Karma Houdini Warranty / Western Animation

Times where Karma Houdini Warranties expired in Western Animation.

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• Adventure Time: The original Earl of Lemongrab gets away with some rather despicable actions in the episode "You Made Me." He used his mental condition as an excuse to A) torture four children and a dog, B) repeatedly harass the Candy Citizens by sneaking into their rooms to watch them sleep, C) punched/slapped/shoved/screamed at a baby, D) terrorized his pet camel, E) tried to KO and torture Princess Bubblegum, who was actually being kind to him for the whole episode, and F) have the gall at the end to "pardon" the prisoners rather than admit he was wrong and simply release them. Then in "Another Five Short Graybles," Lemongrab goes completely Ax-Crazy and eats his clone alive when his clone accidentally breaks their toy; and in "Too Old" he gets away crossing the Moral Event Horizon with abusing his children for the smallest things, eating his clone (again), and trying to force his sons to kill Finn and Princess Bubblegum. He finally gets his comeuppance in "Lemonhope Story", when Lemonhope blows him up with his harp, and Princess Bubblegum sews him and his clone back up as one entity and decides that he's only mentally stable when he's lonely. The new Lemongrab then has to go through a mentally taxing spiritual ordeal in order to ultimately redeem the sins of his past self.
• Amphibia: In "True Colors," after a lifetime of pushing Anne around, and lying to and manipulating her, Anne finally snaps and attacks Sasha. Anne refuses to believe Sasha about King Andrias being evil, due to having no reason to trust Sasha, since the latter has done nothing but lie, manipulate, use, and betray Anne every second they've been together since they arrived in Amphibia. Sasha can only watch helplessly as Anne bests her in combat and hands the box over to the evil king; she has no one to blame but herself for Anne no longer believing or trusting her.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force: The episode "Handbanana" features the titular dog raping Carl repeatedly and the end of the episode ends with him still doing that. Come 2022, the Aquadonk Side Pieces short "The Return of Handbanana" has him take the role of an abusive spouse to Carl, despite him being straight and not interested in dogs. In the final short "Handbanana's Demise", Carl finally outsmarts the rapist dog by covering himself in Gorilla Glue, making Handbanana unable to assault him or escape. Carl decides to take Handbanana to the vet to be either spayed, neutered or put to sleep, only to stop when he realized how expensive either option is. He then decides to wait until Handbanana dies of old age since he's 14 in human years, and given Handbanana's struggle to break free, he's not very keen on that option, either.
• Arthur: D.W. often gets away with her brattiness and Lack of Empathy. That being said, there are occasions where her parents would properly discipline her when she does something wrong. Case in point, in "D.W. the Picky Eater", she throws a tantrum at a restaurant over being served spinach, and her parents are absolutely appalled at this and send her to her room. There's also the time where she threatened to pinch baby Kate for touching her toys, and she gets properly grounded for it.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Yon Rha was the commander of the Southern Raiders who served during the final stages of the Southern Water Tribe raids. He killed Katara's mother and presumably committed multiple other crimes, before honorably retiring to his home village... where his abusive mother proceeded to make his life miserable. By the time Katara and Zuko track him down, he's been reduced to a pathetic shell of his former self. Seeing him like this, Katara decides that he's Not Worth Killing, and leaves him to keep living his life as he was, which is clearly a Fate Worse than Death.
  • Fire Lord Ozai continued his predecessor Sozin's conquest for world domination with an iron-fisted rule. He is as such indirectly responsible for various tragedies that happen throughout the series and also attempted to burn down the Earth Kingdom, as well as being an abusive and neglectful parent to Zuko. In the Grand Finale, he is defeated, humbled, and stripped of his powers. For delicious irony, Zuko, the son he considered to be a failure, gets appointed as the new Fire Lord and vows to undo the damage Ozai has done.
  • Ozai's father Azulon spent his reign continuing the Fire Nation's war against the other Nations, committing numerous atrocities. He ends up getting murdered by his son Ozai after ordering them to kill their son as punishment for trying to be made heir after their older brother Iroh loses his son (even if Ozai did this so he could become Fire Lord and was going to kill Zuko before his wife came up with the plan to kill her father-in-law).
