Gave Up Too Soon / Western Animation

Characters giving up too soon in Western Animation.

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• In the American Dad! episode "The Vacation Goo", the Smiths' vacation goes drastically wrong when Francine (convinced it's fake) jumps off the cruise ship, forcing the rest of the family and a member of the staff to go after her. They end up on a jungle island and get chased by hunters, eventually getting trapped in a cave by an avalanche that also kills their companion, whom they're forced to eat to survive. Shortly afterwards the hunters find them and it turns out they're just playing paintball and the "jungle" is part of a super-ritzy resort. Disturbed by the truth of what they did for nothing, the family decides to make it one of their dark family secrets. Poor Steve had it even worse since their companion was an attractive woman who openly stated that she wanted to sleep with him.
• In one episode of Bonkers, Al Roach is searching for a notorious gangster's hidden treasure, but his only clue to its location is the 29th page of a book, so he and his boys steal the 29th page of every book in the city. After tracking down the hiding place, they discover a book of poetry written by the gangster, leading Al to believe that his treasure was just his own poems, and so he and his men leave in disgust. It's only after they do that Miranda and Bonkers look at the 29th page of the poetry book, which is actually instructions on revealing the actual treasure's hiding place behind the wall.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: In "Operation T.R.I.P.", the Interesting Twins from Beneath the Mountain need to find the Japanese Kids Next Door's hiding place and then call in the ninja squad (and only then, because, according to Father "ninjas charge by the hour and I'm not made of money!") They find the hiding place, call the ninja squad, then discover it's not the hiding place, but Numbah 3's grandmother... so they call the ninjas off, and the sister smashes the radio in despair. Then they learn they've been tricked — Sector V disguised themselves as her Grandma! After a Villainous Breakdown and the Brother of Interesting Twins vowing they will return, they jump out the window while the Brother remarks their day can't get anymore worse. Cue the Japanese Kids Next Door revealing themselves as the episode ends!
• In Craig of the Creek episode "Alone Quest", Craig has a Potty Emergency and races home. However, when his little sister has a hard time figuring out which way to turn the doorknob to let him in, he gets anxious and races off to find another bathroom. A second after he leaves, his sister has managed to open the door, but he's long gone.
• The Super Hero Origin of Danny Phantom is that Danny's parents built a portal into the Ghost Zone, but when it didn't immediately work, they just wandered off in a sulk. Danny got it started by inadvertently pressing the 'on' button... which was mounted on the inside, which is how he got his powers.
• An episode of Dexter's Laboratory had Dexter visiting his grandfather, and was convinced that he has a secret laboratory like him. He searches the entire house for it, only to find out it's actually a garage with random tools. Dexter returns home, and immediately afterwards his Grandfather's tools create an energy element, which is the exact element Dexter tried to create at the start of the episode.
• In Ducktales 2017, this is the main contribution to Della Duck's Missing Mom backstory. After she gets lost in space while flying the Spear of Selene, Scrooge launches an all-out effort to find her that nearly depletes his entire fortune, but was forced to call it off by his board of directors when the search proved useless. Turns out that Della had crash-landed on the moon and wasn't as far away as everyone believed. To make it even more egregious, two of Scrooge's search rockets actually had passed close to the moon's surface, but wrote off checking and just flew back home.
• The Fairly OddParents!:
  • In "Genie Meanie Minie Mo", Timmy makes a wish to Norm the Genie that Trixie will kiss "Timmy Turner", thinking he Out-Gambitted Norm with the wording, but Norm uses Exact Wording so that Trixie will kiss every Timmy Turner in Dimmsdale (there are apparently quite a few). Later on, Trixie finally comes down to Timmy's name on the list, but it's at that moment when Timmy finally undid all of Norm's tricks, preventing Timmy from getting kissed. He naturally face palms in frustration.
