'''Buffy''': Evil.
** More straightforwardly, the characters in Buffy had a tendency to get incredibly [[BuffySpeak lecture-y]] whenever one of them had a little too much to drink.
* ''Series/{{Castle}}'':
** When Demming, Beckett's new love interest, is suspected by the others of being a dirty cop planted into their recent investigation to sabotage it from within, they voice their suspicions of him from a distance. However, whereas the cops comment on things such as his suspicious reasons for requesting to be part of the case and his too-good-to-be-true dedication to the case, Castle's reasons for suspecting him -- based largely on his insecurity over suddenly having a competitor for Beckett's attention -- stem from his suspicion that "he probably goes to yoga classes just to pick up women" and "he probably subscribes to ''The New Yorker'' without even reading it".
** There's also the episode "Hedgefund Homeboys" where Castle tells his daughter Alexis to tell him if she's ever in trouble or does anything wrong after he works on a case involving a bunch of teenagers and a shooting. She later comes to him in tears and reveals that she once jumped a turnstile at the train station late one night, inciting this trope with complete honesty. Castle responds with relief and amusement but Alexis grounds herself for her heinous actions.
** Another time Castle and Beckett find out that Ryan's fiancée slept with another man while she was already dating Ryan. They fear that this information will destroy the relationship and angst over whether to tell him. When they finally tell him, he reveals that he already knew and didn't think that it was a problem, since they were only dating for a month at the time and were not yet exclusive. In fact, the scene where they finally decide to carefully approach the subject with Ryan, they mention the guy's diary of all the women he slept with, only for Ryan to eagerly ask if his fiancée is in there too.
* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'':
** The series reconstructed this in the episode "Morality Bites". The sisters use their powers to punish a man who lets his dog pee in their garden and Phoebe then sees a premonition of her own death in the future and the sisters travel there to find out that Phoebe used her powers to kill a man, got caught and was being burned at the stake while modern day witch trials were going on. When the sisters come back to their time, they discover that the man they punished at the start of the episode is the same man who was leading the witch trials in the future. Phoebe then suggests that them using their powers to punish the man starts them off using them for personal gain.
** A later episode involving parallel worlds does it again when their world becomes "too good" so any act that can be seen as criminal in any way is punished to the highest degree.
--->'''Piper:''' But this is just a little thing.\\
'''Phoebe:''' Once you break the small rules, it's only a matter of time before the big rules follow.
* ''Series/TheColbertReport'':
** PlayedForLaughs in a series of segments called ''Nailed 'Em'' where Colbert viciously attacks people who have got in trouble for doing something completely innocent. One segment features a high school student who was almost expelled because she was caught using drugs on school grounds. Said drugs were her ''birth control pills''.
** He also once presented us with the story of a girl who got taken from school by the cops because she had the ''audacity'' to bring pills to school. The pills? Ibuprofen.
* An interesting subversion in an episode of ''Series/ColdCase'': The victim was in prison for seven years for stealing a pair of shoes. He only got six months for the actual theft. The rest were added on for his repeated escape attempts. It may have been a ShoutOut to the ''Literature/LesMiserables'' example above.
* ''Series/{{Community}}'':
** Abed's methods of teaching the study group to respect and fear him in the episode [[Recap/CommunityS1E21ContemporaryAmericanPoultry Contemporary American Poultry]]. This involves cutting up a backpack, releasing a monkey from a cage, putting gum in hair, unplugging a TV, and feeding chicken fingers to a guy.
** In "[[Recap/CommunityS3E17BasicLupineUrology Basic Lupine Urology]]", a spoof of ''Franchise/LawAndOrder'', a ruined science experiment is treated with all the seriousness of a homicide. By contrast, Star-Burns is revealed to be stealing, selling drugs and running a meth lab from the trunk of his car, all of which are dismissed as irrelevant to the investigation.
** In "[[Recap/CommunityS4E07EconomicsOfMarineBiology Economics of Marine Biology]]", the Dean goes to absurd lengths to convince a rich kid to enroll at Greendale: he retools all the classes around the kid's interests, transforms much of the campus into a wild party, and hires prostitutes for entertainment. But what convinces the Dean he's gone too far? When he forbids LivingProp Magnitude from saying his CatchPhrase "Pop Pop!" because the rich kid wants that to be ''his'' catchphrase now. After Magnitude stays up all night, struggling and suffering to come up with a new catchphrase, the Dean actually says, "[[MyGodWhatHaveIDone My God, what have we done?]]"
* The opening sequence of ''Series/{{Dexter}}'' is a borderline case, as the montage shows us the protagonist accomplishing mundane acts of his morning routine (shaving, cooking eggs and bacon, lacing his shoes) in a way suggesting his psychopathic nature. In one of the DVD commentaries, it is explicitly stated that the title sequence is set up to show the violence in everyday life.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': "The Happiness Patrol" features a Type 2. On Terra Alpha, being a 'Killjoy' (i.e. being unhappy) is punishable by death.
* From the ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds" when Sheppard Book and Mal are discussing Mal's new [[AccidentalMarriage wife]].
-->'''Shepherd Book''': If you take sexual advantage of her, you're going to burn in a very special level of Hell. A level they reserve for child molesters... and people who talk at the theater.
* ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'': The b-plot of "It’s Better to Have Loved and Lost It" deals with Phil being investigated by an ethics committee as part of his campaign for the judicial seat. Geoffrey then decides to come clean about a deep, dark secret that he is keeping and which he fears could ruin Phil's campaign. What is this secret that could tarnish the Banks' by association? It turns out that before he became the family butler, Geoffrey participated in the long-distance race of 1976 Olympics. Geoffrey cheated by taking a cab to the Olympic Stadium parking lot which allowed him to get ahead of the other runners. Unfortunately, this act was caught on camera by a Japanese tourist. Geoffrey was stripped of his gold medal and declared "The Shame of a Nation" for his cheating. Rather than being angry at him, the Banks just laugh it off and assure him that the committee won't care about it at all.
* ''Series/{{Friends}}'': Joey has little interest in a second date with one of Phoebe's friends because ''she took fries from Joey's plate'' (complete with horrified slo-mo and evil musical strings from Joey's retelling of the story). Turns into HypocriticalHumor when Joey eats her food while she's in the bathroom.
-->'''Joey''': [[SeriousBusiness JOEY DOESN'T SHARE FOOD!]]
* ''Series/{{Glee}}'':
** Rachel and Finn were caught using the Cheerios' photocopier without Sue Sylvester's permission. Her response is to [[DisproportionateRetribution haul them to the principal's office and have them hobbled]]. He makes them pay the dollar or so for the paper and ink.
--->'''Sue''': Lady Justice wept today.
** Sue seems to think ''everything'' the Glee Club does is heinous. When they performed "Push It" at the school assembly (admittedly, with school-inappropriate choreography), Sue's "first reaction was that all the children [[DisproportionateRetribution should be put into foster care]]."
** Jesse's reaction to Rachel's [[spoiler:triplecasting him]] in "Bad Reputation."
** "Bad Reputation" also brings us Kurt's master plan to become badass -- have the Glee Club perform [[Music/MCHammer Can't Touch This]]. In the library. Needless to say, it backfired when the elderly librarian told them it was "cute" and asking them to perform it at her church.