  • As for Azulon's father, Sozin, who started the whole mess? While leaving behind a legacy as a feared and successful conqueror, Sozin would spend his last years as a somber and downcast old man, plagued by regrets from betraying his best friend and the atrocities he committed, unable to enjoy his success or attempt to undo the damage he's done. The world let Sozin off, but his conscience didn't.
  • Heavily downplayed in the case of Hama. After spending many, many years of using her bloodbending to terrorize a village, Hama is arrested - but not before forcing Katara to learn bloodbending in order to save Aang and Sokka. In fact, Hama is perfectly fine with being arrested, laughing as she's led away, knowing full well that she's gotten exactly what she wanted.
• In Batman: The Animated Series, both the Riddler and the Clock King managed to escape in their initial episodes, leaving them free to continue seeking out revenge on their victims in the future. However, both of their second appearances see them captured by Batman and Robin in the end, and, in the case of the Riddler, even ends up having his mind fried as his taunting of Batman left him with no time to escape his virtual reality before it collapsed.
• Will Harangue from Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, notorious for his irrational hatred of Ben 10 and being a Hate Sink and Expy of J. Jonah Jameson, somehow managed to get away with creating a Killer Robot and sending it to kill Ben, even avoiding getting arrested. As a result, most of his appearances in Ben 10: Omniverse essentially consist of him getting everything in the face: him supporting the Incurseans' invasion of Earth in "Frogs of War", just because they sent Ben away, causes him to lose ratings when the occupation is over, and when working with the Forever Knights in their goal to exterminate all aliens, again just because they both hate Ben, he eventually gets turned against his will into an alien, it helps that Ben himself did this to him in the form of Jury Rigg. He eventually subverts this in the Grand Finale to the series, where his future self had a Heel–Face Turn and is now the cameraman to a grown-up Jimmy Jones.
• Evil Overlord Zordrak spent most episodes of The Dreamstone safe in his lair while his Urpney minions did the dirty work of each scheme and suffered Disproportionate Retribution. Every season finale, however, he suffers an elaborate comeuppance (in the final season he is the Butt-Monkey for the last three episodes, due to the Urpneys playing Idiot Houdini).
  • While not as conventional a case, the Noops also commonly inflicted enormous Disproportionate Retribution onto Frizz and Nug, sometimes even for stuff they had no control over or just for fun's sake. In "The Dream Beam Invasion" however, when they once again start an excessive beatdown on Frizz and Nug, they grow to enormous size and terrify them into retreating. Noticeably, the Noops tend to use more pragmatic retaliations after this episode.
• Danny Phantom: In the pilot episode, Danny, Sam, and Tucker are punished for a food fight with Dash, with Mr. Lancer stating outright that Dash's status as the school's star quarterback makes him "exempt from scorn". That being said, he did receive his comeuppance when he was buried in all sorts of meat when Danny made the garbage dumpster full of said meat intangible. Dash is also painfully aware that his Karma Houdini status will go away once he graduates high school, and how he's going to be miserable for the rest of his life.
• In Duck Amuck the role of the sadistic animator turned out to be Bugs Bunny, one of the few roles he is the antagonist who picks on his foe for no reason. While Daffy was powerless to stop Bugs in the previous cartoon, Rabbit Rampage has Bugs paid back in his own coin when Elmer Fudd gets hold of the animator's brush. May apply not just for Duck Amuck, but also for The Wacky Wabbit and Wabbit Twouble, where Bugs similarly heckled Elmer unprovoked.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy, after years and years of having the Eds punished all the time, finally gives everyone else their karmic retribution in The Movie. And thankfully, it actually brings a genuine Heel–Face Turn from the other cul-de-sac kids, who realized that Eddy's brother, to whom they looked up to, is far worse than they imagined, (not to mention that he's likely the direct cause of Eddy's jerkassery in the first place) even conspiring with the Eds to give him a much-deserved comeuppance.
  • A hindsight case with Eddy's Brother. Though he never appeared beforehand, it was clear he was a sadistic Big Brother Bully to Eddy, and likely was one his entire life. His just desserts finally come in the special where he gets smacked hard into a steel door and given "mouth to mouth" by the Kanker Sisters. Word of God notes that, compared to the usual standards of the show, it took very little to actually knock him out since, while he had been dishing out abuse his whole life, he almost never experienced it himself.
