Memetic Badass / Western Animation

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The only element Wang Fire bends is the element of surprise! (Source)

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

• Fanon has been known to put both Octavia and Vinyl Scratch on equal footing with Discord himself, solely through their musical ability.
• The tortoise Tank, who won himself more than a few fans thanks to his sheer persistence, simply walks into Mordor.
• Zecora, as this thread concludes.
  Zecora is a zebra who thinks that life is just too easy. She doesn't just travel abroad, she moves to a country where the residents have barely even heard of zebras. She learns a second language, then masters it so thoroughly that she phrases everything in rhyme just to make it harder on herself. And before she even knew the residents were afraid of her, she voluntarily chose to live in the monster-infested hellhole that is the nearby forest, because she doesn't truly feel alive unless there's a creeper staring at her through her front door every morning.
  -So, basically, Zecora is one of those gamers who insist on always playing at the highest difficulty level. And her game...is life.
• Princess Cadance is credited with the death of the only villain on the show to be killed (it was a team effort, but she lead the team) and considers fighting a giant worm monster to be a refreshing change off pace. This has earned her a minor reputation in the fandom as a monster fighter/slayer.
• Maud Pie can take out Lord Tirek with one punch.

Other

• The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog incarnation of Dr. Robotnik and his Pingas.
• Billy from Adventure Time is an in-universe example who crept into real life thanks to his absurdly memetic song. "Who's the greatest warrior ever, a hero of renown? Who slayed an evil ocean? Who cast the Lich King down? Billy! And that time the evil Fire Count captured a damsel fair, who saved her with such bravery that she offered him her hair? Billy! Also... He fought a beeeeeaaaaarrrr! Billy!"
• American Dad! featured an episode in which Stan tried to teach Steve to stand up for himself by acting like (more of) a tremendous jackass. He was trying to teach Steve to "get the oranges up the stairs" through hard work, but Steve decided it would be easier to pay Stan's old bully, Stelio Kontos, to kick the everloving crap out of him. It was made meme-tastic due to the catchy chant of, Stelio! Stelio Kontos! Watch it here.
  Stan: They're up the stairs! For the love of God, you got the oranges up the stairs!
• Amphibia:
  • Polly Plantar. She may be just a pollywog, but she’s still more powerful than any of us will ever be.
  • General Yunan! Scourge of the Sand Wars! Defeater of Ragnar the Wretched! Aaaaaannnnnnndddd… the youngest newt! To ever become general! Of the great! Newtopian! Army!
• Arthur: Mr. Ratburn
  He is as knowledgeable inside the classroom as he is studly outside it.
  His friends once dared him to split an infinitive. He split it into quarters. Just to prove he could.
  Lesser men navigate the information super-roadway with a computer. He uses a 1968 Ford T-Bird.
  After he did a photo shoot for Alpenhorn magazine, sales of lederhosen rose by 850%.
  He is... the Most Interesting Man in Elwood City. And when he drinks, he prefers Dos Equis. (Or sometimes Ovaltine.)
  He only has one weakness. He loves cake and finds a way to show up whenever some is being served. To top it off he's skinny as a rail.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Toph is not blind, but merely incapable of seeing anyone less awesome than she is.
  • Iroh was not pulling himself up while training in prison, he was pushing the Fire Nation down.
  • Wang Fire. Don't you even dare suggest that he is the bearded alter ego of Sokka. The giant drill used to attack Ba Sing Se was originally built as a 1/8th scale model of Wang Fire's Wang. Which is acknowledged in a mini-comic about Sokka infiltrating the Fire Nation military using that name. It ended with him pretending to be killed while taking out a waterbender and earthbender, and being remembered as a hero. The Avatar has to deal with one firebender. Private Wang Fire◊ has to deal with the rest.
  • Sokka often has fans exaggerate his intelligence from "competent strategist and inventor" to "rivals Ozymandias." Since he took out a fleet of war balloons with just two other fighters and invented both dirigibles and submersibles, he could be a realistic Ozymandias — capable of repeated moments of inventive and strategic genius, but still only human. Einstein didn't discover relativity every day. Considering Leonardo Da Vinci only theorized this kind of thing, whereas Sokka not only came up with the concept but designed functional units, and, in the case of the submersibles, put the design into practice for the first time the week they would be used for an invasion, calling him an engineering genius may be understating it. Okay, he started out as a "competent strategist and inventor", but after he Took a Level in Badass he became the Steampunk Ozymandias.
  • The Mechanist designed and built the first war balloon; Sokka merely helped him with a design flaw, and Fire Nation engineers turned it from that into the massive airships we see in Season 3. As for the submersible, Sokka merely came up with the idea. It was the Machinist who made it work.
  • Avatar Kyoshi◊, overlapping with Memetic Psychopath:
    • Kyoshi doesn't bend blood. She bathes in it.