* ''Series/TheGoodPlace'':
** Every single action in a person's life is judged and scored to see whether it had a positive or a negative effect on the universe, which then determines if they get into the Good Place. Positive effects include eating a sandwich, donating to charity, being a vegan, and ending slavery (that's how Lincoln got in). Negative effects include rape, murder, genocide, microwaving fish in an office microwave, being emotionally invested in ''Series/TheBachelor'', or taking off shoes and socks on a commercial airline.
--->'''Eleanor:''' Shoes ''and'' socks? What? No! Who would ''do'' that?\\
'''Michael:''' People who go to the Bad Place, Eleanor! And if you don't pass this test, you're going to be down there with them! With rapists, murderers, and people who take off their shoes and socks on a commercial airline!
** [[spoiler:As it turns out, due to a glitch in the system, ''every'' action ends up giving you negative points. Globalization means that the world is so connected that everyone is connected to everyone else. Michael checks the action of a man giving his grandmother flowers before and after globalization. Before, a man bought some flowers, his grandmother loved them, plus sixty points. After, a man bought the flowers from a shop that abuses its workers, who bought them from a farm that uses pesticides, owned by a CEO who cheats on his wife--resulting in a net loss of four points. ''No one'' has gotten into the Good Place in hundreds of years because of this.]]
* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'':
** Ted flashbacks to a date he had with a girl who had "the Crazy Eyes". As she and Ted are about to cross the street, a car screeches to a halt in front of them. The driver is apologetic, and Ted gestures that it's okay, but his date grabs a post and starts beating the car with it shouting [[PunctuatedForEmphasis "WATCH! WHERE! YOU'RE! GOING!"]]
** When Barney discovered that Ted has an ex who was once a porn star.
--->'''Barney:''' You dumped a PORN STAR?! Friendship over. FRIENDSHIP! OVER!
** Barney hates Gary Blauman because one time at [=McLaren=]'s, he took four of Barney's french fries, one of which was a curly fry that was accidentally added to the batch. Ted and Marshall agree with him.
--->'''Marshall:''' You take another man's ''wife'' before you take his accidental curly!
* ''Series/ICarly'':
** The most notable example is the "iMeet WebVideo/{{Fred}}" episode, where Freddie says that he doesn't think Fred's videos are all that funny, and Fred announces he's not going to make videos anymore. Freddie then suffers a HumiliationConga courtesy of everyone at school and his aunt. And later, Sam beats him with a tennis racket. And then throws him out of a treehouse and jumps on him.
** Another notable example is in "iEnrage Gibby", when Freddie trips on Gibby's girlfriend Tasha, causing Gibby to think he tried to kiss her. Gibby then becomes a borderline FauxAffablyEvil to Freddie and Tasha.
* Parodied in an episode of ''Series/TheITCrowd'' with an anti-piracy PSA which compared pirating films to stealing a handbag, stealing a baby, and shooting a policeman, stealing his helmet, pooping in it, sending it to his grieving wife, and stealing it again.
* ''Series/TheJewsAreComing'': A group of covert post-WWII [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis]] plot the ruination of Israel… by making it lose the Series/EurovisionSongContest year after year. This is a dig at the Israeli tendency to [[EverythingIsRacist ascribe defeats in international competitions to political motives and/or anti-Semitism]].
* ''Series/TheLeagueOfGentlemen'': Pop [[IHaveNoSon disowns his son]] Richie because he allowed a couple of kids to rob his newsstand. Of nine Maverick bars.
* ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' features a Type 2 when Nate is sent to prison. He finds that the warden is making backdoor deals to send innocent men to prison to increase his population and thus profits as it is a for-profit prison. Cue jailbreak with new mark thrown in for free.
** A similar case is shown in an episode of ''Series/TheGoodWife'', where a judge deliberately ignores plea bargains and sends people who have just plead guilty to jail for the maximum possible sentence. Specifically, he sends them to a private prison owned by a friend of his, who gives him a cut of the profits. Once Will finds out, he has the judge (an old friend) exposed.
* ''Series/{{Lucifer|2016}}'': Azrael's blade amplifies the rage in any human who handles it, causing them to commit murder for the slightest offenses. The team stumbles upon a scene where a dozen people were murdered because every time someone tried to get the knife from the person wielding it they started killing too. At the end of the episode, Dan nearly kills Lucifer over stolen yogurt.
* ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' did the fourth kind quite a few times, satirizing the way British culture used to encourage the first kind. The page quote comes from their restaurant sketch, combining this with MyGreatestFailure.
* In an episode of ''Series/TheNanny,'' a man that mugs Fran agrees to do community service and walks. Angered, Fran shouts out, "Meanwhile, I eat a couple of Bing cherries at the A&P, and I'm wrestled to the ground like Squeaky Fromme!"
* In one of the most famous sketches from ''Series/NotTheNineOClockNews '', Constable Savage is reprimanded for making arrests for "Looking At Me In A Funny Way", "Walking On The Cracks In The Pavement", "Smelling Of Foreign Food" and "Possession Of An Offensive Wife", among many, many other charges he has brought... against the same man. Said man is, at the time of the reprimand, being held on a charge of "Possession Of Curly Black Hair And Thick Lips".
* Played straight and averted in the same scene in ''Series/OnceUponATime'' between Belle and Rumplestiltskin. While Rumple is explaining her duties as his servant, Belle drops and chips a small cup. Clearly terrified that he's going to be furious, she stammers an apology but he just shrugs it off, saying "it's just a cup." Of course, that chipped cup later becomes one of his most precious possessions and even touching it means you'll be lucky if he just breaks all your bones...
* In ''Series/TheOrville'' episode "[[Recap/TheOrvilleS1E07MajorityRule Majority Rule]]", the people of Sargus 4 use social media to determine ''everything'', from what is true to whether someone is guilty. If someone does something extremely minor and a video of that goes viral, then that person can quickly accumulate a million downvotes, which automatically makes him a criminal (most businesses won't even service someone with half that many downvotes). What follows is an "apology tour", with the accused attending several talk shows, where he must convince the public of his redemption. During the "tour", if the criminal accumulates 10 million downvotes, he undergoes the local equivalent to a lobotomy, becoming a perpetually-happy vegetable. Yes, that's right, you can get lobotomized for saying or doing the wrong thing if someone with a smartphone is nearby.
* Creator/GrahamChapman's and Creator/DouglasAdams' ''Out of the Trees'' features the Peony Severance Sketch, where a man and his girlfriend are stopped by the police for picking a flower off somebody else's bush. [[DisproportionateRetribution It]] [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill escalates]] [[EarthShatteringKaboom quickly]].
* In ''Series/{{Psych}}'', there is [[NoodleIncident mention of]] a program meant to replace cops with {{robot}}s. Apparently, it didn't work out, as a robot ended up [[AIIsACrapshoot strangling]] [[LawfulStupid a jaywalker.]] This may just be a reference to ''Franchise/RoboCop''.
* In the ''Series/QuantumLeap'' episode "Memphis Melody," Sam's actions accidentally cause Elvis not to get discovered. Al checks the changes to history and says that "Heartbreak Hotel" gets recorded by Music/TheMonkees and "Blue Suede Shoes" by Tony Orlando and Dawn, to which he responds by miming throwing up.
* In one ''Series/RedDwarf'' episode, Lister confesses his darkest secret to Kryten: once, many years ago, ''he went into a wine bar''.