• While Iron Klaw avoided punishment for his misdeeds throughout most of the run of G.I. Joe Extreme, the series ends with him finally getting captured.
• Gargoyles:
  • In "Deadly Force," Tony Dracon is implied to have been a Karma Houdini throughout his life at the time of his first appearance. He came up with ways to hide his involvement with various crimes and thus never had to stand trial. This trope bites him hard in the end when Goliath and Broadway have him and his cohorts captured and with evidence of their arms dealing in plain view in order to incriminate them. Though unfortunately, that evidence still wasn't enough to convict him, and it isn't until his third appearance in "Protection" that he's finally captured with enough evidence to put him away for good. Even then, the rest of his gang got off scot-free and continued to run their crime ring under his orders from prison as seen in "Turf," but thanks to Eliza and the Gargoyles, Dracon's gang is locked up along with a rival gang trying to take them out.
  • David Xanatos manages to mostly avoid punishment for his deplorable actions, every once in a while he does face some setbacks but most of the time he manages to make it work for him. There are some times karma really hit him badly though: first was all his plots involving Derek and the mutates becoming a Meaningless Villain Victory, then later on Thailog plays him like a fiddle. The biggest of all though was Oberon coming in and kidnapping David's son, which the creators themselves say was karma hitting David with full force.
• Gravedale High: "Monster on Trial" has Max Schneider and his class get in trouble when Schneider's efforts to teach his students to drive have him crossing paths with a woman named Miss Fresno when it is Reggie Moonshroud's turn at driver's ed. In spite of minimal damage being done from the cars colliding, Miss Fresno exaggerates the extent of the harm done and sues Schneider for $1,000,000 over it. After successfully winning her case, and apparently having gotten away with making similar suits for some time, she ends up crashing her car into someone else's when she tries to evade Reggie and Frankentyke pursuing her. She once more feigns being injured and threatens legal action for the fabricated damages, but is swiftly arrested for fraud when the driver of the car she crashed into turns out to be the judge at her case against Schneider.
• Gravity Falls:
  • Just as it looks like Pacifica is going to get away with teasing the Pines Twins due to Mabel deciding not to let what she says get to her, Dipper still isn't satisfied and reveals to her that her whole family legacy is bull, simply to spite her. It takes until midway through season 2 for the impact to really be felt when Pacifica becomes the White Sheep of her family.
  • Nathaniel Northwest. While he got away with cheating the townspeople out of a celebration he promised them, he seemed to become insane after this and died eating the bark of a tree to prove he was a wizard.
  • Karma finally and horrifically hits Preston Northwest in "Weirdmageddon", courtesy of Bill Cipher. If that wasn't enough, in the final episode Preston was forced to sell the family mansion after going bankrupt investing all his fortune in "weirdness bonds" during Weirdmageddon. While he still has enough money from liquid assets to live comfortably, for him it's utterly humiliating and enough to break down crying on live TV.
  • Filbrick, Stan and Ford's father, does not suffer any comeuppance for the abuse of both his sons, the former by kicking him out for an accident while it's implied that he emotionally abused the latter into becoming a Meal Ticket for his family to become rich. That said, it's implied that while Stan and Ford end the series going on more adventures and reconnecting after Weirdmageddon, Filbrick is left stuck in the rotten dump where he raised Stan and Ford.
  • Bill Cipher himself. He finally gets his comeuppance at the end of "Weirdmageddon". He gets trapped in Stan's mind and is steadily destroyed by Ford's usage of the memory eraser on Stan, in his final moments Bill's very essence distorts and falls apart and he desperately tries to bargain with Stan only for a strong punch to shatter what remains of him.
• The Almighty Tallest in Invader Zim are two immature and cruel despots trying to conquer the universe and treat the rest of their kind, the Irkens, like trash. Throughout the series, outside of some occasional humiliation, they face no comeuppance for their horrible actions, which includes the enslavement and destruction of countless planets, and their conquest is left unstopped. This all changes in the movie Enter The Florpus where their stupidity and hatred of Zim result in them and their armada being sucked into the titular Florpus, something they intended to use to destroy both the Earth and Zim. Their plans for universal domination are completely wrecked and the last we see of the Tallest is them screaming in pain as they are consumed by flames in a monstrous hellscape.
