Rant-Inducing Slight

Tails: Sonic?! WHAT THE [bleep] ARE YOU DOING HERE?! I mean... [does an emotional 180] Heya, guys!
Cream: So you cut the power! You're the best sidekick ever!
Tails: Well, I was coming here to save the day myself BEFORE YOU TOOK THAT AWAY FROM ME! YOU KNOW MY PAGER'S ALWAYS ON, WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE OKAYED IT WITH ME BEFOREHAND? YOU'D THINK YOU COULD PAY ME THE COMMON COURTESY!

— Xonic S, "Find the Lost Cream"

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A character who remained calm, despite having their patience tried throughout the episode, finally explodes into a monologue fury after a minor, inoffensive comment, request, or action proves to be the Rage Breaking Point. Oh, Crap! indeed.

This is sometimes what happens to a Pollyanna character when something finally gets through their armor. Often, the ranting character is told to get a hold of themselves. Bonus points if the ranting character is in a state of Unstoppable Rage. More points for Beware the Nice Ones.

If this happens in front of a group of people, they tend to go down a Long List of held-in grievances. The last one is often very silly.

On occasion, the Rant Inducing Slight will overlap with Selective Enforcement. Also, occasionally, this is one result of Science-Related Memetic Disorder or other such syndromes, where ranting in this way is par for the course.

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If this happens in a large political scale, it can look like a Silly Reason for War.

If the others are feeling particularly jerkish, then then they may deliberately do such things to push the character over the edge, then stand back and watch said character get lectured for the ensuring explosion. This can be an example of Truth in Television. Everyone's had a really bad day at some point and has had to struggle (often unsuccessfully) against exploding over something fairly minor. Both in real life and fiction, the target of the resulting explosion of anger is often someone completely innocent. In these cases, the person had nothing to do with the rest of the stuff that ticked the person off, they just happened to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, setting off a powderkeg of pent up stress and emotion. They may have given Unwanted Assistance after seeing they've had a bad day. This particular version tends to result in a My God, What Have I Done? moment as the ranter calms down and realizes they chewed out an innocent or even extremely well-meaning person (who is now, understandably, extremely hurt). Of course, the person who provokes the rant-inducing slight may also have been the one who was provoking the ranter in the first place, with the ranter resorting to this after subtle hints have proven ineffective.

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Occasionally combined with Precision F-Strike or Cluster F-Bomb.

A Sub-Trope of Rage Breaking Point (here the breaking point seems to be a minor thing). See Law of Disproportionate Response or Beware the Quiet Ones. Compare Berserk Button, Irrational Hatred, Hair-Trigger Temper, "The Reason You Suck" Speech, and The Last Straw for a physical equivalent. Contrast Disproportionate Reward and Minor Insult Meltdown. See also Driven to Madness.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Minoru Shiraishi elevates this trope to epic status in one of the final episodes of Lucky Star. The abuse heaped upon him by Akira-sama throughout the entire series at long last proves too much when she flings a bottle of water in his face - water he trekked into the mountains and fought with wild animals to obtain for her.
• Ghiaccio from [1] has a notoriously short temper which is set off by the mere slight of Giorno mispronouncing Venice, and his crewmates using the metaphor “Take a leaf out of someone’s book”/“Think outside the box”.
• Every episode of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei has the eponymous character come across a certain something that leads to him going into full-on ranting mode before declaring he's in despair because of it.
• Jagi from Fist of the North Star. "Your ears look like my brother's. DIE!"
• Anna and Uni Puma from Dominion Tank Police are master criminals, and don't you forget it. Never remind them that they started out as "love dolls".
• Hetalia: Axis Powers: Canada is the series' Butt-Monkey and woobie, since nobody ever sees him and if they do, they think he's his brother America. Finally, when he gets into an argument with America, he explodes into "The Reason You Suck" Speech for three hours, reducing America to tears. He probably would have continued on if England hadn't taken pity on America and stopped him.
• Bleach:
  • Uryuu has natural talent at sewing, and he takes his skill in it very seriously. He has a natural flair for clothing design and an uncontrollable creative need to "improve" (re: feminise) any clothing he can get his hands on, which tends to please women and horrify men, who think he should stick to women's fashion. However, buttons are an issue for Uryuu... a big, big issue.
  • Captain-Commander Yamamoto remained cool and composed for virtually the entire series, even when he was on the verge of killing his two finest students or giving up an arm in a bid to defeat Aizen. But the instant three of his captains return from battle having lost their captain's haoris, he loses it and begins ranting at them. Their casual dismissal of the haoris as useless (Kenpachi), cheap (Byakuya), and not stylish (Shunsui) makes things worse.
• Rei's attempt to give Asuka advice on synching up with her mech has this effect in Neon Genesis Evangelion, prompting Asuka to rant about how much she hates everything in her life, especially Rei.
• In one episode of Hamtaro, the Ham-Hams get stuck on a frozen desert island and put all the pressure on Maxwell to come up with an escape plan, which drives him to this.
  Maxwell! I CAN'T THINK!!!
  Oxnard: He's mad...
  Howdy: Like a hornet...
  Maxwell: Why can't you ever just rely on yourselves?! I'm just like you, just another Ham-Ham and maybe I'd like you to give me the answers sometimes! I can't always come up with solutions! I've got my off days too, you know! But instead, you guys act thick as logs and leave everything to me!
• In the second episode of the Pretty Sammy OAV, Tenchi politely declined Bif Standard's offer for a free copy of his SynchroniCity operating system, saying that it's slow. This causes Bif to go into a rant on how standardization, among other things, is more important than speed.
• In When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace, Hatoko has been friends with Jurai for years but has always been perplexed by his chuunibyou behaviour, a fact that Jurai has been visibly disappointed by in the past. She manages to put on a happy face about it until she questions him about a clandestine meeting he had with one of their other friends and he responds with his usual line, "You wouldn't understand." Hatoko breaks down into a now-famous rant.
• In the first episode of Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan, after Hisone backs out of flying Masotan at the last moment, Kakiyasu tells her if she felt like that she should have spoken up sooner. This sets Hisone off, starting with pointing out that, as a matter of fact, she did speak up fifteen times before and was summarily ignored. She then goes on to compare Nao to a grade schooler, complete with attitude, and finishes off with the fact she likes orange yogurt, not the strawberry she was given.
• The titular character from Aggretsuko naturally. It's a lot more common in the TBS shorts though. At one point, just failing to scrape the price tag off a vase is enough to send her into rage mode.
• Two examples from Tower of God:
  • Bam saving Rachel from Hoh by using a technique he just saw pushes the latter off the far end. Realizing that he will never be able to achieve his dream (it's a long story), he begins to rant against Bam how just by his innate talent he was getting in the way of those who did not have as much power as he did and was thus crushing the dreams and lives of others. He says that in face of that his attempts of trying to be friends are just belittling and claims to have never seen Bam as a friend. He then commits suicide.
  • Rachel was really having doubts about killing Bam, but those quickly vanished when he one-shotted the bull and showed her how far beyond her reach he was.

Comedy

• Sam Kinison's famous "Emotional Tampon" rant, caused by his girlfriend breaking up with him, and saying, "Can't we just be friends?" This then leads to his song, "You Fucking Whore!"
• British comic actor David Mitchell, prince regent of the Panel Show, has a general habit of not saying a whole lot throughout except when randomly breaking into a 5-minute rant vaguely related to the topic at hand. At one time he had a series of web videos entitled David Mitchell's Soapbox which consisted of these type of rants, though delivered in somewhat calmer tones since they were filmed after he'd had time to cool off. Stephen Fry on QI: "David, I've missed your angry logic."
• Bill Hicks' infamous rant at a woman who told him "You Suck".

Comic Books

• In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), despite being overly polite and against any sort of fighting, even Cream the Rabbit has her limits. When Nack captures Cheese the Chao and a Sol Emerald the Blaze the Cat was retrieving, Cream lunges at him only to be stopped by Bark. She then proceeds to rattle off the following quote, in a way only a well meaning, polite kid like her would do.
  Cream: How dare you kidnap Cheese! Don't hold him by his wings like that! Do you know how sensitive they are? And give back Miss Blaze's Sol Emerald! We have worked very hard to get that back for her, you know! This whole day has been nothing but roughhousing and rude people and I simply will not tolerate it!
• In the French comic book Agrippine by Claire Bretecher, the little brother of the protagonist starts to insult her in the worst ways - "Saggy-tits!" - "Whore!" - "Fatass!", but she doesn't even react. Then he says "Agrippine loves Dennis!", and she immediately goes "Why you little...!" on him.
• Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is fond of this, although he won't stop at ranting. Case in point: in one story he blows up a cafe because some guy smoking outside called him a pussy. But first he kills certain people inside for reasons like "Stop trying to bring back bell bottoms!" and "Your lazy eye disturbs me!" Oh, and he hates the word "wacky" and anyone who uses it.
• Robin Series: Jack Drake is prone to explosive rants at his son for innocuous comments or actions. A standout example being when Jack flipped his lid about Tim "dissing" him and screamed at him before yanking the television out of the room when Tim was watching a live hostage situation in a friend's neighboorhood and didn't imediatly turn it off when Jack came in and started talking at him. For bonus points Tim was already grounded over a misunderstanding caused by Jack refusing to listen to him after Tim's girlfrend's uncle tried to kill Tim and then called Jack to complain about Tim before Tim made it home.
• In Death of the Family, Damian at one point declares, "I have nothing to say that would help you manipulate me, clown." The Joker goes off on a rant in which he repeats the word "clown" several times and then goes on to point out that he doesn't really qualify as one, because he could never make someone laugh without a pharmaceutical push.

Comic Strips

• In one Marmaduke comic, Phil comes home to find a sobbing Marmaduke in the living room. Dottie explains that she spent the day chasing him off the couch and cleaning out his doghouse, but when she bought him the wrong dog food, he cracked.

