History OvershadowedByControversy / WesternAnimation

* The ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHead'' episode "Comedians" came under fire after a 5-year-old boy allegedly imitated a stunt from the episode and ended up burning down his home and killing his baby sister. In response, Creator/{{MTV}} began [[{{Bowdlerise}} heavily editing]] or outright [[BannedEpisode banning episodes]] where the boys performed dangerous activities out of fear of repeat incidents. The truth of the matter, however, was that the mother of the boy was found to be lying about the show's influence on her son's behavior to save herself from legal repercussions: as it turns out, [[DidntThinkThisThrough their home didn't even have cable]], so there's no way the kid would have seen the show at that time.

** In-universe, this is what happened with the legacy of Rose Quartz. With the revelations of her origins [[spoiler: as a disguised Pink Diamond]] this led to everyone questioning their values and purpose. Up until this point everyone viewed her as a couragous freedom fighter who believed in freedom for living beings of all kind. While that still technically held true, the sheer number of lies she's told (coupled with the revelation she was naive to a fault) made everyone start questioning their own motives, purpose, and, in one case, existence.

** The character of Apu has become better known in the [=2010s=] for being an alleged negative caricature of Indian-Americans and Southern Asians (being an AsianStoreOwner initially voiced by white actor Creator/HankAzaria doing a stereotypical Indian accent), a criticism that gained much traction following the release of the documentary ''The Problem With Apu'' by comedian Hari Kondabolu. The show made a reference to the controversy in the episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS29E15NoGoodReadGoesUnpunished No Good Read Goes Unpunished]]", where the camera shifts to a picture of Apu while Marge and Lisa discuss ValuesDissonance. ([[AuthorTract "Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?"]]) [[https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/4/15/17236336/simpsons-apu-controversy-no-good-read-goes-unpunished-recap Many felt this was a jab at the criticisms]]. The questionable-at-best response the showrunners had to the backlash (including Creator/MattGroening claiming that "some people like to pretend to be offended", claiming people were lying about Apu being offensive) [[NotHelpingYourCase didn't help one bit]], with many critics ([[CreatorBacklash and Azaria himself]]) saying that they should have responded in a more mature manner. The show would eventually decide to recast Apu with an Indian actor, and Azaria has apologized for having played the character.

* The ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHead'' episode "Comedians" came under fire after a 5-year-old boy allegedly imitated a stunt from the episode and ended up burning down his home and killing his baby sister. In response, Creator/{{MTV}} began [[{{Bowdlerise}} heavily editing]] or outright [[BannedEpisode banning episodes]] where the boys performed dangerous activities out of fear of repeat incidents. The truth of the matter, however, was that the mother of the boy was found to be lying about the show's influence on her son's behavior to save herself from legal repercussions: as it turns out, [[DidNotThinkThisThrough their home didn't even have cable]], so there's no way the kid would have seen the show at that time.

* ''Full English'' was a British show intended to be the counterpart of adult shows such as ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' or ''Family Guy''. Already unpopular with audiences who viewed it as [[ClicheStorm copying from its source material]], what nailed the show into the ground was an infamous segment where the ghost of infamous reality TV star Jade Goody has a fight with the ghost of Princess Diana. After numerous complaints, especially from infamously sensationalist newspaper ''The Daily Mail'', the show was subsequently canned, and the remaining episodes were then aired one last time before never being aired again.

* Outside of the animation community, ''WesternAnimation/InfinityTrain'' is largely best known for how it ended up getting royally ScrewedByTheNetwork -- namely, it was removed from Creator/{{Max}} with zero warning to even the creators after the Warner Bros/Discovery merger, its entire social media presence was scrubbed from both Cartoon Network and HBO's accounts, and the official soundtrack and DVD releases of the first two seasons were pulled (although the [=DVDs=] were later brought back thanks to backlash). This, alongside a number of other high-profile removals from Max, led to controversy over the poor treatment of creators by production companies in the streaming era, controversy which would later become a major factor in [[UsefulNotes/TVStrikes the 2023 WGA strikes]] happening.

* While well-received in itself, the third season of ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' cannot be talked about without bringing up how it was ''massively'' ScrewedByTheNetwork, being cut from 13 20-minutes long episodes to just ''three'', 40-minutes each. Allegedly a single executive suddenly decided the show "doesn't fit Disney brand", which, in light of the show's emphasis on diversity, LGBTQ inclusivity and criticism of religious zealotry, got a lot of backlash.

* While well-received in itself, the third season of ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' cannot be talked about without bringing up how it was ''massively'' ScrewedByTheNetwork, being cut from 13 20-minutes long episodes to just ''three'', 40-minutes each. Allegedly a single executive suddenly decided the show "doesn't fit Disney brand", which, in light of the show's emphasis on diversity, LGBTQ inclusivity and criticism of religious zealotry, came ripe with UnfortunateImplications. The fans do not have a good word to say about Disney.