    • The reason Kyoshi lived to be 230 years old? Death feared her.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold,
  • Jenny Jones, a girl that once callously told Red Tornado he had no feelings. This was escalated by /co/ from being a complete brat to a Creepy Child that says horrible and nihilistic personal insults to a Nigh-Invulnerable villain which survived, among other things, being raped by Pedobear, being shot at by Kung-Fu Jesus, a blast by Darkseid's Omega Sanction (which missed her because she was too small of a target), the Falcon Punch, The Power of Love, and assault by the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, having her lines of death cut, the efforts of the Green Lantern core, and a Chaos Dunk. This is because she is the daughter of the Anti-Spiral. Somewhat subverted in that, while she has Complete Immortality, she never really does anything to anyone except make very cruel insults while smiling.
  • And Batman is one in-universe. In "Journey To The Center Of The Bat!", when The Atom suggests they leave through Batman's tearducts, Aquaman responds, "But surely, Batman never cries!"
  • Speaking of which, Brave and the Bold has given AQUAMAN back his status as this.
• In Ben 10: Alien Force, Rath himself. List of achievements from his first appearance alone: Defeating The Vreedle Brothers and the other aliens they hired (Alongside Gwen and Kevin), Jumped into space without a suit and took down the entire crew of an Incursean Battle Ship alone (Sans The Commander), Defeated Vulcanus, Dove head first into Jarett's mouth to retrieve The Tiffin that he (Jarett) ate, Threatened Jarett when he tried to declare war., and finally, threatened the Lewodan Ambassador for tricking him (Ben/Rath). And he just keeps getting more awesome with each appearance.
  • Ma Vreedle from Ultimate Alien once made Vilgax cry.
• "Looting and polluting are not the way!" says Captain Planet.
• The orange shirted kid (a bit character named "5") from A Charlie Brown Christmas is usually seen as the coolest dancer in the special.
• Code Lyoko: Franz Hopper never takes his glasses off, because if he did, the world would split in half.
• Dora from Dora the Explorer gets this treatment because she's a little girl exploring the wilderness with no adult supervision. As an adult she's seen as becoming Indiana Jones tier of impressive.
• In one of the last episodes of Duck Dodgers The narrator for documentary on Megadeth says that the band founder, Dave Mustaine was "Genetically engineered in a lab and raised by wolverines."
• Donald Duck, and his Uncle, Scrooge McDuck, according to some websites. Namely /co/ of 4chan.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy:
  • Eddy's brother. At least until The Movie came along.
  • Ed can throw houses and built an elevator to the moon out of random junk. And he's the idiot.
  • Eddy once ate the SUN.
  • Edd can make a candy-hunting satellite out of cardboard, rubber bands, and a tube of toothpaste.
• Both Futurama's Bender and Zoidberg may count, as one of them is Jesus. And that's why they call him Bender the Magnificent.
• Shane Gooseman in Galaxy Rangers fanfic has a tendency of getting his badass status turned up to 11. Example: An invading armada self-destructing in their rush to turn around when they find out he is in a bad mood.
• David Xanatos from Gargoyles planned not only This Very Wiki and but also Trope Co.. And Candle Jack breaks off tropers' comments mentioning him because he's Puck.
• For an in-universe version, there's Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon, known in the series as the Dragon Conqueror. Not bad for a guy with the build of a toothpick, an age in the low double digits, and only one leg. Also, in the sequel's trailer, Hiccup has basically become the Viking version of Batman. Admittedly, part of this is because his closest friend is Toothless, a Night Fury, a dragon who also qualifies, given his title as "the unholy spawn of lightning and death".
• The Question from Justice League Unlimited may be a certified crackpot, but he knows everything. His detective skills make Batman look like a trainee. He has even stared down the Man of Steel and told him that he's dead wrong without a second's hesitation. Let that sink in for a moment.
• King of the Hill: Hank Hill is going to kick your ass, I tell ya 'hwat!.
  • There's also Dale and his pocket sand.
• The Legend of Korra:
  • Korra, without fail. And you've gotta deal with it.
  • Lin Beifong, much like her mother Toph Beifong, has achieved this due to stealing the show in every fight scene she's in. Her Heroic Sacrifice has only further fueled her Memetic Badassery and strangely has also increased her mother's.
  • Amon. Even before the series started, he was considered a badass by the fans. The fact that he became a Magnificent Bastard in record time and resisted the effects of bloodbending have only fueled this further.
• Looney Tunes: Marvin the Martian gets this treatment for how well he fared against Martian Manhunter in their crossover.
• Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus is an abnormal but overall cool elementary school science teacher, however fans exaggerate her into a near immortal demigod who hangs around with the Doctor and Mary Poppins.
