Never Live It Down / Western Animation

Current works with its own pages:

• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
• Transformers

The rest:

A-F

• Adventure Time: Yes, Princess Bubblegum has committed some morally questionable acts, but most PB detractors remember her solely for those specific acts of atrocities instead of the overall kind and well-meaning princess that viewers know and love. The character's voice actress has come to view her as a sort of "selflessly evil" type of character, but Black-and-White Morality is a thing in every fandom.
  • "The Cooler", as well as several events throughout Seasons 6 and 7 have had her undergo Character Development, which has somewhat redeemed her in the eyes of some of her haters.
• The Amazing World of Gumball: Some people will never forgive Nicole for her incredibly abusive and neglectful actions in "The Fridge" and "The Hero", such as leaving her own son, Gumball for dead in a desert and kicking out and practically starving Gumball and Darwin so they'll treat Richard with respect, something she herself rarely does.
• The Aardvark in The Ant and the Aardvark after one of his schemes to catch the ant fails:
  Aardvark: I hope none of the other anteaters saw that. Ooh, I'd never live it down!
• Arcane: Jayce kills only one child on accident during the heat of battle and instantly regrets it. If you were a newcomer to the fandom and hadn't gotten to that part yet, you wouldn't think this considering how the fans love to portray him as a Memetic Psychopath Child Hater.
• Animaniacs: The thing Wakko is most known for is being the Trope Namer for Potty Emergency.
• Arthur:
  • After "Arthur's Big Hit" aired, some viewers started to demonize Arthur's parents due to them never punishing D.W. for breaking Arthur's model plane, despite saying that they'll deal with it, and provoking him into hitting her, despite being pretty reasonable parents most of the time. While they do ultimately contradict the episode's stated moral of "violence is never justified" by showing little sympathy to Arthur after he is punched by Binky, they aren't downright abusive in any episode of the series, this one included.
  • D.W. will never live down breaking Arthur's toy plane despite being told not to touch it in "Arthur's Big Hit", throwing a tantrum over not being invited to a party in "D.W.'s Very Bad Mood", or her tantrum in "Arthur’s Perfect Christmas".
  • To an extent, Arthur is known for calling Sue Ellen a sheepdog or comparing her to one relentlessly in "So Funny I Forgot to Laugh".
• Avatar: The Last Airbender
  • Haru showed up in season 3 with an ultra-sexy mustache, and the fandom still hadn't stopped making jokes concerning it. This is partially because a certain Internet parody series played him as a self-absorbed Camp Gay pretty boy several weeks before he reappeared.
  • In-universe example: Katara made one speech about hope and courage and freedom. The Ember Island Players's stage rendition of her was constantly waxing melodramatic about hope and "tearbending".
  • Sokka and Momo accidentally get strung out on peyote for a day and a night in the desert. Inevitably, Sokka was afterwards forever depicted by fans as the go-to character for any Mushroom Sambas. Probably because as soon as he recovered, he licked something off a cave wall.
    Katara: You've been hallucinating on cactus juice all day, and then you just lick something you find stuck to the wall of a cave?!
    Sokka: I have a natural curiosity.
  • There exists a Vocal Minority of fans who will never forgive Katara for telling Sokka that he didn't love their mother the way she did. Not helping matters is that she never apologized for this. While it's true that what Katara said was pretty mean, it's human as she was consumed by negative emotions. The lack of forgiveness these fans have for this glosses over the fact that Zuko has had many more such moments like this with Iroh and that, throughout the series, Katara has been a supportive sister to Sokka to the point where he sees her as a mother figure.
  • Aang's kiss screw-up in "The Ember Island Players". He kisses Katara once, she doesn't want it, and instantly a certain subset of fandom has decided he's an entitled "Nice Guy" who doesn't care about Katara as anything more than a prize and doesn't deserve to be the hero or have any girlfriend.
  • Azula's breakdown in the finale. Up until that point, Azula had always been presented as the most cool and composed villain of the series, in stark contrast to her hotheaded brother Zuko. Towards the end of the series, she begins to unravel mentally due to being betrayed by her family and friends, and the pressure of becoming Fire Lord, resulting in her going mad. This has forever painted her as having always been a violent psychopath in many viewers' minds.