* In ''Series/SaturdayNightLive''[='s=] parody of ''Series/CountdownWithKeithOlbermann'', Olbermann's "special comment" was on a co-op board refusing to make an exception to its "no pets" policy for his cat, Miss Precious Perfect:
-->'''Olbermann''': And there it was. All perfectly legal. Like the 1942 internment of more than 100,000 Japanese-American citizens or the forced relocation of the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears or the monstrous injustice of our nation's Jim Crow laws. It was all perfectly legal and EVERY BIT AS WRONG if not, indeed, MORE SO!! Mr. Lieberstein, you speak of considerations of the rights of others! How DARE you, sir?! How DARE you?! Where, sir, in any of this, were the rights of Miss Precious Perfect considered? DAMN YOU, Mr. Lieberstein!! DAMN YOU TO HELL!!!
* ''Series/TheSlammer'' uses Type 3. When Sammy Sparkle admits that he is not really an entertainer, but is actually just a wannabe, Grimble is so horrified that he faints.
* On a couple of episodes of ''Series/SportsNight'', Bobbi Bernstein substitutes for Casey as anchor, which Dan has a problem with, since she claims he slept with her in Spain, and then never called. He swears not only has he never slept with her, he never even knew her back then, he's never been to Spain, and he wouldn't treat a woman like that. Whoever he tells this story to has the same response; "Oh, Dan. You never called?"
* In an early episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', the crew visits a pleasantly peaceful colony called Edo. While playing ball with the local kids, Wesley accidentally breaks a cheap gardening implement and discovers why the colony is so peaceful: every day a new area is randomly and secretly selected as a "punishment zone" and within it, all crime is punishable by death. The idea being that no one commits crime anywhere, just in case they're unknowingly in the punishment zone. [[ContrivedCoincidence Of course, that's exactly where Wesley is when he has his accident]]. And since his accident is treated as vandalism, the crew then has to negotiate their way out of having Wesley be put to death for tripping.
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
** Captain Sisko hunts down a traitor from his own chain of command. Traitor as in joining the Maquis, a group that attempts to harm only war-mongering Cardassians as policy. Said traitor believes that Sisko is blowing everything out of proportion, and references ''Literature/LesMiserables'' a lot. It's left up to the viewers to decide whether Sisko is truly upholding Federation values as he states, or is just secretly pissed that someone would dare "leave paradise" (TheFederation), as the traitor claims.
** This is played for laughs in all of its ValuesDissonance glory in the episode "Bar Association": [[BeleagueredAssistant Rom]] is tired of his brother [[BadBoss Quark's]] cutting the pay of his employees using a recurring slump in business as an excuse and forms a union. Several of the [[PlanetOfHats Ferengi]] employees are so disturbed at the mere thought that they feel faint and Rom can barely bring himself to say the word.
** Quark was even exiled from Ferengi society for a time for the unforgivable sin of... breaking a contract to sell his remains when he thought he was dying (this was going to be "enforced" with him being ''killed'', no less). This was played as the responsible enforcer acting out a grudge, and against Ferengi norms.
** Then there's Quark's mother, who liked to ''wear clothing!'' Ferengi who saw her in clothing invariably reacted the same way a human would who accidentally walked in on someone who was undressing. Even worse than wearing clothing was her most heinous crime: deliberately ''earning money''. This later attitude starts to slowly change, though, when someone points out that women earning money means they can now buy things (i.e. more profit for merchants).
* A non-comedic example occurs in an episode of ''Series/TouchedByAnAngel'' which features a girl whose angelic voice moved God Himself... but her life is marred by a tragic addiction to ''chewing gum.'' Even earthly human society seemed to consider this a terrible moral failing. Perhaps [[Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory Roald Dahl]] could have written for that show! It's supposed to be an "anything can be bad if taken to extremes" moral, [[BrokenAesop but it falls on its face pretty badly]]. And once you consider that Monica [[DoubleStandard has a caffeine addiction]] that's always played for laughs, it's quite hypocritical of the writers to play an addiction to chewing gum for drama.
* Marvin in ''Series/{{Weeds}}'' claims to have once brought back the wrong order from 7-11 for U-turn. He now has an artificial patella.
* ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'': Stevie incites an insurrection in order to overturn the Council's "one wizard per family" rule. Irresponsible rabble-rousing, or much-needed social reform? You be the judge.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/BangaiO''[='s=] ExcusePlot revolves around the protagonists punishing a gang that smuggles '''fruit'''. ''Bangai-O Spirits'' doesn't even bother with the ExcusePlot, making new players [[FridgeLogic wonder why destroyed enemies leave behind fruit pickups]].
* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'': The game begins when Bruce Wayne is violently arrested by [[PrivateMilitaryCompany TYGER Security]] goons and thrown into [[HellholePrison Arkham]] [[TheAlcatraz City]] for the heinous crime of... leading a peaceful protest to have the complex shut down[[note]][[BatmanGambit As with most things Batman]], this is AllAccordingToPlan[[/note]].
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
** This is a recurring trend throughout the series, relating to ArtificialStupidity as well as ShopliftAndDie. CityGuards will call you "criminal scum" and relentlessly pursue you to the ends of Tamriel, regardless of whether you've incurred a 5 gold bounty for stealing some VendorTrash or ''5000'' gold bounty for committing multiple murders. ''Skyrim'' takes steps to address this trope for the first time in the series in regards to bounties - If your bounty is low enough, they won't bother seeking you out and, should you speak to them first with a bounty, they can be convinced to let you go since you aren't worth their time.
** This is also a frequent issue within the series' various [[SidequestSidestory guilds and factions]]. You can be the leader of a given faction, but accidentally pick up an item belonging to another member (thus, counting as theft) or even ''sleep in a bed that belongs to someone else'', and you can be expelled. In some cases, the other faction members will even attempt to kill you.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsArena Arena]]'' takes it UpToEleven. Committing literally ''any'' crime will cause guards to spawn out of nowhere. Think they'll simply arrest you? Think again. Whether you murder someone outright or simply fail to pick a lock, they will attempt to kill you without mercy.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'':
*** As mentioned above, ''Skyrim'' takes the first major steps in the series to address the issues that come with this trope. That said, it still isn't a perfect solution. For example, you can be defending a town from a rampaging dragon attack, but if you accidentally kill a chicken caught in the crossfire, the villagers and guards will break off from fighting the dragon to attack ''you'' instead.
*** [[TheHedonist Sanguine]]'s Daedric quest has you partake in a great orgy of debauchery, after which you learn that you've committed a horrible crime: selling a farmer's prize-winning goat to a giant.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'':
** In the addon "Broken Steel", there's a radio in the Jefferson Memorial. When you shut it down, all the Brotherhood of Steel soldiers inside it will try to kill you, even if you turn it on again. However, if they don't see you turning it off, they won't bother a second.
** ''Fallout 3'' and ''[[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas New Vegas]]'' are based off the same engine as the above ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion''. It makes sense that the local citizenry react the same way; although this does get rather irritating when you're going to, say, go activate Trudy's radio so you can fix it, you turn an inch too far or stop an inch too short, accidentally hit "steal glass mug" instead... And now have the entire bar trying to shoot you in the damn head as you're yelling at the screen "MY HAND SLIPPED, IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!"
** Related to this, everyone who sees you even ''look'' at something as seemingly insignificant as a coffee cup or pencil that doesn't belong to you (even if you don't actually select it) loudly makes it clear they're ready to throw down in an instant over it. People in this universe are paranoid about their random junk. This was thankfully removed in ''New Vegas''.