• Kaeloo:
  • In Episode 56, the Alpha Bitch Pretty gets away with forcefully taking a horse away from Kaeloo, and shooting a horse with a gun just because she doesn't like it. In Episode 82, Kaeloo and Mr. Cat succeed in getting her humiliated on the news.
  • Whenever Mr. Cat is driving his car, his jerkassery levels increase. Examples of this include deliberately driving at a ridiculously slow speed in order to slow Kaeloo down when she's in a hurry since her car is behind his, or in another episode, ramming his car into Kaeloo's because she's going too slow and he's behind her. In Episode 134, Stumpy, who is angry at Mr. Cat, gets a bunch of clones of himself, who destroy the car... by holding an impromptu demolition derby while Mr. Cat is driving.
  • In Episode 118, Pretty gets away with posting embarrassing pictures of the main four online. She does this again a few episodes later to Kaeloo, but this time, she enters a competition and finds out that the judge is Kaeloo, who promptly fails her.
  • Cramoisie's Day in the Limelight episode has her being a huge jerk to everyone. She fat-shames Kaeloo and calls her ugly, and insults Mr. Cat as well, which she gets away with because Kaeloo forgives her due to her young age and Mr. Cat (being a Jerkass himself) finds Cramoisie's insults endearing and encourages her to continue being mean. In the last episode of season 5, Lavanade notices Cramoisie bullying Violasse and promptly summons a horde of ghosts to attack Cramoisie for being mean.
  • In seasons 2-4, Pretty is an Abhorrent Admirer to Mr. Cat and takes great pleasure in telling everyone that she and Mr. Cat are in a relationship even though Mr. Cat is disgusted by the idea. In season 5 Pretty undergoes a Heel–Face Turn and ends up falling out of love with him and becomes his friend instead. One of the season 5 episodes had Pretty try to tell a crowd that a rumor that was being spread about Mr. Cat was false, only for the crowd to call her a liar; it turns out that after three seasons of telling everyone Mr. Cat was her boyfriend, they believed her, and now they think Mr. Cat's "girlfriend" is defending him simply because they're in a "relationship".
• King of the Hill: Nancy Gribble had a 14-year-long affair with John Redcorn without Dale ever finding out about it. She and Redcorn mutually (though reluctantly) agree to part ways in season 4. However, there were some who felt that both Nancy and Redcorn got off too easily. At least until later episodes had them face consequences for their adultery:
  • "Night and Deity" has a gorgeous female exterminator fall in love with Dale, and Nancy is powerless to stop it without sounding like a hypocrite or possibly revealing her own unfaithful behavior. Dale, (un)fortunately, never even considers cheating on Nancy, which shows that he's a far better person than she is.
  • "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow" has Nancy starting to undergo female pattern baldness, and the stress that Dale's antic put on her is making her hair fall out even faster. Redcorn also tries to get back together with Nancy in this episode, which stresses her out even more. In the end, she rejects Redcorn and she and Dale are last seen purchasing a wig for her. Especially ironic since Dale is bald himself.
  • "The Untitled Blake McCormick project": Shows that Redcorn saw other women while he was with Nancy and sired a daughter the same age as Joseph.
  • As for John Redcorn himself: "Sug Night" has him break down in tears after Hank admits to having erotic dreams about Nancy, showing how much he still loves a woman he can't have and "Vision Quest" shows how painful it is for Redcorn to have to watch another man raise his son.
    • Furthermore, also in "Vision Quest" Redcorn attempts to send his son on a "spirit journey" without telling him what it is or why it's so important, only for it to backfire completely, as Joseph simply becomes angry and Dale is the only one who has a vision telling him that John Redcorn slept with his wife and fathered his child. Though Dale totally misses the point, the fact that it's implied the spirits of Redcorn's own ancestors are on Dale's side is pretty hilarious.
• Miraculous Ladybug: After five seasons of being a pain for everyone and refusing to stop being a jerk, karma throws everything it can at Chloe in "Revolution".