Fan Works

• In the Jackie Chan Adventures fic Queen of All Oni, when Jade finally gets the first Teachings tablet, she goes off on a tangent due to the frustration of trying to get it, since the monk GAVE it to her when she asked, and he had been beating her up when she tried to forcibly take it.
• Love Covers All Sins: After dealing with the detective faking impending death to trap a criminal, Watson is just barely holding onto his anger. Holmes' final contribution to pushing Watson into a temper occurs when he calmly remarks about how well the arrest went, as though this hadn't been a gut-wrenching business for the doctor.
• Getting Back on Your Hooves:
  • Happens when Twilight Sparkle spends the day with Blueblood cleaning up a Stink Bomb Spike set off in his room. She puts up with all his insults and hubris...until he calls Rarity selfish for her perfectly realistic expectation of him being a proper gentlestallion. Twilight snaps and chews him out with a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, ending with an Armor-Piercing Question that actually makes him think about his actions for once in his life.
  • Invoked by Checker Monarch, who intentionally stresses out Applejack and Rainbow Dash by manipulating things into going wrong all day and Mind Raping Rainbow Dash with nightmares. All so they'll explode on Trixie at the right moment and break her spirit. It's subverted with Rainbow Dash, who realizes at the last moment what she was about to do.
• Yet again, with a little extra help: Ghost calls Naruto lucky. Naruto angrily points out his life asking where it was. Ghost promptly says sorry when Naruto calms down.
• In Facing the Future Series, Danny is furious when Walker attacks Maddie in a blind rage after his portal generator is destroyed. But he snaps when Walker complains that that destruction of public property is against the rules. Danny while going apeshit on him, calls him out of his Screw the Rules, I Make Them! policy.
  "Rules? RULES?! What do YOU care about rules?! You break your precious 'rules' whenever it's convenient. Why don't you just admit it?! All rules are to you is an excuse to try and control everyone! YOU'RE THE BIGGEST HYPOCRITE I'VE EVER MET IN MY LIFE!!!"
• Tealove's Steamy Adventure: Tealove endures captivity in Big Jim's cave for several hours. What finally makes her snap is when he serves really bad tea at a tea party. She takes her tea very seriously.
  Tealove shoved the teacup out of her way and climbed onto the table. “Hey, Big Jim! I need to talk to you!” Once she was reasonably certain she had the troll’s attention, she continued, “We’ve put up with a lot in the past few hours! Confinement! Gratuitous hair brushing! And the less said about that 'ship' thing, the better! But I draw the line at this! I will not, repeat, will not abide bad tea!”
• In Vapors the main character, Naruto's sister Aiko, usually believes Kakashi to be the most awesome person in the world who can do no wrong. But due her her Parental Abandonment issues and her loathing of Generation Xerox, she blows her top at him when he tries to teach her the Rasengan, which was her father's jutsu.
• In Overlady throughout hearing everything that's been going on in the three months she's been gone, Louise Francois manages to remain relatively stoic if not actually calm. But when she hears that Wardes (her fiance) is sleeping with another woman, she devolves into a rant lasting several minutes that manages to impress a (retired) incubus.
• letmetellyouaboutmyfeels' MCU Rewrites:
  • In the rewrite of Avengers: Age of Ultron, when Wanda and Pietro Maximoff are approached by Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff, Clint acknowledges that the Maximoff twins have "issues" with Tony Stark because their mother was killed by a missile made by Stark Industries causing Wanda to go into a rant about how Stark killed her and Pietro's only family and how horrible their lives were because of it.
  “Issues?” Wanda said, cutting him off. Her tone was derisive and she stalked over, getting right up in Hawkeye’s face. “Our mother was killed by a missile that Stark made when it hit our house during the war. My brother and I were trapped in the rubble for three days, staring at the Stark Industries logo. Staring at the machine, the name of the man that had killed our only family. We were refugees, children that no one wanted. Who would take in a filthy Roma? Roma just steal, Roma just lie, never trust a Roma, everyone knows that. We were beaten and kicked out of foster homes. We grew up on the streets! We had no one to care for us, no one to love us. People spit at our feet! Stark brought war down on our heads, destroyed our cities and killed our people. He made our lives miserable. And you say, you say that I have 'issues'?”
  Wanda was crying now, the tears streaming down her face as she screamed at Hawkeye. “I did not have issues with Stark. I wanted him dead!”
  • In Captain America: Ghosts of Hydra, Steve is being interviewed and goes into one when asked about Bucky AKA The Winter Soldier and goes over how Bucky shouldn't be accused of doing such horrible things because of the fact that he did so under HYDRA's control.
    Steve Rogers: I'll be honest with you, I might not be the best person to ask. I'm Bucky's best friend. It's like asking a wife to testify against her husband. You can't help but remember all the ways that person was good for you and all the reasons why you cared about them. And that can mess with your judgment. But I'll try and stick with the facts: the fact is that a man has been brainwashed for decades by an organization that we know has a history of murder, espionage, discrimination, persecution, and God knows how many other crimes. I'd also like you to consider Barnes's distinguished military career up until his supposed death while in action. If the kind of person like Barnes, with his venerated, untarnished career, is suddenly a killer for an organization like HYDRA, one that we know uses brainwashing techniques, wouldn't that make you think twice about persecuting him at the very least? And why — I'm sorry, why are we even discussing the death penalty? Why is this still a thing in our country, when — when we claim to be better than others while doing the same things that they do, that's where we start to lose our way. I think Buck — that Barnes, is a convenient patsy for the media. He's the big, scary assassin that everyone can blame. It's why Natasha Romanoff is still on trial after being the one to release the HYDRA files in the first place and risking her life repeatedly for the sake of this country: she's a convenient patsy. The government and the public likes to have a boogeyman to hate. If the government was truly interested in being fair, they would finish decoding and sorting all of the released HYDRA files before starting a manhunt. And where's the manhunt for Brock Rumlow? He publicly stated that he was for HYDRA, and he doesn't even get a blip on the radar. Barnes shouldn't be Public Enemy #1. The people at the top who gave him his orders and snuck into S.H.I.E.L.D. through the back door are the ones we should be going after. [realizes he's gone on a bit of a rant and that everyone looks a bit taken aback] I'm sorry, it's just... this hits a bit close to home, y'know?
• In Tears and Tootsie Rolls, Sunset learns that Twilight has never gone trick or treating, and pretty much drafts her into doing it. Twilight wears on Sunset's nerves during the night, due to her inexperience and fussiness. But what makes Sunset lose it is when Twilight let herself get tricked into giving up her candy to a bunch of teenage hoodlums.
  Sunset: What's wrong with you? You're never supposed to trust teenage boys on Nightmare Night! That's, like, rule number one!
• In Black Victory we have the protagonist calling himself out via a Stable Time Loop, the rant is basically a Shell-Shocked Veteran calling out his Wide-Eyed Idealist past self on the War Is Hell theme their life has taken. It's short, cold, and to the point.
• During the third iteration of Communication, Louise has a meeting with Kirche and Tabitha after having to suffer through a date with her traitorous fiancee who she knows has betrayed her and the kingdom. In the middle of their conversation, Kirche claims out of worry that Louise needs her and Tabitha at Albion to make sure she stays safe. Louise doesn't take too kindly to that statement.
  Louise: No I don’t! What I need Zerbst is a magical affinity that doesn’t make me the second coming of the Founder! What I need is a familiar that tells me my life will be quiet and calm! What I need is a fiancé who is as loyal as he is handsome! What. I. Need is a life where I can be respected for the hours and sleepless nights I have spent studying, for the grades I have earned. What I need is all this to go away and for it to never come back- BUT I’M NOT THAT FUCKING LUCKY!

Films — Live-Action

• Anytime in Falling Down when D-Fence goes on one of these, expect the body count to start rising.
• Appears in Father of the Bride (1991). Stressed out by the mounting costs of his daughter's wedding, George Banks (played by Steve Martin) has a fit that results in incarceration over the fact that hot dogs are sold in packs of eight and hot dog buns are sold in packs of ten (it's actually the other way around in most cases).
• In the horror flick Slither, after seeing someone literally explode in his face, nearly getting infested by The Virus, and chased through the forest by zombies, what finally gets the mayor is the fact that there's no Mr Pibb in the rescue vehicle.
  (deathly quiet) Where is the Mr Pibb? I told your secretary to pack Mr Pibb, it's the only coke I like. (louder) Goddamn Brenda exploding like a water balloon, worms driving my friends around like they're goddamn skin-cars, people are spitting acid at me, turning you into cottage cheese, and now THERE'S NO FUCKIN'. GOD. DAMN. MR. PIBB!
• Office Space has Lumburgh taking Milton's favorite stapler, which he reacts to by setting the building on fire.
• Dramatic example: the "No Wire Hangers!" rant among others from Mommie Dearest.
• In Airplane II: The Sequel, the passengers barely react to the news that the spacecraft is out of control and a tad off course and heading towards the sun and that there are huge asteroids smashing into the hull. But all hell breaks loose when the stewardess confesses they're also out of coffee.
• Shaun in Shaun of the Dead is almost supernaturally willing to put up with the slobby, selfish and lazy behaviour of his best friend Ed, and will defend Ed to anyone who criticises Ed for these qualities. Then, Shaun has an epiphany, the Dead rise and start to claim the Earth, and Ed makes the mistake of pushing Shaun's tolerance of his self-centered and increasingly reckless behaviour a little too far when he takes a trivial phone call on his mobile and puts everyone at risk:
  Shaun: "What am I doing?" What are you doing, you stupid moron?
  Ed: Fuck off!
  Shaun: You fuck off! Fuck fucking off! I've spent my entire life— Look at me! I've spent my entire life sticking my neck out for you, and all you ever do is fuck things up! Fuck things up and make me look stupid! Well, I'm not going to let you do it anymore. Not today!!!!
• In a darker example of this trope from Batman Returns, Selina Kyle returns home after being pushed out of a window by Max Shreck. Dazed and confused, she goes through her normal routine, until a message plays on her answering machine that turns out to be an advertisement for a perfume that mentions a "candlelight staff meeting for two" sold "Exclusively at Shreck's Department Store." This ad proves to be the final straw that makes Selina lose her mind and become Catwoman in a very disturbing destruction sequence.
• From National Lampoon's Vacation, in all it's F-bomb-having glory:
  Clark Griswold (after his family asked him to give up and go home): I think you're all fucked in the head. We're only ten hours from the fucking fun park and you want to bail out. Well I'll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. I'm gonna have fun and you're gonna have fun. We're all gonna have so much fucking fun we'll need plastic surgery to remove our goddamn smiles. You'll be whistling "Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah" out of your assholes! I gotta be crazy; I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose! Praise Marty Moose! Holy shit!"
• He gets another one in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, after finding out his Christmas bonus was a membership to the Jelly of the Month club:

  Clark: Hey. If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I'd like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people and I want him brought right here, with a big ribbon on his head, and I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is. Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where's the Tylenol?