** If you ''pickpocket'' someone and get caught, they will just say "That doesn't belong to you!" and take it back (often with compensation). But if you take a bent tin can off the bar table, ''everyone'' wants you dead except your followers, who will always help you. So you can take Star Paladin Cross (good as good can be) into Megaton, steal some junk off a table, and she will gladly help you gun down ''all'' the not-exactly evil citizens.
** In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 1}}'', in Junktown a Doctor name Doc Morbid (Seriously) is questionable in his ethics, he won't think twice about removing one of your eyes if you tick him off, and he has a butcher lab in his basement which he sells human meat to a trader saying it's Gecko Meat. Seems enough of a psychopath to kill right? Well, it turns out despite all that he is still a good Doctor regardless and the only Doctor in the city. So people will be pretty pissed if you kill him.
** If one gets the Good Karma ending for the inhabitants of the Sink in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', [[spoiler: the other residents of the Sink get fed up with the AxCrazy TokenEvilTeammate, the Toaster, and [[ElectrifiedBathtub throwing him in the tub]]. [[DyingDeclarationOfHate His response]] is this - he declares that the sink will rue the day they have bread - '''and no way to toast it!''']].
** In the series backstory, it’s mentioned that the last President of the United States prior to the apocalypse was impeached for ''jaywalking''. Though in this case its all but explicitly stated that the jaywalking thing was just an excuse; the ''real'' reason Congress wanted him out of office was that he pretty much kicked off the whole conflict by ordering the annexation of Canada.
* ''VideoGame/{{Hitman}}'':
** In the series (especially in the [[VideoGame/HitmanCodename47 first two]] [[VideoGame/Hitman2SilentAssassin games]]), guards will generally attack you with deadly force the moment your cover is blown. Now, this may be justified for your more murderous activities, but in ''[[VideoGame/Hitman2SilentAssassin Hitman 2]]'', guards everywhere passionately hate ''runners''. Run by a guard too closely? Expect to get shot in the head two seconds later, no questions asked.
** Likewise, you're in a party posing as a guest, you go to the back room or kitchen without permission, you get shot on sight. Those are some trigger-happy guards. This kind of behavior is mitigated in ''[[VideoGame/HitmanBloodMoney Blood Money]]''.
* Early in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', Reno, a guy who wants to kill the main character and kidnap Aeris, orders his troops to go after Cloud... and tells them "Don't step in the flowers", [[{{Hypocrite}} while standing in the flowers himself]]. [[LampshadeHanging One of his minions points this out]].
* In ''VideoGame/UltimaVIIIPagan'', any crime committed in the main city will cause the local law-enforcing sorcerer to be summoned, who will [[KangarooCourt promptly]] (and [[LudicrousGibs graphically]]) blow you to smithereens, [[CutsceneIncompetence without any means for self-defense or escape]]. Crimes may range from murder, assault or theft right down to [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking being rude to said sorcerer]].
* In ''VideoGame/GoldeneyeRogueAgent'', you can get unlocks by earning "rogue bonuses" which are awarded for particularly "evil" actions. Said actions are things like headshots, taking human shields, shooting ExplodingBarrels, hacking enemy turrets, etc... all things that are present in many other FPS and which an experienced player will already be doing by this point. Apparently, we were evil all this time, who knew?
* The dwarven justice system in ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' has values skewed along this trope's lines. Heinous crimes such as smashing nearly-valueless furniture or failing to manufacture the specific pointless trinket demanded by one of the fort's nobles can net a dwarf a month in prison (which is often a death sentence because feeding prisoners is a low-priority task[[note]]Though a well-designed prison can bypass those issues and make jail time a passing inconvenience rather than something more severe[[/note]]) or a "beating" by an officer of the fortress guard. The fortress guard assigned to deliver the beating will use whatever weapon he's carrying to full effect in the course of the beating, so if you've given your fortress guard battleaxes expect a fountain of blood and severed limbs to ensue. Conversely, outright murder is usually punished by a sentence of around 200 days in prison.
* ''Franchise/TouhouProject'':
** A lot of the "incidents" behind the {{Excuse Plot}}s fall into this trope, as apparently things like an unusual number of ghosts appearing, people having lots of parties, and lots of flowers blooming warrant going out and beating the crap out of whoever is responsible. This is mostly justified though, as the denizens of Gensoukyou are varying degrees of [[ChaoticNeutral batshit insane]] and will use any excuse for a fight.
** Interestingly, a number of "incidents" could be considered in the same category - "meteorological" - and could have also demonstrated either a failure of the Great Border or an ecological threat, both of which are terribly serious issues for a PocketDimension with a [[WeirdnessCensor undefined degree of filtration]] from the Outside World. The red mist, delayed Spring, an incorrect gibbous moon, a delayed Autumn, earthquakes, geysers, more red mist.
** Additionally, [[FantasticRacism being a youkai is a crime]], as far as [[ShrineMaiden Reimu]] is concerned.
--->'''Reimu:''' A ''youkai'' was just sitting there minding its own business. And it was enjoying a book, too! I tried to exterminate it with a surprise attack...
** The characters mostly don't consider these things heinous (Reimu kind of acts like she does, but she's a jerk); things have been set up so that reacting to something strange by going out and beating the shit out of everyone you meet is not only largely harmless but actually works towards preserving Gensoukyou.
* Sometime before the start of ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea 2|Cursed Memories}}'', Etna abandoned Larharl and set out to become an Overlord stronger than him, because he committed the heinous crime of... eating her favorite pudding.
** An act so vile that, to make sure you agree with Etna, [[VisualNovel/DisgaeaInfinite a game was made to cover that!]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea 3|AbsenceOfJustice}}'', Almaz will have you know that he would ''never'' indulge in such perverse, vile temptations as... wearing matching outfits on dates with his crush, or getting her to make him a sandwich.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': A downplayed example in ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' and their remakes; Cerulean City has a cop blocking the door to a house. He states that the house has been robbed, and that only Team Rocket could have committed such a heinous crime. Granted, robbery is a crime, and depending on how much they stole, it could be an actual felony, but the officer makes it sound like they burned down an orphanage.
* The sex scene in ''[[VideoGame/ChzoMythos 6 Days A Sacrifice]]'' was a combination of types 1 and 3 for Yahtzee, which he freely admitted in Quovak's LetsPlay of the series. Yahtzee intended it to be a sign that the protagonist and his fellow prisoner were at the end of their ropes and opting to let go of those metaphorical ropes entirely; the audience saw a romance scene between a neurotic woman and a guy with nearly every bone in his body broken, and promptly asked, "Yahtzee, what the hell?!"
* ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'':
** The Illusive Man's reaction to seeing Shepard after (s)he storms [[spoiler:the Cerberus base]].
--->'''The Illusive Man''': Shepard. ''You're in my chair.''
** In the ''Citadel'' DLC after locking him/her in an air-tight tank to suffocate, attempting to steal the Normandy and stealing his/her identity, what is it that [[spoiler:Shepard's clone]] does [[ItsPersonal that really pisses Shepard off?]] Messing with his/her hamster.
* Bounties can be like this in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption.'' If your horse accidentally knocks someone down in front of witnesses, vigilantes will shoot you dead to collect that $5 bounty.
* In all of the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' games, you can murder people on the street and no one would notice. But God help you if you so much as scratch a police car...