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • A lot of fans felt that Trixie received seriously Disproportionate Retribution for what happened in "Boast Busters" and that Snips and Snails were to blame for the Ursa Minor showing up yet got off without any punishment. Apparently the writers agreed: cue "Magic Duel" where Trixie shows up Drunk on the Dark Side with a power amplifying Artifact of Doom and, while taking some decent shots at everyone, hits Snips and Snails with more than what she hits the rest of the town combined with.
  • Some fans were upset about Featherweight being a Karma Houdini in "Ponyville Confidential". In "Slice of Life", he gets sprayed with ink, just like Diamond Tiara's punishment in the former episode, with the possibility of this being a recurring event very real.
• The Penguins of Madagascar: By the time we first met Hans in the show, The Danes had already discovered all the bad things he had done and exiled him.
• Polly Pocket: For the first two specials, Beth has come up with schemes to upstage Polly and humiliate her, but while her plans have failed, she gets off scot-free. But karma finally catches up to her in the 2006 movie PollyWorld when she tries to show off her mad cheerleading skills only to trip and get tangled in cables, causing everyone to laugh at her.
• Regular Show: In "The Best Burger in the World", Benson gets away with eating Mordecai and Rigby's burger at the end of the episode. Then later in "Sandwich of Death", Benson gets his karma when he takes a bite of the Death Sandwich and gets infected by it.
• Rugrats (1991): A meta-example. Angelica was initially intended by the creators to be a permanent Karma Houdini to teach children that sometimes life isn't fair. However, the creators themselves eventually got sick of Angelica's brattiness, so they decided to start having her face punishment. In "Barbecue Story", she received no comeuppance for throwing Tommy's favorite ball over the fence and into the next yard, where a mean bulldog resides. In her next appearance, "Slumber Party", she gets Tommy sick after opening his window and tries to pin the blame on Chuckie, Phil, and Lil, who aren't even in the episode, and Tommy ends up throwing up on her.
• Aku from Samurai Jack kept avoiding getting killed by Jack and never got any punishment for conquering the world and annihilating all who oppose him. Then came the Grand Finale of the 2017 revival, where Jack finally makes it back to the past and kills the evil being for good.
• Sofia the First: Princess Amber apparently got away with ruining Sofia's dance lesson out of jealousy in the pilot movie Once Upon a Princess (mostly due to Sofia's forgiving nature), and she gets her comeuppance in the episode "A Royal Wedding" when her twin brother James sabotages their aunt's wedding to make her look bad in an effort to prove that he's more fit to rule Enchancia than her.
• Screwy Squirrel received very little punishment for abusing the victims of his shorts and generally being a jerk. Then came his final short, "Lonesome Lennie", where he was crushed to death by the titular dog. It’s treated as a Downer Ending, but it can also be viewed as this since Screwy was somewhat unlikeable anyway; Tex Avery himself certainly thought so by then.
• Seth MacFarlane shows had some examples:
  • Family Guy: Peter gets away with abuse, attempted murder, genuine murder, and once accidentally burned down a hospital. In some episodes, he's hit with Poor Communication Kills and ends up the "sympathetic" character, and his interactions with Carter generally end with Carter screwing him over.
    • Speaking of Carter, he tends to get away with things far worse than Peter has, is completely unpleasant every time he appears, and never really gets punished for the things he's done. He gets his comeuppance in "Christmas Guy", where he gets completely humiliated.
  • Similarly, Roger of American Dad! is the resident Comedic Sociopath, ceaselessly getting away with abusing, conning, or murdering for self-gain or just for fun. Every now and then, however, he suffers a violent comeuppance, usually courtesy of Stan.
  • Rallo from The Cleveland Show. He does get away with a lot of things that he really should be punished for, but there are times where he gets punished (or some kind of karmic retribution happens).
• The Simpsons:
  • Fat Tony generally doesn't receive any punishment for his actions, except in a select few episodes. Come "Donnie Fatso" and Fat Tony suffers a fatal heart attack after discovering that Homer is a police informant, and is replaced by his cousin for the rest of the series.