  • Then, when the family tries to leave afterwards, Clark continues:
    Clark: Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving! Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas! No, no! We're all in this together! This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse.
• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: "Wrong, sir! Wrong! Under section 37B of the contract signed by him, it states quite clearly that all offers shall become null and void if — and you can read it for yourself in this photostatic copy — "I, the undersigned, shall forfeit all rights, privileges, and licenses herein and herein contained," et cetera, et cetera... 'Fax mentis incendium gloria cultum,'^note Roughly "The torch of glory cultivates the fire of the mind." et cetera, et cetera...'Memo bis punitor delicatum'! ^note Most likely just nonsense, but possibly meant to be "Memor non bis punitur peccatum," meaning "Remember that no sin may be twice punished. It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal! You stole fizzy lifting drinks. You bumped into the ceiling which now has to be washed and sterilized, so you get NOTHING! You lose! Good day sir!"
  • In this case, Wonka was using this as an excuse to set up the final test of character, which Charlie passes by returning the Everlasting Gobstopper rather than sell it to Slugworth—who wasn't even Slugworth, but a man who worked for Wonka specifically for this purpose.
• Living in Oblivion. The director, after a string of failed takes for every reason under the sun, finally goes off. The look on the cast and crew's faces is unforgettable. Steve Buscemi ad-libbed it completely, and their shock is genuine.
• Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle:
  • Harold's patience is tried multiple times by his asshole coworkers, racist extreme sports enthusiasts, cops, Neil Patrick Harris, and even his best friend. It's when he finds out that his coworkers had lied about a meeting to make him do all their work that he lashes out at his coworkers and implies to their female companions that the two guys have STDs.
  • Kumar gets his when an asshole cop gives Harold a ticket for jaywalking after putting one foot down off the curb.
• Happens twice within minutes of each other in He Died with a Felafel in His Hand. In the first case, Dirk goes off bitching about the 'hetero fascist sterility conspiracy' after coming out of the closet, only find out that everyone thought he was gay to begin with. Evidently expecting a different response, he goes looking for a fight and accuses Danny of being a homophobe. Unfortunately for him, Danny's been through hell, and that's the last straw.
  Dirk: I'd just like to say that I've got a problem with you all accepting my homosexuality without question. No wonder my suppressed heterosexual side is in a spin all the time. You all thought I was gay even when I was fucking straight!
  Daniel: Dirk, we think it's great, man.
  Dirk: What's so fucking great about being a poofter, Danny?
  Daniel: Nothing, Dirk. Just... finish the bathroom.
  Dirk: That's just fucking typical, Daniel. I'd like to declare, I've got a problem with that, too. You want me to put on a fucking pink apron, Danny? You want me to put on the fucking pink washing-up gloves, and lick the boots of the hetero-fascist sterility conspiracy thing? Well, no fucking way, pal! I'm not some mincey fucking queen that'll lick the boots of you hetero fucks! Oh, give the fag some hetero foot massage routine when he comes in — bullshit! Gay men are dying, Danny. And you want me to clean the bath.
  Daniel: Dirk, just forget it, mate.
  Dirk: You don't mean that, do you, Danny? What you really mean is, "All you filthy little ass-bandits should be nailed to a tree!" Isn't that so, Danny?
  Daniel: Dirk, this newly installed, sophisticated gay radar of yours is picking up shit from the cosmos that just ain't fucking there. I've got my own shit to worry about. I've lived in 49 shared households in what seems like as many years. I've been ripped off, raided, threatened, burned out, shot at, cheated on, scabbed in every one of those years. My beds are foam slabs on the floor, my cupboards are stacks of stolen milk crates! I've lived with tent-dwelling bank clerks, albino moon tanners, nitrous suckers, psycho fucking drama queens, ACID EATERS, MUSHROOM FARMERS, FUCKING BROTHEL CRAWLERS, FRIDGE-PISSERS, HARDCORE SEPARATIST LESBIANS, AND AN OBSCURELY-TITLED JAPANESE GIRL! AND NOW THE BEST FRIEND I'VE EVER HAD IN THE FUCKING WORLD WON'T EVEN FUCKING TALK TO ME! I'M IN A PSYCHO FUCKING NIGHTMARE FROM HELL, AND I'M FUCKING FED UP WITH IT! So I suggest, pal, that you tune in, and chill fucking out.
• Maverick. The title character is threatened by a gunfighter, is called a card cheat and engages in a fight with a gang without losing his cool, but when his shirt gets a smudge on it he flips out.
  All right! My shirt's damaged! Damn! What the hell else bad can happen? This is (probably) calculated on Maverick's part: the fight was intentionally staged to derail the accusation of cheating, and after seeing him kick the asses of an entire gang, nobody at the card game — not even the notorious gunfighter — is in a hurry to provoke him further.
• At one point during Wild Wild West, West and Gordon are captured by Loveless and put in a square of land surrounded by a very low wire, wearing magnetic collars last seen on a man who got decapitated, and are warned that if they try to escape, they'll end up dead. An impatient West steps over the wire, setting off a machine that releases metal blades, which are attracted to the collars. They manage to escape the blades, but are still without transportation, weapons, or the slightest clue as to where Loveless's base is. Then James asks Gordon how he plans on getting the collars off:
  Gordon: Excuse me?
  West: Well, that's what you're here for, right? You're the master of this mechanical stuff.
  Artemus Gordon: (chuckling maniacally) Oh ho ho, I see. Now I'm the "master of this mechanical stuff." As opposed to five minutes ago, when I was calmly and coolly trying to find an intelligent solution to this very problem. But then something happened. Someone, who will remain nameless... (throws back his head and shouts) JIM WEST! ("Jim West" echoes through the canyon) ...decided to jump over the wire, thereby providing us with that exhilarating romp through the cornfield, and that death-defying leap into the abysmal muck! And here we stand, while that demented maniac hurtling towards our President, with our one and only means of transportation, with Rita as his prisoner, armed with God-knows-what machinery of mass destruction, with the simple intention of overturning our government and taking over the country!
  West: Gordon, I think you need to calm down.
  Gordon: I can't be calm! Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm the "Master of the Mechanical Stuff"! And I have to help you! You, the master of the stupid stuff! You wanna get your collar off?! I'll get it off! I don't have a gun; otherwise I'd shoot it off! (picks up rock) Here! Here's something in the true Jim West style! I'll just bash it with a rock!
  West: Gordon, you don't wanna do that!
  Gordon: Oh, but I do!
  (He smacks West's collar with the rock. There is a hum, and the two collars are pulled towards each other.)
• In Roxanne, CD usually just beats up people who make fun of his nose, but when one townie thinks it's pretty funny to call him "bignose," CD goes on a lengthy rant in which he lists twenty alternative insults that are more witty. Then he beats the guy up. This scene is highly reminiscent of a similar scene in Cyrano de Bergerac, upon which the film is based.
• Again with Steve Martin: In John Hughes's Planes, Trains and Automobiles, after walking out into a snowy parking lot to find the space where his rental car was supposed to be empty, he returns to the counter and drops an obscenity-laced rant on the clerk, continuing even after she tells him she doesn't appreciate him talking to her that way.
• In the The Three Stooges short "Punch Drunks", Curly gains a burst of rage whenever he hears "Pop goes the weasel". It gives Curly near-superhuman strength, giving Moe the idea to use him as a boxer. However whenever the song stops or starts unexpectedly, Hilarity Ensues.
• In 27 Dresses, Jane goes through most of the movie dealing with her extraordinarily taxing younger sister Tess, who lied to the man Jane was (secretly) in love with to get him to fall for her, and basically trampled all over Jane's neat and put-together life. This is on top of meeting the man she idolized for his wedding colums, only to find out that he's actually a cynical wedding-hater (oh, and then later she starts falling for him and they have sex and then she discovers the article he wrote about her and feels understandably betrayed). But none of that is really enough to set her off. What does it?

  Jane: That was yesterday. Today you're just some bitch who broke my heart and cut up my mother's wedding dress.

  • Eloquently explained by Jane's best friend Casey that night, after the rehearsal dinner in which Jane revealed all of the lies Tess had told George.
    Jane: You're the one who's always telling me to stand up for myself.
    Casey: Yeah, but that's not what you did. What you did was unleash twenty years of repressed feelings in one night. It was entertaining, don't get me wrong, but if it was the right thing to do, you'd feel better right now. Do you feel better right now?
• Mitch, the new guy, from Waiting... never once gets to say more than one or two words throughout the entire movie. Even when asked a question or invited to talk, someone will cut him off. He even has people talk down to him for "not talking much". He endures it all day and, finally, during a party after hours he gets interrupted one too many times and frees the beast on everyone. This earns him the "undying allegiance" of Monty and the respect of the entire restaurant.
• Tommy Boy: Richard doesn't have much patience towards Tommy throughout much of the movie, but after the hood flies open on the highway, he tears Tommy to shreds.
  Richard: Hey, I was just thinking, when we stopped for gas this morning, I think it was you who put the oil in.
  Tommy: Hey, if you're gonna say I didn't put the right kind, then you're wrong. I used 10W-30. And besides, motor oil would have nothing to do with this accident.
  Richard: True. But you can't latch the hood too well if you don't take the can out, you no-selling waste of space! I swear to God you're worthless!
• The Old Guard: When one of their captors asks mockingly if Nicky is his boyfriend, Joe chews him out, telling him just how much Nicky means to him and calling the guard a child.

Jokes

• A doctor is facing a medical board during an investigation.
  Well, let me explain. First, I worked up very late the previous night, and had maybe five hours of sleep. Then I spilled coffee on my best shirt, my car had been towed, so I had to take the bus, which broke down halfway, then a bird crapped on me as I was walking to the hospital, at which point three passing cars splashed me, and when I arrived every patient was a hypochondriac with a bad case of "the customer is always right".
  So, yes, when that nurse came in with a tray of thermometers asking me where she should put them, I... may have overreacted.

Literature

• In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry uses an Unforgivable curse after Amycus Carrow spits at Professor McGonagall. The only other time that Harry used this particular curse, he was provoked by Bellatrix Lestrange openly mocking the death of Sirius Black, the closest thing Harry had to a father, whom she had murdered in front of Harry a few minutes earlier. Harry explains his reasons as simply, "He spat at you."
• In Joel Turnipseed's Gulf War memoir Baghdad Express, he is driving a truck accompanied by a Kuwaiti (nicknamed "Cigarette") who cannot speak English. This inability causes one of Turnipseed's fellow soldiers to lean through the truck window and start ranting a full-on Cluster S Bomb in a Southern dialect:
  Goddamn for'ners! Cain't talk fer shit, cain't work fer shit, ain't worth a shit! Goddamn Corps's gone to shit, war's gone to shit, they don't even shoot real bullets anymore; gotta fly some fake bullets to Bumfuck, Egypt, Goddamn...
• A very dramatic, not comedic example is in Noli Me Tangere, where Crisostomo Ibarra does his best to be civil to the former parish priest Padre Damaso, despite the latter having vilified Ibarra's recently deceased father. However, Ibarra reaches his breaking point at a celebratory luncheon when the priest insults his father's memory. Ibarra draws a knife and attacks Damaso, and nearly kills him after the rant. This incident leads to Ibarra getting excommunicated. This is the beginning of the end of Ibarra's world as he knows it.
• In Anne Of Windy Poplars, one of Anne's matchmaking efforts goes Off the Rails when the girl's mischievous siblings start implying to her would-be fiance that their father is responsible for all manner of over-the-top abuses ("what would you think of a man who...") while the man himself listens in increasingly infuriated silence. What finally pushes him past the limit of his tolerance? When his wife, in a desperate attempt to defend him, declares how beautifully he crochets.
• In Generation X, Douglas Coupland calls this trope a "ketchup-bottle burst moment", and one of the characters recalls having one at his job.
• In The Witchlands, after a long period when Merik is stuck at a dinner party with a bunch of gossipping airheads, he's near his Rage Breaking Point, so when he's asked for his opinion on some minor scandal, he pretty much explodes with fury.
• In Shadow of the Conqueror, Daylen tries to swallow his fuming anger over Lyrah bossing him around and calling him "kid," but her insisting on him going to the constabulary immediately makes him boil over in rage and scream at her not to order him around. Her reaction makes him instantly regret this, and he apologizes by the next page.

Live-Action TV

• A segment of the 2003 MTV awards ceremony shows Gollum/Sméagol on a rant about how MTV and Peter Jackson suck and how he/they were worthy of the award for best virtual actor/character.
  • This incredibly impressive bit of Self-Deprecation by WETA Digital and Andy Serkis is an Easter Egg on the two DVD set of the Extended Edition of Jackson's The Two Towers. While you can't hear Elijah Wood's reaction to the clip as he saw it in the audience, it doesn't take a master at Reading Lips to know that he was quite impressed.