** While we're at it, most of the series comes off as the [[LogicalExtreme ultimate]] [[InvertedTrope inversion]] of this trope. You can do whatever you want. Just whatever. Stealing cars, commit mass murder on a public lane, cause damage of cataclysmic proportions on a main highway, Kill the entire police department, shoot down multiple helicopters, enter a military zone, hijack a jet, ride the aforementioned vehicle above the goddamned city and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking vandalize a graffiti]]. If a cop somehow manages to arrest you, you WILL be punished. Just hope you like 6 hours of your life and less than 1000$ as a fine. This whole thing seems to be just an egregious case of {{GameplayAndStorySegregation}}, though.
* In ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankUpYourArsenal'', in the spaceport on one planet, you'll sometimes hear a PSA over an intercom stating that due to heightened security restrictions, looking suspicious is now illegal and all violators will be disintegrated and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking fined]].
* Type 3 crops up in episode 4 of ''VideoGame/WallaceAndGromitsGrandAdventures'', "The Bogey Man", where Miss Flitt and her stuffy aunt treat ''golf'' as a soul-scarring, life-destroying vice akin to alcoholism, and distribute tracts showing a man going mad with frustration as he struggles in vain to master the game. [[spoiler: Which turn out to be part of the solution to a puzzle.]]
* ''VideoGame/SaintsRow'':
** In ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird'', police will try to kill you for streaking. Interestingly this only applies when actively engaged in the streaking mini-game. Walking around with no clothes on does not draw any attention by itself.
** In ''VideoGame/SaintsRowIV'', the Boss and Pierce treat BigBad Zinyak butchering Biz Markie's "Just a Friend" by singing it in an opera-style voice as an equal if not greater crime than any of his actual villainy (invading Earth, abducting many noteworthy humans for his personal collection and trapping them in virtual reality simulations of their own personal IronicHell, [[spoiler:blowing up Earth with the rest of humanity still on it]], etc).
* ''VideoGame/{{Elite}}'':
** In ''VideoGame/EliteDangerous'', one of the regular public service station announcements is "Loitering is a crime, punishable by death. Please ensure you have authorization before entering the docking bay.". They're not kidding about the death thing.
* In ''VideoGame/TheFeebleFiles'', the totalitarian Omni Corporation's directives are an absolute ''minefield'' of those. For instance, if Feeble attempts to talk to a police officer in a simple attempt to start a friendly conversation, the officer is quick to twist his innocent intents into a big enough of an affront towards the Corporation and [[BigBad [=OmniBrain=]]] to consider it justified to send him for personality restructuring; the only reason he doesn't is because he chose to be "merciful" that time. Also, if one of the Happiness Robots catches you being unhappy for any reason, then he has no qualms about [[DisproportionateRetribution erasing you from existence on the spot]].
* PlayedForLaughs in ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' ''Dual Strike''. Tag-teamed [=COs=] have an affinity rating based on how well they work together (e.g. [[ShipTease Eagle and Sami]] have the highest bonus in the game), which gives firepower bonuses. Some characters get along so badly they get firepower ''penalties'' instead of bonuses when teaming up. Examples include Olaf and Lash ([[DoomedHometown she destroyed his hometown]]), Hawke and any Green Earth [=CO=] (he led a brutal invasion of Green Earth in the last game) and any Allied Nations [=CO=] and the BigBad. Which two [=COs=] have a worse Tag Affinity than all of the above, a whopping ''35% firepower penalty''? Rachel and Koal. The reason? ''He insulted her face''.
* In the second game of the ''VideoGame/TyTheTasmanianTiger'' series, what is Ty concerned about upon finding out that Boss Cass and his diplomats are above the law as long as they are there on official Cassopolis business? Double parking, opening other people's mail and leaving the milk out.
* Due to its dystopian-like setting, almost any action in ''VideoGame/FreedomWars'' can be considered as a violation of the People's Charter. Simply talking to another person or running for a certain amount of time is enough to add a few years to one's sentence. And that's not accounting the fact that ''being alive'' is worth a million years of penal servitude.
* ''VideoGame/SengokuBasara: Samurai Heroes''. [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity Ishida Mitsunari]]'s [[StoryBranching Blue Path]] is set into motion when Mitsunari suddenly remembers that he once fought someone who mouthed off about his lord in his presence. When informed that the man in question (Date Masamune) is still alive, Mitsunari immediately decides to suspend his RoaringRampageOfRevenge against his ArchEnemy (who ''killed'' said lord) just so he can hunt down the vile insulter first. Masamune's reaction when Mitsunari finally catches up to him is one of bemused disbelief that anyone could be ''that'' determined over a petty insult.
* ''VideoGame/LegendsOfValour'': The player could easily be arrested for "acting suspiciously".
* Several of the dwarf grudges in ''VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammer'' can get comedically petty, of the 'dark humor' variety. Sure, there's the usual "avenge our army/character/town falling to the enemy" grudge, but then there's the "Halfling nutty pudding grudge" which requires you to sabotage a dwarf faction (who's possibly your friend or ally) and set off a CycleOfRevenge over that faction having kidnapped a halfing chef who made a nut pudding your king was very fond of, the grudge where you start a war with the Vampire Counts to avenge the use of dwarf corpses in a terrible piece of amateur theater by a necromancer ("a terrible Grudge, for it is indeed a terrible play!"), or the one where you have to start raiding the human faction of Ostermark (again most likely starting a war) over their Elector Count having short-changed dwarf stonemasons ''two pennies'' after building him a public works project.
* Bribed referees in ''VideoGame/MutantFootballLeague'' will make up completely nonsensical penalties on the opposing team.
-->'''Referee:''' Look, Killadelpha Evils, you friended me a while back and I'm sick of your political posts on Facelessbook. They still don't have a dislike button, so have a 10 yard penalty instead.\\
'''Referee:''' Stupidity penalty on the New Yuck Tyrants for insisting that ''Music/{{Rush}}'' is better than ''Music/LedZeppelin'', that's 10 yards.\\
'''Referee:''' 10 yard Unfashionable conduct penalty on the Scarolina Panzers, wearing Crocs and socks in public.\\
'''Referee:''' 10 yard penalty on the Karcass City Creeps because life is harsh, unfair, and punishing, and nobody brought me any [[FourTwentyBlazeIt substances]] to cope.\\
'''Referee:''' 10 yard penalty on the Grim Bay Attackers for watching those flat earth videos. You guys fell down a rabbit hole for idiots!
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'':
** The Earl of Lemongrab has some... er, interesting concepts when it comes to punishing those who do wrong. Making a mess? Thirty days in the dungeon. Asking questions? Thirty-TWO days in the dungeon. Refusing to clean up mess, or asking who exactly Lemongrab is talking to? Three hours dungeon. Harmless prank? Seven years dungeon, no trials. Assuring Lemongrab that the prank was harmless? Twelve years dungeon. Elaborate, painful prank involving spicy food? ONE MILLION YEARS DUNGEON!!! (Lemongrab isn't evil--he's just young, angry, and a bit of an idiot.)
** Princess Bubblegum and Finn decide to play a harmless prank on the earl of Lemongrab-- they leave a sign beside his bed that says "YOU REALLY SMELL LIKE DOG BUNS." How does the earl react? He clenches his fists, starts shaking, and opens up his mouth wide to scream loudly in sheer outrage for several seconds. And how does he attempt to punish those responsible? Round up EVERYONE in the castle, to sentence them to seven years in the dungeon, no trials!