• Pharaoh Man from the Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) cartoon. While most Robot Masters immediately cower after Megaman steals their special power, Pharaoh Man just punched him in the face, much to the delight of the fans.
• Metalocalypse: CHARLES FREAKING OFDENSEN. You thought the "F" stood for "Foster", didn't you?
• Miraculous Ladybug: "Banana Noir"^note Adrien donning a banana costume for an episode when he loses his Transformation Trinket has been hailed as the most powerful character on the show by the fanbase, with many fearing the idea of him becoming akumatized.
• Megan from My Little Pony TV Specials and My Little Pony 'n Friends is a normal teenage farmgirl... Who just happened to kill a giant, tyrannical minotaur monster with a rainbow and frequently saves the ponies from death.
• The Owl House: Hooty, while initially dismissed as a comedic Butt-Monkey, became this when he singlehandedly trounced an entire team of Emperor's Coven Scouts without breaking a sweat in Season 1's penultimate episode. From then on, the fandom has hailed him as an almighty Adorable Abomination.
• The Penguins of Madagascar: A recurring joke in VS discussions involving the Penguins is that Rico can easily win any fight by simply vomiting dynamite or whatever is his opponent's weakness.
• Recess: Miss Grotke. There seems to be some of this in-universe too, as one episode has the kids suspecting her of being a secret agent. And another gives Spinelli an Imagine Spot where Miss Grotke shows some vicious boxing talent. This gets proved Canon in the movie, where Grotke is revealed to be trained in martial arts.
• Constance the badger from the animated series of Redwall.
• Tommy from Rugrats is seen as a very cool kid, which is an odd feat as he's an infant who can't even talk yet.
• Scooby-Doo has Norville "Shaggy" Rogers, and he’s probably the biggest Memetic Badasses in not only cartoon history, but in general, to the point that he could give Chuck Norris a run for his money. In Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Phantosaur, there's a scene Shaggy (who was hypnotized to be brave) solos a bar full of bikers without throwing a punch or taking a hit. Shortly after Dragon Ball Super, a fan created a slightly edited video (just adding Ultra Instinct's theme song and afterimage effects) of "Ultra instinct Shaggy" and causing a chain reaction amounting to him becoming a fan made character in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 mods and fanfics. This remark from a youtuber sums it up best
  Now I know why Shaggy is a coward, the world couldn't handle him if he wasn't one.
  • The joke grew beyond the Dragon Ball fandom when Shaggy faced his greatest foe yet: Thanos. Shaggy defeated him using only 10% of his power. Since then, Shaggy has become a godlike being who can do anything using a miniscule percentage of his power.
  • Even better, the meme has finally been ascended via the Logo Joke of Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms! Check it out here!
  • And then, Multi Versus has Shaggy as a playable character specifically based on Ultra Instinct Shaggy, with a backstory as to how he got his powers! Yes Ultra Instinct Shaggy is now a playable character.
  • To a lesser extent, Shaggy has also accidentally achieved the status of memetic casanova due to somehow having been paired with more love interests than anyone else across the franchise (Daphne in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, Googie and Sadie Mae in the Superstars 10 films, Mei Ling and a clerk girl in What's New Scooby-Doo, Crystal in Alien Invaders, Velma’s sister Madelyn in Abracadabra-Doo, Velma herself, Mary Jane from the live-action movies, etc.). Some fans like to joke that he could give Batman a run for his money in that department.
• The Simpsons: Marge Simpson. A freezeframe of her krumping in the episode "Little Orphan Millie" has been frequently photoshopped into fighting games and anime fights, her fight against a Super Saiyan Vegeta in an alleged "Top 10 Anime Fights" sparking the meme. Some even made complete animations of her taking on the likes of Kenshiro and winning.
  Marge: I'll krump with you, sweetie pie!
  • In "Bart Sells His Soul", Mrs. Feesch (the church organist) played In the Garden Of Eden (In A Gadda Da Vida) on the organ for seventeen minutes!
  • Principal Skinner has an Aurora Borealis localized entirely within his kitchen!
• Sonic Boom has an intellectual badass example with Knuckles on two occasions: first for his eloquent discourse about feminism, (taken from this episode) where he shows a great knowledge about gender equality in one sentence at the surprise of everybody else, then for the episode where he was the mayor, which led the Internet to promote him as the CEO of MEMES.
• South Park:
  • There is an In-Universe example with professional ice-skater Brian Boitano. He was originally used in the pre-pilot short Jesus Vs. Santa, and then gained true Badass status in The Movie.
  • In a case of life imitating art, Brian Boitano actually does skate to "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" on occasion.
    • And he got a cooking show called "What Would Brian Boitano Make". That song may have resurrected his career...
  • Do not. Screw. With. Jesus. At least not in Colorado.
    (Jesus is talking to two Iraqis, with his hands up.)