---

• Angel: Throughout "Sanctuary", Angel manages to keep it together even as Buffy breaks into his home wanting to kill Faith for her crimes, firmly convinced that Faith is beyond redemption and Angel is wasting his time trying to help her. After Faith turns herself in to the LAPD, Buffy takes the time to rub her new relationship in Angel's face, stating that unlike what she had with him, she actually knows and trusts Riley. At this point, Angel loses his temper and gives Buffy one hell of a tongue-lashing, bluntly telling her that she doesn't know him anymore and that she has no right to just show up with her "great new life" and tell him how to do things before harshly ordering her to Get Out! of Los Angeles.
• Ax Men: At least once an episode for most of the crews. Pretty much once per scene for S&S Aqua Logging.
  • One of the most memorable is probably the absolute tantrum Gabe Rygaard threw when he discovered one of the chainsaws had been broken. While it was an expensive piece of equipment, he literally behaved like a small child throwing a fit. Still probably doesn't measure up to his father at one point getting a relatively minor bit of bad news over the phone, then throwing his cellphone on the ground, getting out his gun, and shooting the phone repeatedly.
• Bering Sea Gold: Seems to happen at least once per crew per episode. Sometimes more. This has led to on-camera, on-screen fights.
• Bones: In "Yanks in the UK", Booth constantly encounters minor annoyances caused by his trip to Britain, until he finally loses his calm after trying to turn right at a red light, yelling "I'm glad we had a revolution!"
  • There’s also the time someone called psychologist turned chef Gordon Gordon Wyatt a fry cook. “FRY COOK??”
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In "Spiral", with Glory now knowing that Dawn is the Key, Buffy declares they have no choice but to leave Sunnydale or die, procuring a Winnebago for transportation and allowing Spike to accompany them. Giles and Xander are anything but pleased that Buffy brought Spike along, but Buffy justifies it by pointing out that she and Spike are the only ones who stand any chance at protecting Dawn should Glory catch up to them; when Xander continues to object to it, Buffy, having enough to deal with already, snaps and promptly shuts him up with a few words:
  Buffy: Look, this isn't a discussion! He stays! Get over it.
• One episode of Community had a group of Europeans playing foosball in the cafeteria being subjected to numerous insults from Jeff Winger on account of them making to much noise. It doesn't seem to bother them until he says "Shouldn't you be making weird art movies or well engineered cars?" and one yells "You Take That Back!" and has to be restrained by the other two.
• In the second episode of Corner Gas' first season, Lacy has had people complaining about the price of her coffee all day. When Hank starts to complain, she interrupts him with a long rant complaining about Dog River. It turns out he had just got the wrong bill, and Lacey apologizes. When he receives the bill he was actually meant to receive, he starts complaining about the price of the coffee. Oh, the irony.
• Cutey Honey The Live has this occur often with Duke Watari: anything, from a cut on his face while shaving to getting blood on his suit will set him off and drive him to cuss up a storm.
  Watari: SHIT!!!
• Deadliest Catch: Occurs about five times per season per boat, especially if the season's greenhorns are particularly poor.
  • Captain Keith of the Wizard was very upset when his brother didn't wake him up to see a pod(?) of walrus, the reason being that every time he's seen walrus while fishing it was a good season.
  • Keith appeared to be trying to get one of the Time Bandit crew to join his boat (he says he was just joking), which infuriated the Bandit's captain to the point where he shoved Keith into a pile of scrap metal in front of the other captains.
    • Just before Jonathan shoved Keith, he made a reference to Keith "killing his brother", in reference to an accident with a giant wave that severely injured Keith's brother Monte. As might be expected, Keith did not take that insult well.
  • "Wild Bill" has had lousy luck both king and opie seasons. He finally lands on a great spot ... only his cameraman is too sick to film. To quote the producer, "G-BLEEPBLEEP-ing m-BLEEPBLEEPBLEEPBLEEPBLEEP".
  • Keith (again): A simple request for coffee after a long dry spell almost caused him to throttle an irritating cameraman.
    Keith: You do nothing around here and you can't even make me a [BLEEP]ing pot of coffee?!
  • A commercial for After The Catch had Keith, wearing a pink flower lei, state that he is in fact misunderstood and very sensitive.
    Mike Rowe: [spit take] Really?
  • Guess who was featured in over half the clips in the "best blowups" poll.
• Doctor Who:
  • "The Idiot's Lantern": In the middle of the Doctor chewing out jerkass abuser Eddie Connolly, Rose berates him for a) calling the Union Jack the "Union Jack" (technically, it's the Union Flag; it's only supposed to be called the Union Jack when it's flown at sea; Rose knows this because her mum dated a sailor) and b) hanging it upside down.
  • Rory Williams holds it together thought pretty much everything from the end of the universe to accidentally killing his girlfriend, to dying (repeatedly). But when the Doctor bluntly dismisses aforementioned girlfriend with the line "[she] isn't more important than the whole universe"... Thwack. (Turns out this was a ploy so he could work out if he actually was still Rory. The punch convinced him.)
• Drake & Josh: "Josh Is Done" has Drake leaving Josh behind during a chemistry exam to make out with his girlfriend. Josh ends up being thrown out by Mr. Roland and is assigned a make-up exam next Saturday at 6 AM and will have his grades dropped because of it. When Drake gives a Defensive "What?" as Josh is pointing at him, Josh goes ballistic and lunges towards Drake to tackle him.
• Everybody Hates Chris: An admittedly short example; when Rochelle's father dies, Chris picks up the slack left behind from her grief-induced depression, basically keeping the house and taking care of her relatives during their visit for the funeral. He finally snaps and yells at his grandmother when she picks on Rochelle about making sub-par iced tea (Rochelle's mother is even booshier than she is, and will take any opportunity to unfairly criticize her).
• In an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray keeps fairly calm about his parents driving their car through his wall, and doesn't even complain when his father practically refuses to pay for the repairs despite the accident being entirely his fault. The replacement wallpaper not matching (by a near imperceptible margin), however, sends him into a screaming fury.
  • Ray does this again in the Christmas portrait episode. He remains relatively calm, if somewhat frustrated when Debra's parents come over, his brother comes in police uniform and pouts about his girlfriend not being there, his mother acting petty about Debra's parents, etc. but then freaks out into a fury when Debra's mother asks if she can change her scarf.
• Farscape:
  • "Self Inflicted Wounds Part 2":
    • Stark has been vomited on by Pilot, attacked by the Monster of the Week, backstabbed by visiting aliens that Crichton sides with, trapped aboard a crippled ship, and forced to watch his lover slowly dying- but doesn't truly explode until Jool attempts to complain about her own problems. And the rant that follows isn't funny in the slightest.
      Stark: DEAD! ALL OF US, DEAD! My love, DEAD! My dreams, DEAD! You, DEAD! Me, DEAD! You dead! Me dead! You dead! Me dead! You dead! Me dead! Your list is short and unworthy of entry to this ship of horror! Tortured by demons you can never know! Mocked by love that will never be! Oh, you want to cry, young creature? I will show you something that will make you cry forever! [he begins unbuckling his mask and Jool screams]
    • Pathfinder Neeyala been trying to approach the worsening situation rationally- even when Aeryn slams her against a console and puts a gun to her head. But when Zhaan casually blames her for the disasters aboard Moya, the scientist loses her temper.
      Neeyala: What I have done? It is you who have destroyed my life's endeavour whilst I have suffered your probing, your confusions and your smell. Do you not think that my bristles contain enough poison to dispatch you all? Yet, when I fail to overload what are clearly inferior intellects with a drist of needless information, you bring weapons to bear! Kill me if you will; see how you fare on your own!
      [uncomfortable pause]
      Aeryn: Do you feel better?
  • And Rygel has one in "Throne for a Loss". Having been kidnapped and held for ransom by the Tavleks, he spends most of the episode buried up to his waist in mud and being forced to eat out of bowls made from the skulls of previous captives, but remaining fairly hopeful about the situation. Then his cell-mate Jotheb (Future Ruler of the Consortium of Trao) offers to pay his ransom if it doesn't arrive; after Rygel has been re-buried up to his neck in mud, Jotheb explains that his apparently selfless act of compassion was in the hope that Rygel's empire and all six hundred billion of its inhabitants would be absorbed by the Consortium; Rygel promptly bursts out laughing and gives his rant:
    Rygel: You multi-throated moron! I don't have any subjects- I was deposed over a hundred cycles ago! Ransom me if you want, but all you'll get is me! My traitorous bastard of a cousin stole my throne and imprisoned me! I escaped with a few other fugitives and they're the only ones who even know I'm here!
    Jotheb: Won't they ransom you?
    Rygel: They couldn't if they wanted to... and they don't want to because they hate me! [laughs maniacally]
• Firefly has Kaylee fly into one such rant when an Alliance officer calls Serenity a "junker".
• Frasier:
  • In "Dark Victory", Frasier has remained resolutely cheerful on his father's birthday despite a city-wide blackout and the fact that the others, who are all consumed with their own problems, seem determined to be miserable and have absolutely no fun at all. When he finally manages to get everyone cheered up, they're so pleased that they decide to go to a party downstairs instead of stay at the party he's organized, and it's only when someone (somewhat hypocritically) tells him not to be a 'party-pooper' because he doesn't want to go that Frasier finally unleashes the rant that has been building up all episode.
  • A later double-episode sees Niles' ex-wife arrested for murdering her boyfriend; she begins to badger Niles incessantly for his help. This displeases Daphne, who being pregnant at that point is exceptionally hormonal to begin with; she eventually forces him to sleep on the sofa. Furthermore, Frasier has given a press-conference in which he's accidentally implied that Niles is an accomplice, so the media are circling them like vultures. All of which Niles accepts with almost Zen-like calm... until he goes to buy a coffee at his regular haunt to find that they've given away the last straw. After Niles has recovered from the following breakdown, which sees him strip naked in public, he takes great delight in telling his ex to get stuffed, but he then gets carried away and tells the rest of his family that they've been as much help to him in this extremely difficult time as a hole in his head. (Although one could argue they were asking for it)
  • In one episode, it seems that Niles has adjusted to his new apartment, but when Martin says its the kind of place he'd live in, Niles tearfully shouts "Get me out of this hellhole!".
  • In "Father of the Bride", Frasier is put in charge of Daphne and Donnie's wedding; unfortunately, it goes to his head and he ignores all of Daphne's ideas, and tries to turn their wedding into his ideal wedding. Daphne is too meek to tell Frasier to stop, that is until Frasier tells her "You'll thank me later," which is something Daphne's controlling mother use to say to get her way. This causes Daphne to snap and tell Frasier that she's doing HER wedding HER way.
  • Not to mention "The Last Time I Saw Maris". First, Maris does the latest in a long line of inconsiderate things to Niles, which he dismisses as "eccentricities". Frasier tells him that he's repressing his emotions and asks him to let out his anger, causing him to yell, "I am so sick of you and your relentless psychobabble!" Later in the same episode, Niles is leaving Maris' house, having been perfectly cheerful through the entire process. Finally, as he is leaving, this happens...
    Niles: [turns around] Have I got my checkbook? [beat] Yes.
    [turns to leave, then turns back] Have I got my keys? [beat] Yes.
    [turns to leave, then turns back] Have I lost my mind?!
• Game of Thrones:
  • Robert Baratheon has apparently spent the better part of the last seventeen years belittling his younger brother Renly for not being a "real man" because he hasn't been to war. Eventually Renly snaps during their hunting trip and delivers an impressive "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
    Robert: Those were the days!
    Renly: Which days, exactly? The ones when half of Westeros fought the other half and millions died, or before that when the Mad King slaughtered women and babies because the voices in his head told him they deserved it? Or way before that, when Dragons burnt whole cities to the ground?
    Robert: Easy boy, you might be my brother but you're speaking to the king.
    Renly: I suppose it was all rather heroic, if you were drunk enough and had some poor Riverland whore to stick your prick into to "make the eight." [throws his spear down and stalks off]
  • When Ned resigns as Hand of the King, Robert completely loses his temper.
• Early in the first season of Grey's Anatomy, Meredith has had it up to here with oh, everything going on, venting to Cristina about it but otherwise "keeping it all in some deep dark twisted place until one day you snap and kill them?" But then she gets home that night and finds Izzy, George and Cristina watching her mother's old surgery tapes, and George's beer on the coffee table without a coaster.
  Meredith: No, no! We are not watching my mother's surgery tapes, we are not bonding, and we are not telling each other funny stories where we celebrate the moments of our lives. AND USE A COASTER.
• How I Met Your Mother: In "Dowisetrepla", Marshall freaks out when he finds the peanut butter jar without the lid, adding it to the list of inconsiderate things that Ted does. He yells at Ted and communicates to him his determination to move out. Lily confess being the one who did it at the end of his rant.
• A very unfunny version on In Plain Sight, Mary gets sent through the wringer, including betrayal, kidnapping, and attempted rape. She keeps it together so very well... until she's safe, secure, and her car won't start. Then the sobbing and breakdown ensue.
• Another non-comedic example: In an episode of The King of Queens, Carrie rips into Doug for asking where the scissors are. What makes it not funny is that it happens at the beginning of the episode, so there was nothing strenuous going on; therefore, the scene shows the audience another part of Carrie's Jerkass nature.
  • A better comedic example of this is in the ep "Art House" where Doug tears Arthur a new one over how Arthur basically couldn't live on his own and wanted Doug to support him instead of coming back home.
  • She gets another one in the episode "Steve Moscow". This time, the reason is more understandable (the lazy Russian mold removers were driving her crazy), and Doug makes a very good comeback: "Wow. Either you're mad about something else or I think I want a divorce."
• On Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: In one episode, both the victim and perps attempt to pin an incredibly brutal gang rape on the "Mexicans" working in the kitchen at a nearby bar. Detective Amaro, who is Latino ^note Albeit not Mexican, at least if he matches the actor's ethnicity, looks progressively more irritated with the sketchy and borderline racist allegations, but he's willing to follow the evidence. After the evidence unambiguously clears the kitchen staff and one of the perps still makes a dismissive remark about "one of those Mexicans" probably being involved, Amaro finally snaps and gets in his face with a particularly nasty remark about what the guy's going to be dealing with in prison.