  • Mr. Burns almost always gets away with his many, many crimes, but there are some episodes where he gets some kind of karmic justice, most famously when he got shot while trying to steal candy from Maggie. He also got his comeuppance in the movie (see the "Film - Animated" folder).
  • "Papa Don't Leech" has Lurleen's father get his comeuppance for deserting her as a child when the Dixie Chicks beat him up and apparently turn him into guitar picks for his unethical actions as their agent.
  • At the end of "Marge vs. the Monorail", Lyle Lanley escapes from Springfield on a plane and it looks like he's about to become a Karma Houdini for conning various towns into buying faulty and dangerous monorails. Then, he realizes the plane he's on is going to another town he previously conned, where he is attacked and beaten by an angry mob upon landing.
  • In season 1's "Some Enchanted Evening", Lucille Botz aka Lucille Botzcowski is a thief posing as a babysitter who held Bart, Lisa, and Maggie hostage, then got away with some Simpson family belongings (thanks to Homer inadvertently thinking she was beleaguered by the Simpson children). In season 8's "Hurricane Neddy", we see her among the inmates at the Calmwood Mental Hospital, suggesting she'd gotten arrested at some point between the two episodes.
  • When Homer accidentally invents 'Tomacco' in the episode E-I-E-I-D'oh, some corporate executives show interest in buying it, until chaos ensues on the farm, and grinning, they fly off with a plant to screw Homer out of any and all royalties. Many times on The Simpsons, corporate types glide out in full Karma Houdini mode. But their warranty is invoked by a tomacco-maddened sheep who gets in their chopper, causing a crash fatal to all except the sheep.
  • In "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star", Groundskeeper Willie sabotaged Springfield Elementary's medieval festival out of annoyance, resulting in Bart being unfairly blamed and expelled while Willie ended up receiving no comeuppance for his actions. In "Dark Knight Court", Willie once again frames Bart for sabotaging Springfield Elementary's Easter celebration, only for Lisa to discover proof of Willie's guilt this time, resulting in Mr. Burns capturing him and forcing him to confess, exonerating Bart.
• South Park:
  • There are times Eric Cartman gets away with his actions. That said there are also several instances where Cartman suffers the appropriate amount of punishment:
    • In the season 12 episode "Breast Cancer Show Ever" Wendy has had it with Cartman's antics and challenges him to a fight. Cartman at first plays it as a joke, but Butters points out that everyone would think he's a faggot if Wendy beat him, Cartman fears that she might actually beat him and tries his damndest to get out of the fight, to no avail. She does beat the hell out of him in front of everyone and while crying about how he's no longer cool, the others inform him that they've never thought he was cool and that their opinions of him couldn't possibly go any lower, which Cartman interprets as them trying to cheer him up because they really do like him.
    • At the end of Season 20, Cartman has reverted back to his Jerkass self, but was able to keep his girlfriend Heidi Turner with no repercussions. Come Season 21, he starts emotionally abusing her. This backfires on him hard when she becomes his Distaff Counterpart where she would abuse him and eventually break up with him in "Splatty Tomato".
    • Cartman's warranty expires for good at the end of the the "Post-Covid" two parter. It first seemed that Cartman got away with committing countless atrocities by growing up to have a happy life with a loving wife and kids. Then Stan and Kyle change the future (ironically with even his genuine assitance) where Cartman loses his happy life and loving family, instead becoming a miserable, lonely, and homeless alcoholic in the new future.
  • During Season 19, PC Principal intimidates a lot of people for the pursuit of social justice and has gone as far as assaulting people who say something he considers insensitive (like savagely attacking Cartman because he used the words "capiche" and "spokesman"), and he's never gotten any retribution for it. Come Season 20, he is forced to live with the fact that his actions partially caused one of the most politically incorrect characters to become president, who proceeds to rub it in his face and force him to suck his dick.
  • Upon becoming President, Mr. Garrison uses his newfound power to commit any atrocity he likes without facing consequences. This includes sending offensive tweets to North Korea, terrorizing Tweek, raping his own staff and immigrants to death, and nuking Canada; The last act causes Mr. Garrison to become a wanted man, but he manages to escape capture in the Season 21 finale. It isn't until the Season 22 finale where he's finally arrested for his crimes, and he is eventually forced back into becoming a substitute teacher in South Park.