  • Parodied in the Distant Prologue of "School's Out! The Musical" where a circus train was speeding towards a ravine where the bridge was out. Thinking they were goners, the two clowns on it blasted their son Flappy off to save him. A few moments later, however, they end up crossing the ravine on a sidetrack bridge, which they hadn't noticed, and realized they launched their baby away for nothing.
    Flappy's Mother: (Angrily) You said there was no other way!
    Flappy's Father: (Crying) I'm a clown!
  • In "Crocker of Gold", Mr. Crocker, fed up that his hunt for fairies continuously led to failure, decided to hunt leprechauns instead. Later on, he sees Wanda and Poof, out in the open and without their wands. As he put it:
    "That's so not fair!"
    • Then later, when he finds out that Cosmo (whom he had successfully captured and then let go after making him give him a pot of gold) was actually a fairy instead of a leprechaun:
      "That's even more so not fair!
• At the end of one episode of The Flintstones, the Flintstones and the Rubbles come across a man digging an oil well who offers to sell it to Fred. After spending the entire episode on a broken-down carnival that Fred had bought, Wilma, Barney, and Betty convince Fred not to fall for it. The moment they drive away, the man's well erupts into a gusher, resulting in him becoming rich. Furthermore, Fred and the others don't even find out that the well was real, the episode ending with Fred thanking the others for convincing him not to fall for what seemed to be another scam.
• In Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Bloo tries to get Herriman to order him not to partake in a dinner that would serve Madam Foster's terrible food. After his recent actions failed at getting Herriman's attention, Mac suggests jumping on the bed, which Bloo tried earlier and leaves for another solution, unknowingly that he previous attempt caused pieces of the ceiling to fall into Frankie's food setup which got berated by Madam Foster. Frankie arrives to the room and assumes Mac was the one jumping on the bed, and she has him sent outside.
• In one episode of Goof Troop, Pete wins ownership of a race horse. Unfortunately, he finds it's not a fast runner, so he decides to make money by giving away ownership shares with every car on his lot, giving away more shares than he's allowed. It's at that time that Goofy finds out the horse's problem was a broken nail in his horseshoe. Upon fixing it, the horse becomes a race champion, which unfortunately causes Pete's scam to be exposed and him to get thrown in jail.
• Gravity Falls: The "Dipper's Guide to the Unexplained" short "The Hide-Behind" involves Dipper and Mabel investigating a mysterious creature who is never seen and can only be heard. When Dipper thinks he found the Hide-Behind, it turns out to be an owl shaking a maraca. Dipper then concludes the Hide-Behind is just a myth and gives up, but it's that moment the Hide-Behind is actually real and stalks on him, hiding every time Dipper turns around. And if that weren't enough, the camera used for the series left behind actually caught proof of it...
• In one episode He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983), Orko tries to hint to everyone that it's his birthday, without much success. By the end of the episode, he comes to the conclusion that nobody remembers, and so decides to celebrate on his own, snacking on a bunch of sweets. He then discovers that everyone had actually planned a party for him, but due to him eating too many snacks, he's too full to have any birthday cake.
• In a Game Show skit on Histeria!, Toast continued to give a bizarre answer that ended up being wrong (and resulted in him being injured as consequences). When asked the final question, Toast gave a different answer, only for it to be wrong while the answer he had been giving previously was correct.
• The Johnny Bravo episode "Over the Hump" has Johnny enlist in the French Foreign Legion under the mistaken belief that he'll get to meet beautiful women and having to work with a camel named Lawrence to complete a game show called Find the Fort. After they eventually find the fort, Johnny is given the option to pick the prize under Door Number Two, which turns out to be an all-expense-paid trip back to his hometown Aron City. Having had enough of this, Johnny picks Door Number Two, afterwards Lawrence enters the fort to find the beautiful women Johnny was expecting.