• Though it's a bit too serious to be a slight, Lost's Ben Linus verbally blows up very unpredictably a few times when other characters very understandably accuse him of lying or other immoralities. To be fair, each time he gets mad is a time he really is telling the truth for once.
• Merlin, the show's namesake, keeps cool throughout most of the episode 2 of season 2, "The Once and Future Queen". Arthur is being stubborn and wants to fake a trip so he can hang out in Camelot in disguise, so Merlin finds a place for him to stay. While he's hiding with Gwen (and being a bit of a jerk to her, Merlin's best friend), he still makes Merlin do all his work. And Merlin has to work double for Gaius since "Arthur's gone". And Merlin has to help Arthur keep his cover, and... and... But he takes it all well. Until Gaius walks in on him having fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion mid-chore and tells him that he can't sit around and do nothing. Merlin explodes. (It's partly comedic because throughout his long rant Merlin has one small piece of hair sticking up adorably.)
• In The Middle's "Vacation Days", when Sue learns that Brad has been using a pseudonymous Yelp account to make constructive criticism of how she does her job, she stands on a table at the mall's food court and makes a speech about how, if people are going to do things like that they should at least use their names. It backfires when everything she says becomes a setup line for audience jokes about the poor quality of the food at the potato-stand chain she works for.
• The riffers on Mystery Science Theater 3000 can put up with a lot, but it came to a head during the riffing of Invasion of the Neptune Men. After using Stock Footage of bombing from the 1960 nuclear war movie World War III Breaks Out runs (which they believe to be actual World War II footage), complete with a giant poster of Hitler, Servo (Kevin Murphy) goes ballistic, at first pretending he's watching The Magnificent Ambersons and then singing an angry song about stock footage. This was also basically how the MST3K writers reacted to the scene when they first saw it.
  • It's important to note that it isn't simply a matter of the movie having stock footage; the stock footage was being used to pad-out the running time, so this involved them using the SAME stock footage every five minutes or so.
  • On a lesser scale, there's Joel screaming "Do something!" after a long, pointless scene in Manos: The Hands of Fate.
• Dr. Mcmanus of the British nursing show No Angels was famously volatile and prone to terrific shouting barrages at his staff on occasion, and though he did usually save it for moments that genuinely deserved his ire, there were times his temper got the best of him to say the least.
  Bureaucrat(trying to placate Mcmanus who has stormed up and begun ranting): Mr. Mcmanus...
  Mcmanus: Doctor! Doctor Mcmanus! I realize the difference between a surgeon and a medical consultant must be difficult for someone who only has a certificate for not being able to find his own cock, with both hands, but please, before I have a fucking aneurysm; Get that car out of my space! (The car did not belong to the bureaucrat, but Mcmanus wanted him to get it clamped or towed or something)
• Peep Show: In the Season 7 Christmas Special, "Seasonal Beatings", Mark is stressed about having family over for Christmas, and Jeremy playing an innocent prank on him causes him to go absolutely ballistic.
  Mark: Where's the turkey, Jeremy?
  Jeremy: What?
  Mark: The turkey. Where's the turkey?
  Jeremy: [flatly] I thought you were getting the turkey.
  Mark: You what? No turkey? You FUCKING IDIOT, Jeremy, you TOTAL FUCKING IDIOT! That was YOUR JOB, you fucking moron! YOU CRETIN. You're a FUCKHEAD, that's what you are, a FUCKING SHITHEAD!
  Jeremy: [on the verge of tears] It was a joke, Mark. It was a Christmas joke.
  Mark: [suddenly calm] Oh, I see...
• Several panelists on QI have launched into rants after one too many trick questions, double bluffs, and counterintuitive answers. David Mitchell, Johnny Vegas, and Phill Jupitus have all done so; the former two after double bluffs, while Phill has done so for at least one trick question.
  • The QI YouTube channel has compiled some of David Mitchell's rants here.
• Dr. Cox of Scrubs, were it not for his talents in medicine, would probably eke out a living on this. His fondness for delivering long, sarcastic and often highly colorful rants to punish slip-ups - like, oh, asking for advice or leaning on a wall - is something for which he's a little bit legendary.
  • Another example is when JD has a date with Tasty Coma Wife, in which, as the clip shows, that he's had enough with people ragging on him about going out with a comatose patient's wife... and he flips out.
• In the Spaced episode "Change", Tim gets fired from his job after a particularly furious tirade about the Star Wars prequels scares off a kid about to buy a Jar Jar Binks figure.
• In Star Trek: The Original Series, Scotty starts a bar brawl he just ordered Chekov not to do when a Klingon calls the Enterprise a garbage scow. Or, rather:
  Korax: I didn't mean to say that the Enterprise should be hauling garbage. I meant to say that it should be hauled away as garbage!
  • It’s likely that Korax was trying to provoke a member of the Enterprise crew to fight the Klingons, given his increasingly insulting remarks.
• Taxi: After Louie makes a pact with God that if he survives surgery he'll be a better person, Bobby makes a bet with Alex that he can make Louie angry and cause him to revert to his old ways. After insulting him doesn't work, Bobby tells Louie that he totaled his cab. Louie trembles with rage but calls upon iron self control to keep from yelling. Bobby then tells him that he caused the accident himself by running a stop-sign. There are more tremors but Louie keeps control. Finally, Bobby gives up and goes to pay Alex, admitting that Louie really has changed. Louie overhears and realizes there wasn't an accident. And what point he finally snaps, attaching Bobby to a chain hook and raising him to the ceiling:
  Louie: YOU LOWLIFE! YOU CREEP! I'm gonna make you regret the day you were born! I'm gonna make sure that every night, you get the dirtiest, smelliest cab in the garage! And if there isn't one that's dirty and smelly, then I'm gonna get in, and smelly and dirty it up myself! In the wintertime, your cab will have no heater! In the summertime, your windows won't roll down! I'm gonna make you the second most miserable cab driver in all of New York City! The most miserable cab driver in all of New York City is whoever lets him down or feeds him!
• During an episode The Thick of It, Malcolm Tucker has been getting progressively irritated with Nicola Murray, but most of his rants have sailed just below the "Unstoppable Rage" line. Then Nicola declines to enter a lift with him on the grounds of claustrophobia.
  Well, that's great. That's fucking great, that's another fucking thing right there: not only have you got a fucking bent husband and a fucking daughter that gets taken to school on a fucking sedan chair, you're also fucking MENTAL! Jesus Christ, see you, you're the fucking omnishambles, that's what you are! You're like that coffee machine, you know- "From Bean To Cup, You Fuck Up!"
  • In Nicola's second episode, Malcolm lets her have it again after a very trying day ends with Nicola accidentally blabbing the details of the latest DoSAC scandal to an on-the-record journalist. For good measure, it was because of Nicola's claustrophobia.
    FUCK'S SAKE! JESUS... Christ! Well now we've got another... fucking... adjective to add to fuckin' smug and glum, haven't we? Fuckin' RETARDED! Jesus! Do you ever think it would be germane to check who you're talking to? It's a fuckin newspaper office! Not a fuckin' sanatorium for the fuckin' DEAF! Are you so dense? Am I gonna have to run around, slappin' badges on people with a big tick on some and a big cross on others so you know when to shut your gob and when to open it? Jesus Christ... oh but that'd probably confuse you as well, wouldn't it, that'd be to confusin'- you see the cross and go "Oh fuck, X marks the spot! Better tell this person all about the Prime Minister's fuckin' catastrophic erectile dysfunction!" Oh but not to worry, not to worry, you've sent fuckin' Olly over there to deal with it! FUCKIN' OLLY! HE'S A FUCKIN'- HE'S A FUCKIN' KNITTED SCARF, THAT TWAT, HE'S A FUCKIN' BALACLAVA!
  • And again in the fifth episode: during the escalting BBC radio fiasco, Malcolm has been trying to deal with the issue with his usual level of sanity- even enjoying a brief moment of triumph when it's revealed that the Opposition has been recieving donations from a sweatshop... only for the whole thing to come crashing down thanks to Stewart Pearson, the radio producers, and a text from "Tim in Ruislip" informing the listeners that his own party recieves donations from the sweatshop too.
    Malcolm: (deathly calm) That's your fucking career over, right? Okay, you're fucking dead. And those three little words, "Tim in Ruislip", are the fucking nails in your coffin, dear. (Mimes hammering) Tim. In. Ruislip. Tim in fuckin' Ruislip. And as for Tim in fucking... FUCKING fucking fucking Ruislip- he's fucking dead as well, that fucking texting coward! Give me his number. What's his fucking number? Give me the fucking number of Tim in Ruislip! If you don't give me his fucking number, do you know what I'm gonna have to do? I'm gonna have to fucking go to fucking Ruislip and fucking snap the thumb and forefinger off of every single person I see who I think resembles the kind of wanker that would be walking around in this day and fucking age with a name like fucking Tim! How do you think that sounds, huh?
    Stewart: Quite, quite mad.
• Wings makes it central to the "Joe Blows" two-parter. Throughout the first part, Joe is trying to do his normal responsibilities while dealing with assorted frustrations: Brian complaining about the current state of his sex life, Helen constantly talking about her current beau, Faye protesting a cemetery relocating one of her husbands, Roy incessantly playing his new radio ad, Lowell working on a motorcycle in the hangar, and a passenger complaining about a lost suitcase. Joe keeps it all bottled up, but when he finds and returns the suitcase after great difficulty, the passenger complains about a slight scratch. Joe responds by throwing the suitcase through his office window and proceeds to denounce everyone for what he's had to put up with all day. He then takes off on Lowell's motorcycle. Part 2 deals with the fallout of this, as Brian recognizes running the business really is too much for one man and Joe needs to balance work and relaxation. The status quo even changes, as the two become equal partners.