  • In "Turd Burglers", Linda Stotch truly deserved to vomit and defecate uncontrollably as punishment for her abuse, mistreatment, and attempted murder of her son Butters. For those wondering about her husband, he got hit with this earlier. See the Video Game folder.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In the post-movie seasons, Mr. Krabs almost constantly gets away with all manner of horrible deeds, not the least of which nearly driving Plankton to suicide in "One Coarse Meal" for his own sadistic amusement. That being said, episodes such as "The Cent of Money" and "Patty Caper" end with him getting a suitable comeuppance.
• Superman: The Animated Series:
  • Darkseid has nearly caused an apocalypse on Earth (twice) and temporarily brainwashed Superman into being his lieutenant, destroying Earth's trust in the Man of Steel. He never gets punished for these crimes because he's the ruler of a planet that outright worships him even at his weakest. In the sequel series Justice League, he screws over the JL after they begrudgingly agree to help free Apokolips from Brainiac, and while he's busy hacking into Brainiac, Superman sees to it that Darkseid is blown up by the self-destruct. In Justice League Unlimited, Lex Luthor accidentally resurrects him instead of Brainiac due to Tala's sabotage, but Darkseid faces karma again afterwards when Luthor uses the Anti-Life Equation to trap both himself and Darkseid in the Source Wall.
  • This also happens to Luthor himself; after getting away with his reputation intact throughout the Superman series, he gets his at the beginning of Justice League, where his cockiness due to only facing Superman gets him played hard by the Martian Manhunter, and he's forced to go on the run. And to add insult to injury, his liberal use of Kryptonite against Superman has given him cancer.
  • In his debut episode, Bruno Mannheim was revealed to have betrayed the Toyman's father, framing him and having him die in prison. Afterwards, he helps Darkseid with his invasion schemes, and in the end, is left to die for all his troubles, just like Toyman's father.
• The Red Sky seasons of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) had a tendency to have villains who long avoided punishment for their actions eventually getting their comeuppance.
  • The Rat King is finally captured by the Turtles and brought to justice in "Wrath of the Rat King".
  • The season eight finale "Turtle Trek" ended with Shredder and Krang stranded in Dimension X with their battle fortress, the Technodrome, irreparably damaged.
  • The tenth and final season eventually had Lord Dregg's facade of a benevolent alien exposed and had him apparently killed off in the Grand Finale "Divide and Conquer".
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003): Torbin Zixx of the Fast Forward season shows up early on and establishes himself as a Con Man and Smug Snake who repeatedly gets away with swindling the Turtles, cheap shotting Raph, and being a general pain in the ass. In the final episode of the season, Donatello switches the transmitter Zixx was trying to steal with a coffee machine. After that, Zixx has to deal with an angry alien crime boss who won't hear any more of his excuses and opens fire on him, with a frantic Zixx trying to flee and make desperate pleas at the same time.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): Shredder has never had to pay for any of his actions, excluding his burn-scarred face and the death of Tang Shen, to the extent that in the season 3 finale, he chooses to kill Splinter rather than save the world from the Triceratons, and goes to his death happy that he finally beat Splinter. Season 4 sees his warranty start to come to an end; when Splinter's death is undone in "Earth's Last Stand", Splinter is so outraged at Shredder for breaking the Enemy Mine that he beats him senseless; the next time we see Shredder, he's bedridden and in intensive care. He finally gets what's coming to him in "Owari," as his killing of Splinter and injuring Karai is what gets the Turtles to come after him full-force, and he's beheaded by Leonardo.
• Tom and Jerry:
  • Jerry often comes out the victor in his conflicts with Tom, even in situations where he's the aggressor and Tom is the victim. However, shorts such as "The Million Dollar Cat" and "The Year of the Mouse" end with Tom winning for once, and Jerry getting a suitable comeuppance.
  • Tom's owner in the Gene Dietch era is a Fat Bastard with a Hair-Trigger Temper who violently abuses Tom for the smallest of slights, but never got punished for it. It isn't until "Sorry Safari," his final short, that the owner gets his comeuppance, being mauled by a lion, attacked by an angry rhino, and ending with him tied to a stick alongside Tom and said rhino.