• Looney Tunes:
  • In "Aqua Duck", Daffy is lost in the desert, dying of thirst, and hallucinating. He finds a huge chunk of gold, but it's pretty worthless right now, as he can't spend it. Then a mouse shows up, tempting him with water in exchange for the gold. At first, Daffy refuses, unwilling to give up the fortune, but eventually, he gives in and gives up the gold in exchange for the water. Then, when he's about to drink it, it starts raining so hard he's flooded up to his chest. Comically Missing the Point, he says, "One thing you gotta admit: when I buy water, I sure get my money's worth!" before the cartoon ends.
  • At the end of one Sylvester and Tweety cartoon, after going through hell and failing to catch Tweety (again), Sylvester swears off eating birds ever again. As soon as he makes this declaration, half a dozen birds start fluttering around and roosting on him.
    Sylvester: Sufferin' Succotash. What a fine time I pick to go on a diet!
  • In one "Wile E Coyote And The Roadrunner" cartoon, one of Wil. E's plans involved using a makeshift outboard motor to catch the Roadrunner. Unfortunately, he can't control it and it ends up driving him over a ledge over a deep ravine. Panicking, Wil. E fumbles to remove the motor before it causes him to fall, not noticing that it's still moving forward. After getting the still-going motor off, Wil. E is relieved...until he remembers he's hanging in midair. Even worse, he sees that the motor made it safely to the other side of the ravine while he endures another splat.
  • In "The Million Hare", Bugs and Daffy were chosen to compete in a race on a television program for a prize worth a million. After a harrowing race, Daffy actually beats Bugs and crosses the finish line at the studio an inch before him. The host then presents Daffy with his prize called 'the Million Box': a large crate containing a million little boxes. Believing the prize is worthless, he gives it to Bugs instead...right before the announcer said that each little box contained a crisp dollar bill, resulting in Bugs winning a million dollars and Daffy feeling like a jackass.
  • In "Bedtime for Sniffles", Sniffles tries to stay up late on Christmas Eve in order to see Santa, complete with making coffee and playing loud music on the radio. Unfortunately, he soon experiences Caffeine Failure while the majority of the radio's music is lullabies before it eventually signs off. As a result, he can't resist falling asleep (especially with a vision of himself coaxing him to lay on his bed). Three seconds after Sniffles falls asleep, Santa's sleigh is seen flying by Sniffles' window.
• In The Loud House episode "Ruthless People", due to their house being infested with termites, half the family had to stay at the Sunset Canyon retirement home with Pop-Pop while the other half would stay with Aunt Ruth. Not wanting to stay with Aunt Ruth, Lincoln's half of the family (consisting of Lori, Lola, Luna, Lynn, and Mr. Loud) convince the other half (consisting of Leni, Lana, Luan, Lucy, Lisa, Lily and Mrs. Loud) to go there while they stay at the retirement home. Unfortunately, Lincoln's half of the family soon discovers the disadvantages of the stay at the home, from a broken air-conditioning unit to a jammed pool filter to a 6:00 PM curfew, while learning that the other half was staying at a lake house Aunt Ruth had bought. This leads Lincoln's half of the family to convince the other half to trade places again. Unfortunately, Lincoln's half ends up on the short end of the stick again when they learn that the other half of the family is living it up on a cruise ship rented out by the retirement home due to the broken AC unit, while Lincoln's half has to deal with the same termites at the lake house thanks to Lana saving them from the exterminator.
• The Patrick Star Show:
  • In "Enemies a la Mode", Patrick wants ice cream, so GrandPat tells him a story about the days of ice cream prohibition and how he got them in secret from other people. This gives Patrick another idea to get ice cream, by having Squidina order it for him, but right after he leaves, GrandPat reveals he did have ice cream he was willing to give to Patrick.
  • In "Backpay Payback", Squidward and Granny Tentacles team up to get back the money that Cecil refused to pay Squidward. Near the end, they start cracking open a safe when Cecil calls them over, pretending to pay with fake money and using this time to escape the house. Right after they leave the scene, the safe opens to reveal the real money inside.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • In one episode where Candace is teleported to Mars, the person working the Mars rover at NASA goes into a rant on the futility of the project, saying there is no life on Mars and shuts down the project, just when Candace was trying to get his attention. Even moreso, the citizens of Mars come out of hiding just after the rover shuts down.