  • In the Sequel Series The Legend of Korra, Mako will forever be the guy who heartlessly strung Asami along, and then made out with Korra without bothering to break up with her (there actually was a breakup scene, but it was quick and done without dialogue, so that's how it looked). It's helped by his portrayal in season 2, as a big part of the problem was the show not properly acknowledging what a huge jerk he was to Asami, so when he does the same thing again, he ends up humbled and admitting he was wrong. And then in season 4 he's well and truly called out on it by Prince Wu (of all people) and his own family. When the Grand Finale ended with Korra and Asami getting a Relationship Upgrade with each other, many fans — and, In-Universe as of Turf Wars, his own brother — can't resist jokes at his expense, even though it's clear that he's moved on and now only views his ex-girlfriends platonically. Most damning of all, that incident where he made out with Korra? No one seems to remember that she initiated it knowing full well he already had a girlfriend and had been actively trying to convince him to leave or at least cheat on her. Besides the facts that while Mako never initiates such moments, he certainly exacerbates them by lying, denying and generally dithering; Mako Never Lives It Down precisely because his character was defined by it due to the writers wanting to mess with the shippers. Not only is it telling that his role diminishes from Book 3 onwards when the Love Triangle is over to rehab his character, it's essentially a meta when he states in Book 4 that he needed to find out who he is without a lady in his life.
  • Korra herself is victim to this, mostly after she Took a Level in Jerkass in Book 2. Even after her Character Development midway through book 2, people still accuse her of being an entitled brat who never learns anything.
    • After The Reveal that she's bisexual, this has rapidly begun to overshadow every other aspect of her character and even the entire series, despite only occurring in the final episode and not being made explicit except through Word of God. Even on This Very Wiki, you can easily find entries where someone has tried to shoehorn in a mention that she and Asami totally hooked up, regardless of whether or not it's relevant to the trope at hand.
  • Suyin scarred Lin's face when Lin broke up a robbery Suyin took part in, which their mother Toph covered up before sending Suyin away to live with her grandparents. It was an accident that she immediately regretted (and in fact is the only aspect of her quite checkered past that she's explicitly shown regret for), but Lin is such a popular character that for many fans, this was enough to label her a lifelong criminal who Lin never should have forgiven. Of course, other fans take the opposite route and feel that the episode went out of it's way to vilify Lin so people would sympathize more with Su, which backfired and caused at least half the fan base to dislike Su and dismiss her as a Karma Houdini Creator's Pet.
• Dana Tan, Terry's girlfriend in Batman Beyond, is best known for constantly breaking up with Terry and is also often called a Damsel in Distress who's constantly getting rescued by Terry/Batman. In fact, while she's often mad at Terry, she only broke up with him once; except for that one episode, they're always still a couple, not in an on-and-off relationship. On the Damsel in Distress front, she only has to get rescued in one episode and is briefly in danger in the movie, and neither time does she passively wait for rescue.
• The Brothers Flub's theme song is infamous for generally being considered very obnoxious, even by bad theme song standards, and it's very unlikely that consensus will change anytime soon. In fact, almost everyone who has heard of this otherwise obscure cartoon only knows about it because of the theme song.
• Caillou: The main character will forever be remembered for throwing a tantrum because he found out that the circus wasn't on the day he thought it was on.
• The cowardly Scooter from Challenge of the GoBots actually does more than just whine about the danger he has to face, manages to save the day all by himself on occasion, and even gradually grows out of his cowardice as the series progresses, but fans will always remember him as a complaining coward who'd rather surrender than put up a fight with the Renegades.
• Clarence: Tumblr was quick to latch on to a brief scene in the episode "Clarence Gets a Girlfriend" where Jeff expresses resentment over not being able to get a girlfriend because he's a nice guy, sounding a lot like self-described "nice guys" who only act nice to girls because they expect to get something out of it in return, not because they actually care about the girl in question.
• On Codename: Kids Next Door, Lizzie used a "Boyfriend Helmet" on Numbuh 1, and ordered him to destroy his teammates. In several future appearances, she was developed more, given her relationship more depth...but people's minds were already set. She became the single biggest target of Die for Our Ship in the fandom. While she has remained clingy, she's nowhere close to that level.