** [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Marceline]] writes a heart-breaking, soul-crushing, tear-jerking ballad which questions if her dad even loves her because.... he ate her fries. A bit HarsherInHindsight, as in "Memory of a Memory" we see Marceline's dad ate her fries [[spoiler: while they were ''scavenging for food in a post-apocalyptic wasteland'', and Marceline was still human (well, half-demon) while her father had always been a demon, so dying of starvation was a real possibility for her]].
* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' had Stan arrested for egging a house. While the judge did rule it as a misdemeanor at his sentencing, the police response was pretty exaggerated. In which, Stan was tackled by one officer, while another officer kicked him in the chest a few times before drawing his gun on Stan and another officer arrives to pepper-spray him in the face with two more squad cars arriving and a police helicopter shining it's spotlight on Stan.
* In "[[Recap/ArthurS1E30ArthursFirstSleepoverArthursNewYearsEve Arthur's New Year's Eve]]" from ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'', Franince Frensky tells Arthur that the New Year's Police arrest anyone who doesn't immediately throw out their old calendars when midnight ushers in New year's Day. Arthur has an ImagineSpot of his Grandma Thora being arrested by these police, who are depicted wearing party hats.
* Used in ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender''.
-->'''Guard:''' Your Majesty, these juveniles were arrested for [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking vandalism, traveling under false pretenses, and malicious destruction of cabbages]].\\
'''Cabbage Merchant:''' [[OffWithHisHead Off with their heads!]] One for each head of cabbage!
* In the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode [[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE25TheClockKing "The Clock King"]]: Killing a man because he recommended you to relax, which wound up making you late? That's this trope alright, even ''if'' Fugate mistakenly believes Hill intently sabotaged him as it was his law firm that filed the injunction he ended up being late to; it's even lampshaded:
-->'''Batman:''' Give it up, Fugate. Hill committed no crime against you.\\
'''Clock King:''' He did worse. He made me late!
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'' episode "The Laughing Bat", ComicBook/TheJoker [[CostumeCopycat dresses as Batman]] and attacks "criminals" for offenses like jaywalking and going through [[ExpressLaneLimit the ten-item lane]] with eleven items.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' features ComicBook/BlackLightning acting like this in a dream sequence, during which he shoots lightning at people for the heinous acts of... putting sprinkles in coffee, not cleaning up after their dogs, driving an SUV, wearing white after Labor Day, and making "Smell That Pig IV". At one point he attacks Batman because he doesn't like his costume.
* In season 2 of ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'', Grandad, Riley, Huey, and Jasmine all sneak into a movie without paying for it and are treated to a warning about movie piracy that insists that pirating movies makes you the most horrible, evil, violent person on earth. The boys all ignore it but by the time the completely over-the-top announcement is over, [[TheWoobie Jasmine]] is bawling her little eyes out and begging for them to take her out of the theater out of guilt. This is based off a series of strips in the comic (which is in turn based off a series of PSA's about movie piracy) where they show various people's over-the-top tearjerking plights thanks to movie piracy - one of which is a bootlegger who can't sell ''his'' pirated movies anymore.
* ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'':
** Almost all the villains are built on this. Simple things most kids don't like doing such as homework, washing dishes, eating vegetables, and going to the dentist are blown to world-destroying proportions.
** One episode features a hardware store owner who wants to eliminate two aviators who bought their plane parts from him. Why? Because they ''kept smudging his counter with chili''. DisproportionateRetribution much?
* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'', with the episode "The Ultimate Enemy." Danny cheats on a test, and what are the consequences? Not a detention, or a lecture, or auto-failing the test. Rather, [[spoiler:circumstances make everyone he truly cared for ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg plus his English teacher]]) die, which also brought [[LocalHangout The Nasty Burger]] along with them in a horrendous explosion, which was caused by an exploded pack of hot sauce, which caused the boiler to leak, which eventually caused said explosion, which also took his family, his friends, and his English teacher along with it, and Danny's ghost half separating to became an ''OmnicidalManiac with no humanity or morals whatsoever'']].
* In the ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' episode "Dexter Detention", Dexter is sent to detention after unwillingly helping a student cheat. The detention warden seems to think getting under his wing is unforgivable, calling the kids there "criminals" and forcing them to [[WritingLines write lines]] and worse punishments. Then in the end, apparently escaping detention is enough to send Dexter to the state prison.
* One ''WesternAnimation/DudleyDoRight'' episode involves having the titular character be discharged from the Mounted Police for doing the unthinkable...[[spoiler:eating his peas...with a ''KNIFE''!]] His horse was also discharged. ''His'' crime? [[spoiler: It was his knife.]]
* Used in the WartimeCartoon ''WesternAnimation/EducationForDeath''. A boy is made to stand in the corner of a classroom wearing a DunceCap because he expressed sympathy for a rabbit that got eaten by a fox. Unfortunately, this is set in Nazi Germany and the lesson (that the fox should be admired for eating the rabbit because MightMakesRight) works as his PoliticallyMotivatedTeacher intended: the boy becomes a mindless, ruthless and evil prospective soldier for the Nazi regime.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', the first ''WesternAnimation/OhYeahCartoons'' short nearly ends with Vicky getting fired after Timmy proves he doesn't need a babysitter. Then his parents see a pepperoni in his teeth, and conclude [[YankTheDogsChain if he can't do proper tooth care, he can't be trusted alone]].
* In an early episode of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' the FBI burst into Peter's living room and shoot the VCR when he attempts to tape Monday Night Football with the expressly-written consent of ABC, but not the NFL.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Fillmore}}'', a police-procedural-type show set in a school, is the undisputed master of this, both for the title character and the show in general.
** Fillmore himself is treated, by many people in the show, like an unstable/possibly violent ex-convict for his past crimes. What are those crimes, you ask? Directly ripped from the opening sequence: Chalk boosting, locker rigging, a comic book poker ring, cutting class, milk counterfeiting (non dairy creamer), and backtalkery. For this sordid past, he has many TheAtoner moments. This is before we even get into the scooter jacking ring, tartar sauce smuggling, and the time Fillmore's pet was almost killed by a boy in return for the answer sheet to a particularly hard test. Another episode features a psychotic, monotone, genius IQ boy who had to be locked up in total isolation because the spray paint tagging he was doing all over the school were so traumatizing they could make people physically ill.
** Fillmore once inflicted this on the school mini-golf team. They (somewhat understandably) refuse to let him join them since he was a juvenile delinquent. How did this pre-HeelFaceTurn Fillmore react? [[DisproportionateRetribution By challenging them to a game with their trophies and other memorabilia as the stakes, mercilessly beating them and breaking their spirits]]...yikes...
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', Zoidberg accidentally destroys the Professor's model ship and decides to frame Fry in order to avoid blame. He later becomes wracked with grief and self-loathing after Fry has to pay for the damages to the amount of ''ten dollars''. Justified, as to Zoidberg, ten dollars is a VERY large amount. He's too poor to realize that Fry simply rummaged his pockets to pay off the debt.
* In the episode "Wanted: Wade!" of ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'', Wade pulls a tag off of a couch, then sees that the tag [[MattressTagGag says that it's against the law to remove it.]] This causes him to run frantically around and have a dream where the police are after him for ripping off the couch tag. In that dream, tearing a tag off a pillow is so bad a crime it even gets two hardened robbers of banks and gas stations to grab the bars of the cell and want out when Wade admits his "crime" to them. Later, Wade sees a police car on the farm and gets him into his panic. When Orson tries to convince Wade he won't go to jail for it, a voice tells them and Roy "We know you're in there, come out with your hands up! We have you surrounded!", and Roy, Wade, and Orson run for it.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/GirlstuffBoystuff'' has Talia and Reanne having an ImagineSpot of Ben getting arrested by the Video Store Police for spoiling movie plots out loud and "enjoying ''Honky Tonk Heatwave''".