  • In the episode "This Is Your Backstory", Phineas and Ferb are briefly shown playing table tennis. Believing there's more to this, Candace watches them and waits for something extraordinary to happen. During The Stinger at the end of the episode, they're still playing, and Candace, having watched them all day, comes to the conclusion that this was an ordinary game and walks off. Three seconds after she leaves, Phineas announces to Ferb that their tennis ball invention had been charged enough and it activates.
• One episode of Pinky and the Brain involved the duo attempting to join a club of world leaders (in order to learn the secrets of ruling the world). After going through a humiliating Initiation Ceremony, Brain gets fed up and quits. However, the world leaders then mentioned that he was just about to join the organization. As a result, Brain gets kicked out while Pinky is allowed into the club.
• Pippi Longstocking: In "Pippi Entertains Two Burglars", the burglars are so tired of Pippi's "entertainment" that, when she says she's got a surprise for them, they flee in fear and never learn the surprise was a gold coin for each of them.
• Recess:
  • In "Omega Kids," the entire school gets sick except for the Recess Six. While they initially enjoy having the playground to themselves, they quickly get bored and are told to bring their classmates' homework. T.J. gets the idea for them to fake being sick so that they'll get sent home until everyone else gets better. However, the scheme works too well due to Gretchen accidentally making it look like they have a major disease and they are quarantined...right as all the other kids return to school.
  • In "The Teachers' Lounge", the Recess Six become curious about the eponymous room, and wonder what goes on inside, having several Imagine Spots of what the teachers do in there. After successfully sneaking in, they find it's plain and ordinary like a real-life teacher's lounge, resulting in them leaving while feeling a bit anti-climatic. A second later, the teacher they had tricked out of the room to get in comes back and opens a secret panel in the wall...revealing a hidden activity room that was as incredible as the kids believed.
• In the first season finale of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, when the Turtles are captured by Baron Draxum, Splinter reluctantly hands over the helmet of the Kuroi Yori armor, the last piece needed to resurrect the Shredder. Unbeknownst to Splinter, however, the Turtles had managed to free themselves, with the four busting into Draxum's throne room just as he was putting the helmet in place.
• In the Rugrats episode, "Chuckie Vs the Potty", when Chuckie was being potty trained, when he felt like he had to go badly, Stu and Didi set him up in the bathroom and waited for hours for him do his business, eventually falling asleep. Chuckie, believing that it was just a false alarm, got off the potty...and immediately experienced Potty Failure.
• Samurai Jack: At the end of "XCVI", when the blue-furred children who were being mind-controlled collapsed into unconsciousness after Ashi took out the Controller, Jack assumes that they had died. Having had enough of innocent lives suffering because of him, he finally goes with the Omen to commit Seppuku. It's only after Jack leaves that the children wake up and are shown to be unharmed.
• The Simpsons:
  • An excruciating example in "Time and Punishment", the second segment of "Treehouse of Horror V". During Homer's attempts to return to his own timeline, he stumbles upon a timeline that seems perfect: his family is filthy rich, his kids are well-behaved, he has recently bought a brand-new luxury sedan (a Lexus, to be exact), and Patty and Selma are dead. However, to his horror, he discovers that nobody in this timeline has ever heard of donuts, so he immediately dashes back to his time travel toaster and disappears. As soon as he leaves, donuts start falling from the sky.
    Marge: [annoyed] Hrmm, it's raining again...
  • In "Team Homer", before normal closing time:
    Moe: [sighs] Might as well close the dump.
    [outside, Quimby leads a bunch of people toward the bar]
    Quimby: I am going to drink you under the table.