    "Yea, look upon me and know me. My children, you should know something ... (pulls a knife out of his sleeve) ... I'm packing!"
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Patrick Star. He'll take any problem and push it somewhere else!
  • SpongeBob himself is officially the strongest character ever made by Nickelodeon. His DEATH BATTLE! against Superfriends' Aquaman was so one-sided against Aquaman, no attempt was made to hide it. Every other cartoon character that fought a DC Comics character lost prior to this episode. And SpongeBob has the single fastest calculable speed feat in Death Battle history (key word "calculable"; Speed Force users and the Archie Hedgehogs still have him beat due to their literally impossible speed feats).
• Star Wars: Clone Wars has Clone Captain Fordo (Alpha-77) show extreme competence during the Battle of Coruscant, firing every weapon he could get his hands on at the enemy while never once losing his cool. Fordo prior established his reputation by having the audacity to shoot the Gen'Dai ^note  Nigh-Invulnerable Self-described "walking nerve clusters" Durge with a taser cable. He would have been awarded the Star Wars equivalent of the Medal of Honor, but instead had it awarded to the sole casualty his squad incurred during the battle of Muunilist.
• Steven Universe:
  • In a pacifistic version, Steven will defeat any evil by BECOMING FRIENDS WITH THEM. And no, not in a Defeat Means Friendship way, although he's done that too.
  • Because of the circumstances of Steven's "birth" removing Rose Quartz's physical form, Greg is often joked about being able to kill Gems with seduction, right down to beating even the Diamond Authority and giving Steven three half-siblings in their place. It does not help that he canonically once considered trying "The Ol' Universe Charm" on Blue Diamond during "Reunited."
• Transformers:
  • Optimus Prime is sometimes known as Robo-Jesus, or Optimus Christ. He dies for your sins in every series.
    "There's no more time for mistakes! The world needs a LEADER, Now!
    "It's True! OPTIMUS PRIME LIVES! OUR LEADER IS BACK!
    "Yes, Skylynx. AND THIS TIME, NO FORCE IN THE UNIVERSE CAN STOP ME!"
  • Possibly lampshaded in Beast Wars when a holy scripture has Megatron as the Antichrist. (Then again, this was a different Megatron the scripture was reffering to, but still....)
  • And also from Beast Wars, we have Dinobot, who is the REAL Raptor Jesus.
  • The longest time Prime ever spent dead was one season. The shortest time he has spent dead was 75 seconds in Transformers: Animated — and he died in the third episode. Which was part of a three-episode-intro.
    • He was only dead for 3-4 seconds in the Prime Cartoon but it *did* require the sacrifice of a fix everything magic hammer to bring him back that quickly.
    • And then he sacrificed himself again, this time to finish restoring his homeworld. He spent the next several years training in the Realm of the Primes with Micronus Prime as his guide so he could return to Earth to face a bigger threat. Yes, Optimus Prime is now the Transformers equivalent of Son Goku.
  • "Soundwave, Superior."
  • Buzzsaw has become a memetic badass due to his bio and especially his Marvel Comics version, where he shot Gears in the face, ripped Mirage open, ripped off Cutthroat's arm, tore Frenzy's gun to bits and, most infamously, SHOT DOWN OMEGA SUPREME. Granted, right after that bit of glory he was obliterated by an Underbase-powered Starscream, but still...
• The Venture Brothers. Brock Sampson. BROCK SAMPSON. A short list:Survived at least 50 poison darts and woke up with a minion still in his death grip, survived in space without a space suit, slept with thousands of women(Okay this parts a bit exaggerated, but not by much, only three people have fought him and lived over the course of the show, killed the dog reincarnation of Hitler, along with at least 200+ plus people(and that's just on screen), served in the military and two separate super-spy, lead a group of rag-tag henchman to take on an army of advance super-villain helicopters, and to top it all off his greatest desire isn't peace or any of that crap:He fights cowboys riding on T. rexes, Ninjas, and scubamen on motor cycles with Polar Bears in the sidecar. Brock Sampson is badass personified. When removing a bullet from him, super-villain Phantom Limb also found three more bullets, a blowgun dart, two shark's teeth, a tip of a bayonet, a twisted paperclip, and a meager handful of buckshot.
• Freakazoid!: Sgt. Mike Cosgrove can get anyone to retreat by saying "Hey, you! Cut it out!" He's even put down◊ the Warner Brothers and sister Dot!
• Carmen Sandiego, especially her incarnation in Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? She's a Badass Normal with amazing thievery skills in canon. Just how much more badass she can be depends on the fan.
• After he eats spinach, Popeye can turn an alliagtor into handbags in one punch, use his corn cob pipe as a jetpack and give the sun a black eye , among other feats. His appearance on DEATH BATTLE! has only intensified his legacy as this, where he turned Saitama into eggs.

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