* In the ''WesternAnimation/GoofTroop'' episode, "Axed by Addition," Pete does this to ''himself.'' Among genuinely abusive and/or totalitarian actions he regrets doing to PJ, he also lists the heinous crimes of making him use "the manly deodorant" and a ''handkerchief.'' His overdramatic delivery of the latter suggests he finds it ''more'' reprehensible than everything else he mentions, which includes sending him to obedience school for not cleaning his room.
* Pepper in ''WesternAnimation/IronManArmoredAdventures'' believes removing a friend from her My Face account is more heinous than ripping their spleen out of them.
* On ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'', Jimmy thinks up several horrible punishments of what [[LouisCypher Lucius]] will do to him when he finds out what he's done. He laughs them off. When [[YesMan Samy]] tells him that he'll take away his TV privileges, he reacts with horror.
* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'': In "A Better World," the Justice Lords' fascist rule is such that one man is arrested on the spot simply for complaining about his restaurant bill.
* The ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short "WesternAnimation/DaffyDoodles" begins with this ominous bit of narration that describes what role Daffy Duck is playing this time around:
-->In a large eastern city, a demon is on the loose. The people are terrified. The police baffled. With diabolical cleverness, the monster strikes without warning... [[MustacheVandalism and draws moustaches on all the ads]].
* OncePerEpisode on ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR'', Coop berates the MonsterOfTheWeek with a list of everything evil they did in that episode and a declaration that he's going to kick their ass because of it. The final item on the list is always something extremely innocuous and is always the thing Coop claims is the most heinous act out of all of them.
* Type 3 is used in the ''WesternAnimation/TheMightyB'' episode "Toot Toot", which is about Bessie farting during a meeting and getting kicked out of the Honeybees for it. It sends her into a HeroicBSOD, and the other Honeybees are suffering without her. However, just as Bessie was about to burn her manual, she realizes that farting is a natural function and that there is a badge called the "Toot-Toot" Badge, which is rewarded for those who go through farting in public with dignity.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** Pinkie Pie invokes this with her deadly-serious attitude towards keeping secrets in "Green Isn't Your Color".
--->'''Pinkie Pie:''' Losing a friend's trust is the fastest way to lose a friend forever! '''''FOR-EV-ER!!!'''''
** Rarity simply cannot abide crimes against fashion and/or fabulosity. She's willing to yell at a rampaging dragon just for damaging her clothes, rather than [[SkewedPriorities abducting her]].
** Later, in "Lesson Zero", Twilight Sparkle actually suffers a psychotic breakdown when she thinks that she'll be unable to write her weekly [[AnAesop Aesop of the week]] letter to the princess and therefore be... gasp... '''tardy'''!
** Also, in "The Cutie Pox", it turns out Pinkie Pie ate not two, not three, but''' ''six'' '''corn cakes (and possibly even more than that)!
** [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E14TheLastRoundup "NOPONY breaks a Pinkie Promise!"]]
** Twice in "Read it and Weep", as not only does the plot revolve around non-egghead Rainbow Dash being into reading, she also gets the hospital's staff on her case because they thought she had broken in to steal a patient's slippers.
** "Peeved" is apparently a strong curse-word in Equestria, as a mother covers her child's ears and glares after Fluttershy struggles to drop a P-Bomb.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': In the season 1 finale "Young Blood, Old Souls", Luz and King plan to get deliberately arrested so they can sneak themselves into the Conformatorium, break out, and rescue Eda. They do this by deliberately ignoring a "Keep Off the Grass" sign in front of a guard.
* In ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'', Candace is thrown out of the museum for yelling. She meets another kid, who was thrown out of the same museum for stealing a pterodactyl. He's impressed by how hardcore she is.
* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'':
** When the Mayor gets called out for HoldingOutForAHero to the girls, he jumps into a Hot Air Balloon with Miss Bellum and starts to punch criminals with an extendable glove from the air. It starts by hitting a genuine mugger but then escalates to him hitting people he only ''thinks'' are committing a crime.
** The episode where Buttercup was exiled from Townsville because she refused to take a bath (though to be fair, she had recently fought a monster that seemed to be made of raw sewage).
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}'':
** The show liked to revisit the unwritten code of honor kids must live by on the playground. Everything from how a scuffle is conducted to weird superstitions is treated as deadly serious, and God help you if you don't automatically know all the rules; if you're ''really'' lucky, you'll have friends who not only do know the rule you broke, but how to restore your honor as well.
** The word "whomp" is treated a ''so bad'' a swear that ''SWAT teams'' are brought in and the kids are out in ''court''.
** In the episode where the kids protest the tearing down of an old jungle gym by staying on it endlessly, Prickly decides to initiate "Plan P", which Ms. Grotke calls "extreme". The plan: [[spoiler: calling the kids' parents]].
* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'': In "Get Schwifty", a giant alien head appears in the sky and starts creating catastrophic weather. A religion called "Headism" forms around said head, where people such as goths, "movie talkers", and "inappropriate joke tellers" are executed via "Ascension" (AKA being [[{{Balloonacy}} strapped to several balloons and floating up into the sky]]).
* Inverted for comedic effect in a ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' sketch: After Paris Hilton is arrested, Nicole Richie decides to break her "best friend/meal ticket" out of jail, in a parody of ''Series/PrisonBreak''. To get herself arrested, she robs a bank. The tellers say that will probably only get her a fine, so she shoots him. The guard throwing her in jail proclaims:
-->"Stupid celebrity! Armed robbery AND murder? You'll be locked up for forty-five ''days.''"
* In ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'', Rocko [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything was once chased out by his friends]] because ''he likes'' '''''rainbows.'''''
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** In "Fear of Flying", Homer is banned from the bar for loosening the lid on a sugar dispenser, in the aftermath of pranks which involved ''setting Moe's clothing on fire'' and ''loading his cash register with a live cobra''.
** In another episode he has to take care of an endangered caterpillar and almost kills it by mistake. He is sentenced to 200 hours of community service for "attempted insecticide" and "aggravated buggery." Made especially ridiculous because, as Homer put it, God clearly ''wanted'' it to die. (The species is [[TooDumbToLive sexually attracted to]] ''[[KillItWithFire fire]],'' for example.)
** Another episode, "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS18E18TheBoysOfBummer The Boys of Bummer]]", involves Bart failing to catch a fly ball in a championship baseball game when Springfield was one out away from winning in the bottom of the ninth, causing Shelbyville to win, and the entire town relentlessly boos Bart horribly (except his family). They sing a song on the radio about how horrible he is. They throw lots of food at him. And when Bart is about to jump off a water tower, they tell Bart they're not mad anymore, and when he falls off and ends up in the hospital ''they continue to yell at him even though he almost died''.
** Principal Skinner talks about the horrible thing he did in the Vietnam War. He stole cupcakes.
** Skinner also behaves this way when the teacher's edition textbooks of Springfield Elementary are stolen, leaving the teachers completely unable to teach any new content. (The thief eventually turns out to be [[spoiler: [[WalkOnTheWildSideEpisode Lisa]]]].) Upon finally finding the textbooks, Skinner's first reaction is relief; his second is moral outrage: "Who's responsible for this monstrous crime?!"