• Total Drama: Chris McLean ends up getting away with nearly everything he does, aside from the occasional mishap here and there Played for Laughs, except for in "Brains vs. Brawn: The Ultimate Showdown", where karma finally catches up to him after he unwittingly blows himself up and is subsequently arrested by the Canadian government for his environmental crimes. Unfortunately, this doesn’t last, as the network posts bail and releases him so he can keep producing the show.
• Transformers: Animated:
  • Sentinel Prime is an odd example. In the backstory, he's a Karma Houdini (he was responsible for the incident that got Optimus Prime kicked to space bridge repair and Elita-1 turned into Blackarachnia, but got off scot-free and is now part of the Elite Guard because Optimus took the blame), but as soon as he lands on Earth, karma decides to make an example out of him, starting with disrespecting human traffic laws and falling off an unfinished overpass. As acting Magnus, he's reprimanded for his attempt to destroy the Decepticon-controlled Omega Supreme, ignoring the risk of destroying Cybertron. And in the final moments of the series, his rival, Optimus Prime, who he has mocked over the series, is hailed as a hero for capturing Megatron, while Sentinel is shown scowling in the crowd cheering for him. Had the show gotten a fourth season, he would have been brought down completely.
  • Minor villain Henry Masterson is seen getting off scot-free for his crimes twice thanks to Porter C. Powell. For context, one of his crimes included ATTEMPTING TO BLOW UP ALL OF DETROIT. In the Season 3 opener "TransWarped", however, he is finally arrested for his crimes, thanks to Powell getting kicked to the curb upon Sumdac's return.
  • Speaking of Powell, he gets Sari kicked out of Sumdac Tower by digging up proof she doesn't legally exist (which Season 3 reveals to be because of her being a Cybertronian protoform mixed with human DNA), starts running the company for his own ends, and causes crisis after crisis, using his influence to stay out of trouble. Then when Sumdac comes back, he gets fired, and starts his own company to sell Soundwave toys. Karma bites him hard when the real Soundwave uses said toys to brainwash the Autobots into attacking Detroit, and he's forced to refund everyone's money, leaving him in ruin.
• In the second season of Transformers: Rescue Bots, Corrupt Corporate Executive Madeline Pynch gets away with illegal digging, including brainwashing the town of Griffin Rock into doing it, activates a doomsday weapon by accident and ultimately almost sinking the town—and unlike Mad Scientist Dr. Morocco, gets away scot-free for that last stunt. The Season 4 episode "Cody's 11" sees Karma deliver a swift kick to her ass as the Burns and Bots decide to take back what she stole after she swiped some unstable Energon and tried to market it as an alternate energy source, and had the foresight to switch the mind-wiping Verne Device out with a fake and record her confession. Even her attempt to blackmail them fails as the town has learned the true nature of the Bots at the start of the season and accepted them.
• What If...?: Just because The Bad Guy Wins in their own episodes, doesn't mean it's going to stick.
  • In What If... The World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?, the episode ends with Loki taking over Earth almost effortlessly because the Avengers aren't there to stop him, but Nick Fury finds Captain America and recalls Captain Marvel, so there's an implication that his victory won't last and the Avengers will reform. When Uatu rewards Infinity Ultron's Black Widow by letting her live in place of her Dead Alternate Counterpart, she quickly takes him out.
  • A Discussed Trope in What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?. When Killmonger meets T'Challa (who he killed to stoke US/Wakanda tensions) on the astral plane, T'Challa notes that even if his schemes do work, he'll have a lot of very angry Black Panthers waiting for him in the afterlife. And his episode ends with all of his schemes going off as planned, but Pepper and Shuri escape with damning evidence against him... When he next appears, the Watcher saves him from the rebellion that Pepper and Shuri started... but he then gets frozen in time by Dr. Strange Supreme while making a play for the Infinity Stones.
  • Infinity Ultron is a version of Ultron who claimed Vision's body, all six Infinity Stones, and murdered his entire universe... but then he decides to take his ambitions to a multiversal scale and gets the Watcher to break his oath to make absolutely sure he gets Killed Off for Real. His eventual fate is to be erased by a copy of the Arnim Zola A.I.

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