Radio

• Our Miss Brooks: Happens several times in the episode "Friendship".
  • Mrs. Davis tells Miss Brooks' fortune, predicting that she would lose all her friends. Miss Brooks tries to assure Mrs. Davis that isn't the case, Mrs. Davis becomes offended by the slight.
  • Miss Brooks, put out by Mrs. Davis's rant and an uncomfortable night's sleep, going into a rant after mild provocations by Walter Denton, Love Interest Mr. Boynton, and Principal Mr. Conklin.

Tabletop Games

• In the backstory of Warhammer 40,000, the Primarch Perturabo had a rivalry with his brother Rogal Dorn (due to their forces sharing an area of expertise in siegecraft primarily) which came to a head with one of these. At a meeting of the Primarchs, Fulgrim asked Dorn within earshot of Perturabo if he could build a fortress which Perturabo's forces would be unable to breach. Dorn, known for his Brutal Honesty, replied that he could, and a furious Perturabo ranted at him before storming out.

Theatre

• In Anyone Can Whistle, Schub's use of the word "loonies" is the trigger for an indignant and lengthy speech by Fay Apple.
• Cyrano de Bergerac: "Sir, your nose...your nose is rather large." The character who says this thinks it is quite witty. Cyrano then goes on for about 3 pages explaining what the other guy might have said if he had any actual wit. Then he challenges him to a duel, composes a memorial poem on the spot, recites it as they fight, then runs the guy through.
  • This is hilariously parodied in Sesame Street's segment "Monsterpiece Theater," even going so far as to changing his name to "CyraNOSE De Bergerac"
• Older Than Steam: In William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus this happens to the titular character. The rant-inducing slight is when his servant kills a fly, touching the grief-maddened Titus on a personal level and pushing him to engage in a rather spectacularly irrational soliloquy.

Video Games

• In Suikoden V, we got the eccentric Egbert Aethlebald, who will spout very long nonsense of his hatred towards the FILTHY GODWIN DEVILS!!! in just about every time you speak with him. In fact, to recruit him, you have to COMPLETELY hear his whole rant (without fast forward or clicking the 'skip' button when his text is scrolling)... which is available in the quotes page
• In Brain Dead 13, Dr. Neurosis goes ballistic when Lance calls him "average."
• At one point in the first game of the Baldur's Gate series, the protagonist may encounter Portalbendarwinden, a crazy old hermit living between Beregost and Nashkel. If you're foolish enough to ask him for advice, the resulting nonsense gives the protagonist the choice to go over the edge:
  Ok, I've just about had my FILL of riddle asking, quest assigning, insult throwing, pun hurling, hostage taking, iron mongering, smart arsed fools, freaks, and felons that continually test my will, mettle, strength, intelligence, and most of all, patience! If you've got a straight answer ANYWHERE in that bent little head of yours, I want to hear it pretty damn quick or I'm going to take a large blunt object roughly the size of Elminster AND his hat, and stuff it lengthwise into a crevice of your being so seldom seen that even the denizens of the nine hells themselves wouldn't touch it with a twenty-foot rusty halberd! Have I MADE myself perfectly CLEAR?!
  • Unfortunately, as much fun as it is to pick this option, it doesn't end well. After your rant's over, Portalbendarwinden does give you a straight answer, in the form of telling you that you're a jerk, and that he's not talking to you anymore, at which point he vanishes.
• Any time Wendy Oldbag of Ace Attorney comes on screen... watch out when she gets mad!
• Phantasy Star: Mother Trinity proves that even machines are susceptible to this trope prior to the fight against her. Once she realizes you are [A] a descendant of, [B] a clone of, or [C] the rebel that united your race against her before the Great Blank, she flips her shit pretty damn hard, and the rant is very indicative of how she was just holding her insanity in. This is especially present in Case B, aka the Newman case - she cloned you herself, and you turned out like the original after all.
• Street Fighter II: While it hasn't evolved into a full-blown meltdown, the one thing that causes Dhalsim to drop his normally spiritual and wise attitude is Rufus asking him if he's an alien. If Dhalsim wins, you have two possible quotes: one where he angrily retorts "I'M NOT AN ALIEN!", and another where he passive-aggressively tells Rufus that he should watch his mouth.
  • It's even funnier in Street Fighter X Tekken, when pitting Rufus against Dhalsim reveals that Dhalsim is still upset about being called an alien.
• In The King of Fighters XIII, the Nice Girl Athena Asamiya goes ballistic upon finding out that 14-year-old Kula Diamond is fighting alongside K' and Maxima. She talks and talks about how "selfish" and "cruel" they are for exposing a little girl like her to danger... and Kula doesn't get it.
  • And Athena is at the receiving end of one when Mai sees her in her high school uniform and somehow believes that Athena is telling her that she's getting old. (And Athena barely understands what's going on either.)
• Saints Row IV: While the Saints aren't exactly bastions of rational thinking, there is one thing they agree on: that you don't interrupt Biz Markie, unless you're asking for trouble.
  [as Zinyak is singing the refrain to Biz Markie's Just a Friend in a bombastic voice]
  Boss (Male Voice 1): What the...what the fuck? God dammit!
  Boss (Male Voice 2): What...hey...aw, hell no! Hell no! No, man! Fuck that motherfucker, you don't do that shit! You don't do that fucking shit!
  Boss (Male Voice 3): Shut up! SHUT THE FUCK UP!
  Boss (Female Voice 1): ...wait, what the fuck is that? What the fuck, man! You ruin everything!
  Boss (Female Voice 2): ...what, what the hell? Oh, my goodness, he's messing up my favorite song! Oh god, earplugs, please! Ah, shit!
  Boss (Female Voice 3): What the hell! Honey, you need to shut the fuck up!
  Boss (Nolan North): Zinyak! Zinyak, you leave Biz Markie alone! YOU LEAVE MARKIE OUT OF THIS! Oh, you son of a bitch! I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU! IT'S NOT OPERA!!!
• Persona 5: During dinner, Makoto has a discussion with her older sister Sae over the morality of the protagonists, the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, and innocently comments that she believes their late father would have supported their actions. Sae has a rather low opinion of their father and the ideals of justice he used to espouse, especially since said ideals got him killed in the line of duty and forced her to struggle with raising Makoto alone, and hearing Makoto say that causes Sae to lose her temper and verbally attack Makoto, going so far as to reveal that she considers Makoto a burden. She regrets it the minute it comes out of her mouth, but the damage was already done.
• Not verbal, but conspicuously "one last tiny thing": In Injustice: Gods Among Us, the ending of the game for Harley Quinn relates that after so many years of their infamous relationship of Mad Love and abuse, she finally married the The Joker, and during the wedding reception, he playfully doofed her face into the wedding cake; at this, we're told, something snapped and she grabbed a ceremonial knife and fatally slashed his throat.
• Disco Elysium has the Detective break completely down if one of the Anodic Dance Kids scuffs at his hat, and his Authority skill fails to pass a passive check. It is a gloriously overdramatic reaction, and can potentially end with the Detective breaking into full-on ugly crying.
  Acele: Look man, fuck the hat.
  Authority: Lots of feeling. Feel it up, way up.
  The Detective: Oh my god! FUCK THE HAT?! Is that just what you said to me? I can't BELIEVE you told me to fuck the hat!
  Authority: You're saying it really loud, but it's not coming out right. Maybe add more indignation?
  The Detective: So I should just... just... take this hat I'm wearing and FUCK it, right?! (points at his head where the hat is located) Engage in sexual intercourse with a hat right here in front of you, because you told me so? ON THE SEA ICE?!
  Authority: More.
  The Detective: RIGHT HERE ON THE SEA ICE?!
  Authority: MORE.
  The Detective: GIVE YOU A LITTLE... ICE-COP-HAT-FUCK-SHOW?!
  Acele: (shaken) I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...
  The Detective: IS THAT HOW YOU SEE ME?

Web Animation

• Zero Punctuation:
  • Yahtzee Croshaw has an epic rant during his review for Halo Wars after, having spent 20 minutes working on a timed escort mission, the game fails him for not getting the squadron back to the base on time and says that they "lost contact" with the squadron. This is completely in spite of the fact that he had spent nearly the last half-hour clearing all the enemies from the map. He literally spends the last minute-and-a-half yelling about it.
  • He has another one after reading an email from someone claiming that the only reason he had put Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 at the top of his Worst List for the year was because he "just didn't like shooters". Seeing as he loves single-player shooters (except for Call of Duty and every game following in its footsteps) he begins the rant "You ignorant little bastards!", and ends the rant by branding CoD-style FPS games, which he doesn't consider to be true shooters, "spunk-gargle-weewee".
  • His entire review of Kane & Lynch: Dog Days has shades of this, as he genuinely hates the game and is disgusted that it even exists, that he had to play it, and that he then had to talk about it.
  • He actually does an ironic joke review to this effect with his first review of Duke Nukem Forever (when it hadn't been released yet), all because he was pissed about the fact that they kept releasing trailers and screenshots for the game without even a guesstimate on the release date.
  • And while the series is titled "Zero Punctuation" to reflect his Motor Mouth tendencies, Might and Magic X: Legacy (or rather its Artificial Difficulty in some instances) takes this Up to Eleven in a sequence that has to be seen to be believed.
• If you're going to get the Man-Emperor of Mankind to go on a rant, in If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, it's usually going to be through constant annoyance until he cracks, as is what happened during the fourth podcast, where they covered the first ever War Hammer 40000 novel Draco, where, towards the end, after reading a ridiculously overdetailed description of a lamp, the window in front of the lamp, and the pattern on the floor, he goes on a rant about the overly flowery descriptions throughout the novel, how they only serve to pad out the very thin plot, and how bad the book is overall, complete with Voice of the Legion as he goes on.
• "Ravandil's Quest" has the titular elf ask a dwarf in his path "Could you please move?" Urist the dwarf promptly launches into an extensive rant of Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon-type threats and insults. One of the lesser ones is "I'm gonna flagellate you with my fuckin' beard!"