* If ''WesternAnimation/MightyMouse: The New Adventures'' is remembered for anything, it's for that notorious scene in "The Littlest Tramp" in which Mighty Mouse sniffs a flower given to him by Polly Pineblossom earlier in the episode, by which point it's been crushed into a fine powder, making it [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything look as though he's snorting cocaine]]. MoralGuardians were outraged immediately, even though the crew members themselves said that it wasn't meant to be a cocaine joke and that the moral guardians (like many before and after them) blew things out of proportion. [[EveryoneHasStandards Even John Kricfalusi thought so]], but only because there were two other scenes that were more dubious: The Creator/KirkDouglas-esque man force-kissing Polly Pineblossom (and the fact that she's forced to marry him to save herself from being homeless) and the end when the two drive off into the sunset and [[EndOfEpisodeSilliness the car explodes into a mushroom cloud for no reason]].

** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS12E5HomerVsDignity Homer vs. Dignity]]" is largely remembered for a scene where Homer is implicitly raped by a panda at the Springfield Zoo. Like "The Principal and the Pauper", this episode is often pointed to as precipitating a decline in quality for the show, largely due to the incredibly tasteless and mean-spirited "panda scene". The scene is so notorious that it single-handedly turned the episode into one of the most hated in the show's history.

** "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS8E12ExtraLargeMedium Extra Large Medium]]" is, at best, only remembered for the controversy of a female character with Down syndrome who mentions that her mother is a former governor of Alaska, which strongly implies that her mother is UsefulNotes/SarahPalin, the only woman to have served in the office of governor in the state. Palin actually is the mother of a child with Down syndrome. The situation was only made worse when Creator/PatrickWarburton, Joe Swanson's voice actor, told the media that even he thought it was in poor taste. Conservative pundits on Fox News and elsewhere ended up praising Warburton as a hero for "defending" Sarah Palin, something he denied was his intention, which turned the situation into a bigger PR nightmare. The actress who voiced the character, Creator/AndreaFayFriedman, actually had Down syndrome herself; and she would later make a statement criticizing people who questioned the episode. Some, however, have claimed that she was pressured into making the statement by Seth [=McFarlane=], keeping the controversy going.

* ''Made by Maddie'' was going to premiere on Creator/NickJr in September 2020, but it drew large backlash on social media due to allegedly plagiarizing ''WesternAnimation/HairLove''. Nick Jr pulled the show before it could air and removed it from their website. This is the only thing the series is remembered for, if anyone remembers it at all. It is unknown if the episodes will ever see the light of day.

** "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS8E12ExtraLargeMedium Extra Large Medium]]" is, at best, only remembered for the controversy of a female character with Down syndrome who mentions that her mother is a former governor of Alaska, which strongly implies that her mother is UsefulNotes/SarahPalin, the only woman to have served in the office of governor in the state. Palin actually is the mother of a child with Down syndrome. The situation was only made worse when Creator/PatrickWarburton, Joe Swanson's voice actor, told the media that even he thought it was in poor taste. Conservative pundits on Fox News and elsewhere ended up praising Warburton as a hero for "defending" Sarah Palin, something he denied was his intention, which turned the situation into a bigger PR nightmare. The actress who voiced the character, Creator/AndreaFayFriedman, actually had Down syndrome herself; and she would later make a statement criticizing people who questioned the episode, though some have claimed she was pressured into making the statement by Seth [=McFarlane=], keeping the controversy going.
** "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS8E18QuagmiresDad Quagmire's Dad]]" is mostly known for the titular character, who comes out as a [[UsefulNotes/{{Transgender}} trans woman]] and subsequently transitions. Despite series creator Creator/SethMacFarlane calling her the most sympathetic transgender character on television, the episode was criticized for indulging in stereotypical and transphobic jokes at her expense, including many characters [[ItIsDehumanizing referring to her as "it"]] and Brian complaining that there's no registry for transgender people like there is for sex offenders.

** Within a month of starting, the series had already gained an unsightly reputation due to various changes, such as removing the [[WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998 1998 series]]' popular character Ms. Bellum, [[TheOtherDarrin recasting the Girls and Princess Morbucks]] while keeping the original voice actors for the rest of the returning characters, and a DenserAndWackier tone similar to that of ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo''. This on top of viral clips showing Blossom and Bubbles twerking, which would have been seen as TotallyRadical even if it wasn't an overtly sexual dance move. And that's not even mentioning Julia Vickerman (covered in the ''WesternAnimation/TwelveForever'' example below) being the co-writer of the episode "Painbow", which contained the aforementioned twerking scene.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheWackyWorldOfTexAvery'' would be an entirely unremarkable Saturday morning cartoon, were it not for the fact that Warner Bros inexplicably decided to name the series and one of its main characters after Creator/TexAvery, an animator and director mostly famous for his work on ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' in the 30s. Tex Avery, at the time of the show's airing, had been dead for seventeen years. This was intended to give the show some name recognition, but anyone capable of recognizing that name would realize that he couldn't possibly have had any input on the series, and likely jump to the reasonable conclusion that it was a callous attempt to leech off the man's legacy. It didn't help when it came out that Warner planned to go ahead with the series regardless of the approval of his surviving family, only paying them as a courtesy, meaning the idea of it being a tribute read as disingenuous. Because of this, it's very hard to talk about the show's merits one way or the other without first discussing the merits and morality of it using Avery's name.