    Man: No, I am going to drink you under the —
    [the "Moe's" lighted sign turns off]
    [the crowd sighs and turns back]
  • In "Homerazzi", Moe gives Homer his camera so he can get revenge on the celebrities who humiliated him, saying that he wanted to use it to take pictures of women in the ladies' room, but no women ever come into the bar. After Homer leaves, two sexy girls come in and ask to use the ladies' room so they can exchange bras and panties. Moe is so upset that he snaps a beer bottle in two.
  • "Days Of Future Future" starts with Homer having an accident that kills him. At the funeral, where Moe is trying to make his move on Marge, Professor Frink reveals he made a clone body for Homer. A montage spanning thirty years occurs where Homer continuously dies and is replaced with a clone, with Moe trying to make a move at each funeral. At the end of the montage during the most recent Homer's death, Marge tells Moe that his attempts are futile, to which Moe drops his kind bravado and acts like his normal Jerkass self while telling Marge off. It's then that Professor Frink comes in saying he can't clone Homer anymore. Moe even lampshades the trope.
• In SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Artist Unknown", after repeatably failing at getting Spongebob to recreate a statue, Squidward proceeds to destroy everything in the art studio while mashing several stone blocks together. After his meltdown, the art director shows up and upon seeing the "mess" asks who is responsible for it, with Squidward pointing out it's the janitor's responsibility and leaves without bothering to notice that he ended up making the exact same statue Spongebob made, if not even better than before.
• Star Wars Resistance: "Rendezvous Point" opens with the Colossus fighting off First Order forces while awaiting a rendezvous with a pilot Captain Doza's set out a signal beacon to summon. Doza insists on staying for as long as possible, but when it becomes clear that the station's deflector shields are close to failing and the Aces can't hold off the First Order forces for much longer, the Colossus flees... right before the pilot's arrival.
• Steven Universe: Lapis Lazuli, who has been through a lot of trauma, flees the Earth in "Raising the Barn" after finding out that Steven escaped the Gem Homeworld and the Diamonds might potentially retaliate. In "Can't Go Back", Steven finds her hiding out at the Moon base using a surveillance device to watch everyone, having begun to think that she overreacted earlier. Then Steven falls asleep and has a dream about the Diamonds, and when Lapis finds out, she panics and flies off, taking it as a sign that an invasion is imminent. Hours later, in "A Single Pale Rose" (warning: major Wham Episode), Steven finds out conclusively that that is not the real reason he's been having those dreams. Then the Diamonds end up attacking Earth shortly after to retrieve the Cluster, making Lapis Right for the Wrong Reasons.
• Timon & Pumbaa:
  • In one episode, Timon is put on trial where he endures continuously crazy tests to prove if he's guilty or innocent. Eventually, Timon has enough, snaps, and admits to the crime that he was accused of. Then the judge reveals that Timon was going to be pronounced innocent before his outburst.
  • In another episode, Timon becomes convinced that a group of flamingos on a small island were hiding something from the way they were just standing still. After spending the episode getting to the island and then failing to get any answers out of the silent birds, he gave up and left convinced that Pumbaa was right that they were just standing around. Turns out he was actually right as the flamingos were waiting until he was gone before going back to the party they were having.
• The Weekenders: In "The Crevasse of Dreams", Tino convinces his friends to help him find an old awesome hangout spot they used to go to called the "Crevasse", even though Lor, Carver, and Tish have no recollection of the place existing. After the search becomes difficult and fruitless, it causes some friction between Tino and the rest of the group; they want to abandon the search because they're exhausted and have lost interest, but Tino thinks the real reason they want to leave is that they still think the Crevasse doesn't exist and want to prove him wrong. In the end, the group comes to the conclusion that their friendship is more important than who's wrong and who's right, and they agree to just return home and drop any discussion about the Crevasse altogether. After his friends exit the scene, Tino confides with the audience that he did manage to find the Crevasse while he was searching alone, just a few steps from where they all just were. However, Tino decides to not ruin the heartwarming moment he just had with his friends and doesn't tell them.