Web Comics

• In the storyline that kicked off the interminably long tour storyline in Dominic Deegan, Dominic goes through yet another series of unfortunate events. He's able to keep his cool...until he finds out that his favorite sweets, Mavpel candy, are no longer available in his country. He has an absolutely epic Freak Out with him rocking back and forth in a corner shrieking. A vision into a possible future if he hadn't gone on vacation strongly implies that the Freak Out would have caused a widescale Mind Rape around him.
  Dominic: Um, let's just say it's a really good thing we're going on vacation.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • In one of the Dragon Magazine exclusive strips, Durkon and Vaarsuvius conceal themselves from a couple of pursuing wights with a hide from undead spell. Vaarsuvius however can't bear to remain silent any longer and they break the spell in order to shout at the wights. The crime for which V was willing to face possible death? The wights ended every sentence with a preposition. Which is funnier if you know that there is no actual rule about ending a sentence with a preposition. It's just a practice derived from Latin Grammar.
  • In another strip in Snips, Snails and Dragon Tales, the party encounters a village of deep halflings, prompting a rant from V about the lack of creativity in the subterranean world, where everything is apparently a copy of the surface world. V gets calmed down when it's pointed out that people migrate to the Underdark largely out of desperation, hence why there are all the similarities.
• Amazingly, every so often, Hannelore of Questionable Content gets one of these. Particularly effective, as Hanners generally is QC's designated woobie. One such rant...
  Hannelore: Stop fighting! You're both right! Marten said something stupid, and Faye took it the wrong way and he didn't mean it and she probably shouldn't drink so much anyway and STOP FRIGGIN' FIGHTING!
  [beat]
  Hannelore: Whu..What just happened? Everything went all red and fuzzy.
• Exterminatus Now has Silas Morth, who, up to a particular point, was patient, cool, and calculating. Then Jamila tells everyone that the Deamon he's summoning is called Kevin. The resulting questioning from his followers is enough to drive Morth straight over the edge. Guess what happens next.
• One Dork Tower Christmas storyline featured some anonymous character going into a tirade about "miserable Christmas-hating moonbats" when Matt McLimore wished him Happy Holidays.
• Penny Arcade:
  • Don't tell Tycho that Warhammer Online is a ripoff of World of Warcraft. Just... don't. The results will not be pretty.
  • On that note, don't describe Star Wars characters you don't know with inaccurate umbrella terms in Gabe's presence. Don't let him know you did, either.
• In Gunnerkrigg Court, when a flareup of Zimmy's powers drags her and Antimony into a twisted alternate world, Zimmy stays remarkably calm. Then Annie asks if Zimmy has given much thought to controlling her powers, and Zimmy flips the hell out.
• The first time we see Canada get a word in edgewise against America in Hetalia: Axis Powers is in a strip where something happens (offscreen) and Canada and America get into an argument, which quickly degrades into a name-calling and insulting session. After a few minutes, America runs out of things to complain about. 3 hours later, Canada's still going strong, America is crying in a corner, depressed, and England breaks the two up.
• Hyperbole and a Half describes this trope as the Sneaky Hate Spiral.
• In Dumbing of Age, Dina of all people delivers an epic one to Joyce for daring to say that god made dinosaurs all at the same time and that nobody knows if they had feathers or not in this panel. Dina's rant is unleashed in the next panel.

Web Videos

• Youtube Let's Player azuritereaction did one of these rants for laughs on one Facade video after getting kicked out by Trip for cursing too much. And this one.
• The Nostalgia Critic:
  • His review of Pearl Harbor hits a heretofore unknown Berserk Button with a pandering shot of an American flag floating in the water while several US Navy personnel are drowning.
  • Also as provided in the quote page, he pretty much flips on the mere mention of his childhood icon carrying... A BAT CREDIT CARD!?!?
• Atop the Fourth Wall:
  • Linkara launches into a Tranquil Fury rant at Justice League: Cry for Justice, after Lian Harper, Red Arrow's grade-school daughter, is killed in an attack on Star City. Linkara is especially pissed because her death was in bad taste considering her father got his arm chopped off, making her death a distasteful attempt at shock value, and the fact that being a Muggle supporting character, her death is the least likely to be retconned.
  • While reviewing One More Day, he goes into one of these after dialogue spoken by an alternate future version of Peter Parker insinuates that people who enjoy escapist fiction (comic books, video games, etc.) are all losers who only latch on to such fiction as a means of desperately groping for greater meaning in their lives. Linkara is genuinely disgusted and personally insulted by this, and directly refers to Joe Quesada (the chief editor for One More Day) as an "insulting, patronizing dickhead".^Note The book was under heavy editorial mandate at the time, and the editors rewrote large swaths of JMS's original script, hence why he's primarily blaming Quesada, while acknowledging that JMS might still have written that.
• During his review of the infamous fanservice anime Eiken, the normally calm and collected Necro Critic goes on a massive, anger-induced tirade against the main character after a brief scene of him wiping sweat off of his face with a girl's panties, wherein he calls him a completely brainless idiot whose very existence is frowned upon by Natural Selection itself.
• Woolie Versus: In the penultimate episode of Death Stranding, Woolie discovered the word Strand has a different meaning in Dutch. However, this was shown to him moments after a frustrating discussion about the unnecessary double meanings all over the game, and finding out that Strand - a word that appears pretty much everywhere in the game - actually means Beach in Dutch makes him go on a pissed-off rant attacking Kojima's Signature Style. Even months after the ending of the playthrough, Woolie remained soured on the idea of double entendres of any kind.
  Woolie: You know what - You know what - You know what? I finally have an answer to the infamous question: Didjurike it? NO! I DID NOT RIKE IT! I DIDN'T LIKE IT AT ALL! In fact, I HATED it! It was terrible! The wordplay is PHYSICALLY hurting me!