** One episode has Mayor Quimby ordering the police to do this to fill the new but largely empty prison they'd just built.
** The episode "You Only Move Twice" manages to parody this beyond its normal comedic, parodying use during the end theme, which is a riff on Bond movie themes: where the singer would be regaling the audience with Hank Scorpio's foul deeds, she sings about the [[BenevolentBoss more benign aspects of his business plan]] [[AndThatsTerrible as if they were horrible crimes and deceitful traps]].
---> ''Beware of his generous pension,''\\
''And three weeks' paid vacation each year;''\\
''And on Fridays, the lunchroom serves hot dogs and burgers and beer!''\\
''He loves German BEEEEEEER!''
** In "Lisa on Ice", Lisa believes that getting an F in second grade gym will one day lose her the presidency, and get her sentenced to a lifetime of ''horror'' on Monster Island ([[FalseReassurance don't worry, it's only a name]]).
* In the ''WesternAnimation/SonicBoom'' episode "It Takes A Village To Defeat A Hedgehog", Shadow considers the poorly-made bookshelf Sonic and friends spent the episode trying to build an embarrassment on behalf of ''all hedgehog kind''.
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'':
** In the episode "[[Recap/SouthParkS7E9ChristianRockHard Christian Rock Hard]]", after the boys download a song, armed police immediately show up in a helicopter. They are taken to the station and shown how the artists they stole from are "suffering", such as how they can't buy a private island or get new features for their private jets.
** Another notable example occurs in "Butt Out," when their parents act as if smoking is "the worst thing" Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman have ever done, never bothering to comment upon the fact that they've just burned their school to the ground!
** ''South Park'' uses Type 3 a lot, like when Stan was exiled from the town for refusing to vote on the school mascot election between [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical Turd Sandwich and Giant Douche]].
** Eric Cartman repeatedly insulted his friends, abused them (often brutally) and betrayed them just for the sheer joy of it. He also made at least two attempts to murder a large group of the population, convinced women to have abortions for his own profit and, having arranged to have a couple murdered [[spoiler:(one of which was his father)]], made them into chili and fed it to their son. But ''[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking eating the skin of all the fried chicken]]'' was the last drop that finally prompted his friends to ignore him. Kyle even mentions that Cartman did a lot worse before.
** In "Toilet Paper", the boys' [=TPing=] of a teacher's house results in a full-scale police investigation, complete with PerpSweating. Kyle, who participated reluctantly, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone becomes wracked with guilt]], seeing flashbacks of the event in his nightmares. That being said, the family in question reacts to it appropriately: moderate annoyance. The police officer openly admits he's taking it so seriously because he has nothing better to do.
** In "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce", Mr. Mackey calls the police when he discovers someone has taken a dump in the urinal. He becomes completely obsessed with finding the culprit, at one point declares, "I'm gonna catch this sonofabitch if it's the last thing I DO!!"
** "I Should Never Have Gone Ziplining" has the boys going on a ziplining trip. The whole thing is a mildly crappy experience with the sort of things you'd expect of a disappointing vacation: the tour guides are annoying, the other people are annoying, the journey to get to the ziplines is way too long and the actual ziplining only lasts a few minutes. The boys and the narrative, however, treat the entire thing like an unforgettable traumatic event that they barely survived, a la ''I Shouldn't Be Alive.''
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'':
** In the early episode "Opposite Day" when Squidward decides to move out, the realtor warns him the sale would fall through it it's surrounded by "bad neighbors".
** In one example they steal a balloon and fully intended to give it back. It pops. Torment ensues. Eventually, they give in and turn themselves in to the police, and get thrown in prison. Then they learn it is Free Balloon Day, and stay in prison for all of three seconds before being let free.
** Squidward was once sentenced to ten years in prison for stealing a wallet and running (he wasn't driving) a stop sign.
** [=SpongeBob=]'s cousin Blackjack, Squidward (again), the Tattletale Strangler, Mrs. Puff, and [=SpongeBob=] himself all have gotten sent to jail for the unspeakable crime of littering. Though the Tattletale Strangler was probably arrested for strangling people who tattled on him (hence the nickname), he was just caught for littering.
** In "The Algae's Always Greener", [=SpongeBob=] is ashamed of himself for accidentally giving a customer a large soda when they ordered a medium. "I've soiled the good Krusty Krab name! [[OverlyLongGag Soiled it, soiled it, soiled it, soiled it...]]"
** In "Little Yellow Book", after Squidward reads [=SpongeBob=]'s diary, he's alienated by the entire town, his house gets foreclosed, and he gets chained in the middle of the town for the citizens to {{Produce Pelt|ing}}. There's a ''reason'' why fans consider him the show's biggest [[JerkassWoobie woobie]], and the fact that the town themselves [[{{Hypocrite}} was reading it along with him]] makes it even worse.
** In the computer game ''Employee of the Month'', [=SpongeBob=] goes to a fancy restaurant called Sublime Seafoods to get a jacket needed to gain access to Oxygen Springs; once he is seated, the lobster waiter greets him and is ready to present an array of fancy foods, but when [=SpongeBob=] asks for a krabby patty, this infuriates the waiter enough to realize he's from Bikini Bottom which sells foods that are "despicable", resulting in him banned from the restaurant. However, the waiter forgot to remove his jacket, thus letting him in to Oxygen Springs.
* ''WesternAnimation/TazMania'': In ''The Origin of the Beginning of the Incredible Taz-Man'', Mr. Thickley attempts to persuade Taz to make the mailman his arch-enemy for the heinous crime of delivering junk mail to Taz's family.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'''s episode "Breakfast Cheese", the Titans treat the H.I.V.E. loitering near a "no loitering" sign as an excuse to beat them up. This is even what kicks off the plot of the episode, as Starfire realizes that pounding someone into oblivion just for loitering is way too harsh and that the Titans have gotten more bloodthirsty thanks to all the fighting.
-->'''Beast Boy:''' Look at them loitering so hard...\\
'''Robin:''' Disgusting!
* ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'':
** One episode had Plucky and Hampton steal a candy bar and go through inner torment before they give it back.
** Also, one beer shared between three people will turn all of them into stereotypical wino bums, who will then steal a car to go joyriding before dying in the inevitable crash.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TrippingTheRift'', Chode was sentenced to death for littering on a NeatFreak planet. Also as he was being arrested, a person who accidentally missed hitting the trash can with his trash was instantly vaporized.
* {{Inverted|Trope}}: One episode of ''WesternAnimation/WhatsNewScoobyDoo'' has the culprit going through the whole YouMeddlingKids speech for something that wasn't even technically illegal.
* ''WesternAnimation/XiaolinShowdown'' plays this for comedic effect in a few episodes, but one incident with normally [[TheQuietOne calm, soft-spoken, steady]] Clay stands out:
-->'''Kimiko:''' It's Spicer! He took [[SealedEvilInACan the seed]]!\\
'''Clay:''' And [[BigEater the hot dogs]]! (runs after Jack Spicer, [[BerserkButton losing his hat]] in the process and [[OhCrap not even caring]]) Come back here with them doggies, you no-good low-down snake, you yellow-bellied dirty little sidewinder [[BewareTheNiceOnes I'M GON' GET YOU]]!
[[/folder]]

* UnderStatement - Insufficient reaction on something horrible.

* ''Webcomic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'': ''[[http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=7&issue=15 King Radical is subverting our country's rich history for his own devious purposes!]]''