• Craig of the Creek: Fans who aren't that fond of Craig and Wildernessa being paired up often bring up her past behavior, despite Craig calling her out on it in "Breaking the Ice" and her trying to improve on it as a result.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy:
  • Despite showing some Character Development, albeit smug and a follower, Jimmy will always be known for framing the Eds in the episode "If It Smells Like An Ed". Granted, he did frame all three Eds when it was only Eddy who humiliated him while the other two Eds did absolutely nothing to deserve such retribution.
  • There's also Kevin's actions in the episode "Your Ed Here". Normally only beating up the Eds if they truly deserved it, and has been kind (or at least passive neutral) to them in the past, this episode had Kevin find out Eddy's Embarrassing Middle Name and proceed to go out of his way to have Eddy publicly and repeatedly humiliate himself in order to keep it secret. After Eddy goes through a Humiliation Conga to keep it secret, Kevin proceeds to tell everyone anyways. Needless to say, fans were not happy about this, and though Kevin quickly reverted to his original characterization (for a while, anyways) the Fandom still portrays him as a raging Jerkass with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
• The Fairly OddParents!:
  • "Just the Two of Us!" had Trixie going insane and attempting to kill Timmy when the two were the last humans on Earth and she believed that Timmy wasn't paying enough attention to her. Understandably, this caused many viewers to hate her for turning into a psycho, and they refused to like her after the episode no matter what the writers did with her afterward. While they did attempt to give her some Character Development, it would never be enough to redeem her.
  • "Homewrecker" had Tootie admitting, through Suspiciously Specific Denial, that she tapped Timmy's phones. This, coupled with all her other moments of creepy obsession with Timmy, caused the fans to view her as The Scrappy. Much like Trixie, the writers did give her moments of sympathy later on in the series, but some fans still refused to forgive her for her outright illegal actions from earlier in the series.
  • Despite future episodes toning down and showing the consequences of her seemingly-perfect status, fans will never let Chloe live down her first episode, which saw her break so many of Da Rules with her sheer existence, replace most of Timmy's friends, and have her perfection played painfully straight thus many not couldn't realize she was meant to be a parody of perfect characters, and while Sparky is generally seen as the point of no return for the once-beloved Nicktoon, Chloe became the point even the most loyal fans threw in the towel.
• No matter what Brian from Family Guy does that might redeem himself, certain fans will never forgive him for vocally espousing his ultra-liberal viewpoints, particularly in the episode "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven".
• The legacy of The Flintstones will forever include how they shilled cigarettes in their early days, despite the fact that those TV spots have been censored for as long as almost anyone can remember, so no one under retirement age would know about them if people didn't keep referencing them on YouTube or on trivia clip shows purely for schadenfreude.

G-R

• Similar to the Mixmaster example above, Roadblock from G.I. Joe is known (and frequently mocked) for his Rhymes on a Dime dialogue; while he did talk like that, he didn't do it all the time. However, most parodies of the character make him say every sentence in rhyme, as if he always did.
• Gravity Falls:
  • Wendy's only line in the earliest promos was: "Later, dorks." This has lead to some Fan Fic writers treating the word "dorks" like it's her Verbal Tic, not unlike Kevin.
  • "Morality is relative!" has become the driving force behind all Mabel haters as proof of her "evil."
  • Mabel's detractors will never forgive her for her role for nearly ending the world, albeit unintentionally.
• Hey Arnold!:
  • Iggy forcing Arnold to wear bunny pajamas in public in "Arnold Betrays Iggy". Even though he realized his mistake after hearing Sid and Stinky admit to pulling the secret out of Arnold's mouth, Arnold never forgave him, nor did the fans. Even Craig Bartlett himself was ashamed of the episode, and Iggy never made another major appearance again. Sid and Stinky can qualify too, since they were the ones who randomly guessed Arnold's secret about Iggy, and also that they broke the promise they made with Arnold not to give away Iggy's secret. Unlike Iggy, this didn't get the two of them removed from the series nor does Arnold renounce them as his friends.
  • While Helga is known to have Hidden Depths in spite of being a bully, some fans won't move on from her more cruel actions, such in "Girl Trouble", where she ruthlessly humiliates Arnold and gets him into trouble when he retaliates.