Western Animation

• The Simpsons, "Hurricane Neddy": a string of bad luck coupled with good-intentioned but dumb neighbors sends Ned Flanders off the deep end. At least Homer Simpson got off easy by being called the worst person Ned ever met. And if you watch carefully, it looked like the final straw was his glasses breaking.
  • Homer also had a similar one in reaction to Mr. Burns asking "Who the devil are you?" in Who Shot Mr. Burns Part One.
  • A less serious example occurs in the second Treehouse of Horror special when Homer makes a simple, but very specific wish on a monkey's paw for a sandwich. He appears satisfied with the wish at first (considering how badly most of the other Simpsons' wishes backfired on them), only to curse the paw when he finds out the turkey is a little dry.
  • Another famous example, in "Kamp Krusty", Bart and Lisa are at camp for the summer, which proves to be hell. They were forced to live in shoddy cabins, fed imitation gruel, and make Gucci wallets for export. Bart kept holding on to his (fleeting) sanity with the promise that Krusty would eventually show up to the camp, but in the end, it turned out to be Barney Gumble in a cheap clown costume. That proved to be the final straw for Bart, who ended up leading the other campers to rebel.
  • A more serious example is "A Milhouse Divided". After a night of constantly nitpicking each other, Kirk and Luann Van Houten get into a fight over a game of Pictionary and divorce.
  • The side story to the episode "Bart Sells his Soul" centers around Moe turning his bar into a family restaurant. He starts to stress out over everything that happens, such as bratty kids (including Ralph squirting him with a water gun and one kid drawing a picture of him as "Uncle Stinky") and people taking advantage of his policy where if he's not smiling when your bill comes, you eat for free. He finally explodes over a little girl telling him that her soda is too cold.
• Steven Universe: In "What's Your Problem", after looking for Ruby, Steven and Amethyst go to Fish Stew Pizza. The conversation starts out calmly, until Steven wonders how Garnet feels about the revelation that Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz are one and the same, and Amethyst suddenly snaps:
  Amethyst: So, Pink Diamond, huh?
  Steven: Yep.
  Amethyst: [eating a slice of pizza] Mmm... Rose Quartz, huh?
  Steven: Mm-hmm.
  Amethyst: So... all this time... you thought Rose was this rebel leader, but... she was just rebelling against herself?
  Steven: Apparently..
  Amethyst: And the diamond that Rose supposedly shattered. I mean... You've got it. It's right there under your shirt.
  Steven: Yeah.
  Amethyst: So, how are you feelin'?
  Steven: I feel... confused. I-I thought I'd really finally got it.. that Mom didn't have everything figured out, even though everybody put her way up on this pedestal, but... now I guess she's royalty too?
  Amethyst: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
  Steven: I'm relieved that she didn't shatter anyone, but... she lied to everyone. I mean... I'm not surprised. I knew she was a liar. But this is just... So much.
  Amethyst: But like... aren't you mad?
  Steven: Kind of? I don't know... I can see how she was good and bad... and bad and good. But I... I guess what really matters right now is how hard Garnet took it.
  Amethyst: [slams her hands on the table at the mention of Garnet] But what about you?! She's your mom! You were always under all this pressure to be like her! But... Was she even like her? Was anyone ever like her? She was supposed to be so great! She was supposed to know everything... And... ugh... She was supposed to make everything better! It's not fair! We shouldn't have to deal with any of this, we shouldn't have to fix any of this, we weren't around for a stupid war! This... This is everyone else's problem... This has nothing to do with me... And you! This has nothing to do with you!
  Steven: Amethyst... Hold on a second... Are you okay?
  Amethyst: No! I mean... Yes! Of course, I'm okay! Ugh... I'm trying to find out how you feel about all this! Ugh! She... Your mom, okay? Doesn't really affect me.
• Megas XLR, Just about every episode has Coop (or one of the other characters) snapping and launching into a list of grievances they have with their latest enemy. Parodied in episodes where he attempts to construct a list despite not having anything to complain about, and/or just makes things up, then again in the last episode when he gives it to the usual antagonist even though they were working together. After the villain angrily points this out, Coop says "Oh, sorry. Force of habit I guess."
• Dexter's Laboratory, "Hamhocks & Armlocks": During a stop at a roadside diner, Dad gets on the bad side of a hulking trucker named Earl after accidentally breaking his winning streak at arm wrestling, but Dad refuses to accept Earl's demands for an arm wrestling match, even after Earl trashes the family car. But after Earl lets the diner door shut in Mom's face, It's Personal.
  Dad: Earl! You can humiliate me, you can destroy my property...
  Mom: Honey?
  Dad: But don't ever not hold a door open for a lady, especially my wife!!.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, "Where There's A Wilt, There's A Way": Wilt is preparing to watch the big basketball game with Bloo and Mac, but Bloo makes him go out for chips. Wilt's inability to say "no" to any request causes him to constantly get sidetracked by menial tasks, including breaking out of jail (twice!). When Wilt finally gets back with the chips, the game is over, and then Bloo has the gall to stomp the chips into the carpet because they're not salt-and-vinegar flavored. Bloo insists that Wilt likes cleaning up messes, and Wilt's response is to snap and spend about half a minute yelling "NO!" over and over again.
  • And then after he's done, Bloo asks him if he feels better, and then asks him again to get him some chips. Wilt agrees to do so, remembering too late that he meant to say no.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender actually starts when a minor sexist comment from Sokka causes Katara to go on a rant where she destroys a glacier without even noticing it.
  • Aang, the usually happy-go-lucky and cheerful protagonist, goes through this a few times when things get personal. Or just too much, full stop.
• In Danny Phantom, after spending what seems like months playing "Daddy Dearest" to Danielle, the main character's Opposite-Sex Clone, Vlad finally snaps at her when she refuses to obey his orders to overshadow Danny into transforming into his ghostly half for his perfect clone project.
  Vlad: YOU exist to SERVE ME! JUST. DO. IT!
  • In the same episode, he also rants at Danny after he calls him a "fruit loop" for the second time.
• Gravity Falls: Two words. "Grammar, Stanley." It's enough to completely ruin the gang's attempt to prevent the apocalypse, because Ford just HAD to have the last word.
• Daffy Duck's epic level tirade against Elmer Fudd in the cartoon Duck, Rabbit! Duck! is one of his defining moments. The fact that it happened after Fudd shot him in the face for the sixth time kinda warranted his reaction:
  Daffy: Shoot me again! I enjoy it! I love the smell of burnt feathers! And gunpowder! And cordite! I'm an elk! Shoot me! Go on!! It's elk season! I'm a fiddler crab. Why don't you shoot me?! It's fiddler crab season!
• Benson of Regular Show doesn't get REALLY upset at Mordecai and Rigby until after whatever horrible situation they created has been resolved.
• The Powerpuff Girls, "Impeach Fuzz". Fuzzy Lumpkins gets elected mayor, and proceeds to make a mockery of the office and waste the Powerpuff Girls' time by making them help with his chores. Ms. Bellum and the Girls go to the Mayor, who is sitting in the city dump, sulking and feeling unwanted. They list all the reasons the Mayor should try to get back into office, but he brushes them off with "I don't care"... until Ms. Bellum informs him that Fuzzy is wearing the Mayor's favorite hat, at which point the Mayor barges into his old office and ends up challenging Fuzzy to a wrestling match.
  • And subsequently KICKING. HIS. ASS.
  • Inversion: In "Makes Zen To Me," Buttercup is in a meditation session with a Zen master when Mojo Jojo arrives and tries to taunt her. Nothing he says stirs her.
  Mojo: You cannot defeat me. Green is not your color. You look fat in that dress.
• An episode of King of the Hill has Hank accidentally take another man's wallet, thinking the man was pickpocketing him. Unfortunately that incident was just the latest in a long string of frustrations for the man, who tries to attack Hank with a baseball bat when he comes to return the wallet and apologize. Just to cap it all off, they end up at a Hooters stand-in where Dale is working, and the man accidentally ends up pulling down Dale's shorts, meaning he gets arrested for the attempted assault and sexual harassment.
  • During "Peggy Hill: The Decline and Fall" Bobby is left stuck doing all the care for Cotton and Didi's new baby, thanks to Didi's depression, Peggy being in a full-body cast, and Cotton being...Cotton. After almost the entire episode, Didi innocently asks him to get her some lottery tickets. And he finally snaps.
  Bobby: Gah! I am a twelve year old boy! I am the child's nephew! I cannot do this. I. CANNOT. DO. THIS! (Hands her the baby) If someone makes some food, I'll eat. But that's it! ALL I'LL DO IS EAT!
• In SpongeBob SquarePants, SpongeBob has had this happen to him on multiple occasions, normally when someone has spent the entire episode unknowingly pushing him too far. At least one example involved an (offscreen and impossible to understand, but heavily implied) Cluster F-Bomb. It normally takes a day or more straight of abuse to trigger this, though.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, "Secret of My Excess": Rarity gets abducted by a dragon (who unbeknownst to her is Spike, whose draconic "hoarding" instinct has gone out of control). Spike does a lot of nasty things under the influence of his greed, but what apparently tears it for Rarity is ruining her fancy new cape in the process.
  Rarity: You steal everypony's things, terrorize the town, and use me as a weapon against my own friends! Which, as horrible as it is, I can almost understand because you're a dragon and all, but this! (pulls off her ruined cape) This is a crime against fashion!
• Batman: The Animated Series: Charlie Collins is a Gothamite that is stuck in the traffic, lamenting that his boss turned him down for a raise, his kid needs braces, and his wife will serve meatloaf for dinner. Then some police cars and the Batmobile itself force him over to the slow lane and blast past him. When a station wagon changes lanes without signaling and cuts him off, it's the last straw for Charlie, who gives in to road rage and cusses out... The Joker. The rest of the episode goes From Bad to Worse for poor Charlie.
  • He then has another one at the end of the same episode where he plans to kill himself and take the Joker with him, but turns out he tricked him with a dud. It is actually a Moment of Awesome from how he pulls it off.
  • The DCAU Joker himself is very prone to overreacting to perceived slights. Over the course of the series, he takes offense at politicians who publicly condemn him, a news anchor who wasn't flattering enough when doing a segment on Joker's origins, a casino owner who used his likeness as a mascot, judges at a comedy club who didn't like his old act... but Joker usually doesn't stop at rants.
• Dan Vs.:
  • In the episode "The Family Cruise", the perky cruise attendant is shocked when she sees Elise and her mother have destroyed the captain's deck and Dan has ripped out the helm, then loses it when he tells her it will be fine. She proceeds to threaten Dan, Chris, and Elise and her parents with the nose of a swordfish decoration, then lock them in the brig to leave them to die as the ship sails into a wormhole.
  • More than one episode of the show has been triggered by Dan undergoing one of these and spending the rest of the episode trying to get revenge on whatever set him off.
• In the Littlest Pet Shop (2012) episode "Mean Isn't Your Color", a misunderstanding leads Penny to think that the suit Blythe designed for Roger is for her while the other pets get more stylish outfits. Then when Sunil asks her the wrong question:
  Sunil: Is it bad to look too good?
  (Penny growls)
  Penny: Why are you asking me?! It's not like I have to worry about looking too good, or kinda good, or even okay! (yells)
• Throughout South Park, Cartman has done some pretty horrible things, from various pranks on his classmates, to having Scott Tenorman's parents killed and then feeding them to him as chili, and trying to start another Third Reich, but what seems to be the final straw for Stan, Kyle and Kenny, causing them to give him the Silent Treatment is when Stan's mother brings home KFC for everyone, and as they're is helping her bring in groceries, Cartman stays behind and eats the skin off all the chicken (which is the best part). Kenny even cried.
  Stan: *livid* This time he's gone too far!
• Much in the same way, after all the Psychopathic Manchild actions Peter Griffin has gotten away with in Family Guy, usually suffering an ineffectual berating at worst, it was abusing his "Neilsen Family" privileges to ruin all their favourite shows on TV that causes everyone in Quahog to form an angry mob at Peter's house and make clear this crossed the line. Quagmire and Joe disown him, Horace bans him from The Drunken Clam and assaults him, for which Dr Hartman spitefully refuses to treat his injuries. Even when Peter offers to use his Neilson boxes to reverse things, Mayor West actually pulls a Heel–Face Door-Slam, and destroys all of them before he can. Amusingly when Peter finally reverts things back to normal manually, everyone once again nonchalantly forgives him.
  • In "A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas", Lois remains calm, collected and full of holiday cheer through all the disasters around Christmas. But then... "No...paper...TOOOOOWELS?! AAAAAAAAGH!".
    Lois: You all think Christmas just happens? You think all this goodwill just falls from the freakin' sky! Well it DOESN'T! It falls outta my Holly-Jolly butt! So you can cook your own damn turkey, wrap your own damn presents, and hey, while you're at it, you can all ride a one-horse open sleigh TO HELL!
    • And after she flees the scene, they find the paper towels.
  • After finding out Quagmire loathes his existence, Brian spends a whole season trying to make amends with Quagmire, enduring several verbal tirades and even a violent beating. It is in "Tiegs For Two" when Quagmire called him a loser with women, that leaves Brian scorned enough to become as much a mutually loathing Sitcom Arch-Nemesis to Quagmire as vice versa, starting with him hooking up with lost love Cheryl Tiegs solely to get under his skin.
• Glimmer reaches the end of her rope in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power when she finds that the sea captain they hired to get them to Selenias is considerably worse at sailing than the Best Friends Squad, can't get her name right, and - as the crowning glory - took them deliberately off course into the hunting grounds of a dangerous sea monster just to make the story of the trip more dramatic.
  Glimmer: Let Me Get This Straight...: you steered us into a giant sea serpent so you could, what? SHOW OFF?!
  Seahawk: That was the plan, before your tall friend there STOLE MY THUNDER!
  Glimmer: Unbelievable. We're trying to save Etheria, and all you care about is whether we're impressed with you?! I need this mission to go right, or my mom will never give me another one! [deep breath] Just get us to Selenias, you've wasted enough of our time.
  Adora: Okay! Now I got it! We're all good.
  Glimmer: ADORA, GET IN THE BOAT!
• Miraculous Ladybug: In "Gang of Secrets", Ladybug finally reaches her breaking point after spending multiple seasons being unable to confess to Adrien about her romantic feelings for him and her burden of constantly having to keep secrets from her loved ones in order to keep her superheroine identity a secret bundled with heartbreak after breaking up with Luka prior to this episode. When Cat Noir tricks her into going on a theatre date with him, the movie reminds her about her troubled love life and her constant need to keep secrets. This causes Ladybug to scream out this:
  Ladybug: (to the movie) ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!? DON'T TELL HIM ANYTHING, YOU FOOL!!!
  Cat Noir: Could you keep it down, m'lady?
  Ladybug: (Cat Noir listens in complete shock) Romantic comedies are lame anyway, and you know why, IT'S TOTALLY NOT REALISTIC!! In real-life, the girl would take forever to tell the guy she loves without stuttering! BLA-BLA-BLA!!! So how can see she know if he loves her back!? It's impossible! So then she decides she can never ever be with him, and then BAM!!!!! SHE FALLS IN LOVE WITH ANOTHER GUY, and everything is so cool! Almost too easy, no stuttering, the whole pans, they get all kissy-kissy, and then, SURPRISE!!!!! SHE HAS SECRETS!!! And him, he hates secrets, of course! So as they break up, and everyone lives UN-happily ever after, the end. And that's why romantic comedies are so lame. (Ladybug aggressively sips her drink)
  Cat Noir: (Cat Noir notices the civilians reaction to the rant, and decides to leave right away to not cause any extra issues.) So sorry, we'll be going now. (pushes Ladybug as they leave)
  Ladybug: Stay AWAY FROM THE ROMANTIC COMEDY!! Go for heroic heroes instead! Special effects, heroes saving the world, no feelings, no questions, nobody talks because there is NOTHING TO SAY!! That is good entertainment for sure! Hmph. (Cat Noir is shocked again, while the civilians in the queue are shocked).
  Cat Noir: (laughs nervously) Sorry! (runs quickly to Ladybug)
  

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