• High Guardian Spice: Sage's rather sexist statements about guys not understanding and talking about feelings compared to girls to Snapdragon in the sixth episode. While it was incredibly sexist and Innocently Insensitive due to Snapdragon's internal struggles with their gender identity, people tend to overlook that she did apologize for the statements after Snapdragon gives her a good What the Hell, Hero? talk.
• Kaeloo: In the episode "Let's Play Courtroom Drama", Kaeloo pulls a cruel trick on Mr. Cat by emotionally manipulating him. After that episode, a lot of fans consider her to be a Manipulative Bitch and feel sorry for Mr. Cat, despite Kaeloo mostly being nice to him in other episodes until he pushes her past Rage Breaking Point, and Mr. Cat himself has done worse things before.
• One episode of Kim Possible shows Ron as a surprisingly excellent chef, while Kim is a disaster. Though she improves by the end of the episode and it's never mentioned again, in fanon Ron is a god in the kitchen, while Kim's cooking defies physics with its hideousness.
• Looney Tunes: The short Rhapsody Rabbit will be always remembered for that scene where Bugs Bunny shot someone for coughing.
  • The Little Man/Big Nose from The Pink Panther will be remembered for doing the exact same thing in the short Pink, Plunk, Plink.
• The Loud House has a number of really bad cases of this, especially when they involve one character treating main character Lincoln in a rude or cruel way. Some notable examples:
  • Lynn Jr. has yet to live down her actions in "No Such Luck". When Lynn Jr. blamed Lincoln for costing her a baseball game, she convinced the entire family that Lincoln is a jinx, leading to Mr. and Mrs. Loud locking Lincoln out of the house, selling his furniture, and eventually only allowing Lincoln to participate in family events if he is wearing an uncomfortable mascot costume.
  • Lori calling Lincoln a twerp really only happened in early episodes, yet in fanfiction, it's practically her nickname for him. Also, people act as though threatening to turn someone into a "human pretzel" is a "thing" she does, but she only said it in one episode!
  • Bring up Lucy, and you're pretty much bound to get someone mentioning how she likes a comic called Princess Pony and clogged the toilet with one of the comics. Though it is an impactful twist in her character, it was just a one-episode thing.
• Masters of the Universe: Revelation:
  • Whatever else happens in the series, it will be remembered by many (mostly its detractors) as the show that killed off Adam/He-Man in the first episode even if he gets better.
  • The other thing the shows detractors remember it and Teela for is how she lashed out at King Randor and Queen Marlena after they just learn their child died. Her behavior throughout part 1 only really reinforced the already negative opinion they had of her. While part 2 did a lot to do away with this behavior, perhaps even making Teela nicer than she ever was, for many the damage was done.
  • Skeletor's Motive Rant identifying his poor love life as one of his reasons for becoming evil. Fans found this utterly ridiculous and mockingly called this version of Skeletor an incel, no matter that he ended this Motive Rant by saying he was determined to become a god if he wouldn't be loved as a man.
• Miraculous Ladybug:
  • No matter what Adrien does, it's unlikely that the fandom will ever forget his insistence that Marinette is "just a friend".
  • Both Marinette and Adrien have indulged in various negative behaviors in canon (largely relating to their respective crushes on each other), but remain relatively nice characters overall. The way their detractors talk about them, you'd be forgiven for assuming the former is a hypocritical, hyper-controlling, obsessive Stalker with a Crush and the latter is a hypocritical, hyper-controlling, entitled Extreme Doormat.
  • Pretty much the entire class sans Marinette gets this treatment thanks to the Lila-subplot; when a new girl lies to make herself popular, everyone but Marinette and Adrien believe her outlandish stories, and think Marinette is being mean for questioning her. This ballooned into a massive Hatedom for every single character involved, resulting in an overwhelming wave of Ron the Death Eater fanfics, which continues long after Lila was Put on a Bus and the subplot became an Aborted Arc that hasn't been brought up since.
• Even though Mr. Uppity of Mr. Men fame is well known throughout the fandom for being a Jerkass, one moment that stuck out to a lot of people was when he drove Little Miss Shy to tears in the 90s cartoon episode "Mr. Impossible's Lesson", to the point where they overlooked if not outright ignored how he later thanked her, along with Mr. Bump and Mr. Clumsy for saving his house from burning down.
  • Some fans never forgave Little Miss Somersault for her Jerk Jock characterization in certain episodes. (E.G."A Rival For Little Miss Somersault" ^note  Where she called Little Miss Splendid, Little Miss Greedy "hopeless" for not being able to somersault as well she can and scared Little Miss Shy by jumping over her in a queue before giving her a backhanded apology and "Little Miss Wise Has A Crazy day" ^note  In which she acted like a bitch because Little Miss Wise (Who mind you, didn't intentionally take part) beat her and Mr. Busy in a skating race.
• The Owl House:
  • Amity's detractors who don't ship her with Luz will never forget their first episode together involving Amity trying to have Luz dissected (which was actually Principal Bump's idea and likely a trick to force Luz to reveal herself however it was never clarified if that was the case or not) or her second episode where she stomped on King's cupcake just to spite Luz, accepted her duel challenge to maim her, and blamed Luz for her misfortunes which she actually caused herself, all while Luz was trying to reconcile.
  • Regardless of her reasons for doing so, or how they feel about her choosing to try and make amends, some fans will likely never be able to truly forgive Lilith for cursing her sister.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • Fans seem pointedly fixated on the one time Phineas has ever yelled at anybody (Candace in "Summer Belongs to You"). Case in point, look how frequently it comes up on these pages.
  • Based on this wiki, fans seem to have latched on to Charlene's one-time statement of "No one's evil," taking it absolutely literally as evidence that she's hopelessly naive, rather than accepting it as a simple sweeping generalization meant to dissuade that silly notion of Vanessa's that her father's evil. And considering that she was married to Heinz Doofenshmirz, can you really blame Charlene for not taking self-proclaimed "evil" people seriously?
  • Ferb made a single quip about him building stuff "for the ladies." A number of fans proceeded to characterize him as a serial KidAnova. In spite of this, the only girl he ever shows genuine interest in is Vanessa, even a decade later, which could make him the opposite of this trope; Ferb could have easily been joking.
• Pinky and the Brain: Despite the common belief that Pinky causes most of Brain's plans to fail, this is rather overblown. While both Pinky and Brain have caused plans to fail, Pinky admittedly more so, the majority of the time it is usually something that was more or less unrelated to the scheme that caused their failures, or else it was a plan that never got off the ground in the first place. Pinky was often quite helpful, either by doing the leg work, pointing out holes with the plan, or using his superior people skills. There were plenty of instances where they would have succeeded if Brain had listened to Pinky.
• Buttercup of The Powerpuff Girls (1998) has been shown to be a decent person even though she is often rude and aggressive, but a Vocal Minority outright despise her due to making Bubbles cry by breaking her chalk in "All Chalked Up" and smiling while her sister cried over it, or when she threw glue at Elmer in "Paste Makes Waste", although she did apologize for that (despite being forced to by Blossom and Bubbles).
  • Even though Blossom and Bubbles are both kind and friendly people, some fans never let their hypocrisy of making Buttercup give up her blanket in "Cover Up" despite Bubbles having her own security blanket slide.
  • Mitch Mitchelson, despite being a recurring character, seems to always be remembered solely for torturing the class pet in "Gettin' Twiggy with It".
  • While Professor Utonium is, for the most part, a loving and reasonable dad towards the girls, some fans find it to look past him forcing the girls into a curfew, causing Townsville to descend into chaos just so the girls wouldn't fall asleep in class in "Daylight Savings" as well as his No Sympathy reaction to Buttercup having her teeth knocked out by the villains in "Moral Decay".
  • The Girls themselves tend to fall into this in Season 3 (and tragically, their poor father is the victim to it plenty of those times). Prime examples include "Candy Is Dandy" (hiring Mojo Jojo to commit crimes, then beating him up in his own cell), "Ploys R'Us" (tricking the sleepwalking Professor into stealing toys for them), "Powerprof." (setting up the Professor to get beat up by Mojo Jojo so the former can give up crimefighting), "Equal Fights" (their misandry, especially against the boys at school, and the Professor), and "Moral Decay" (the sisters' outright abusive, hypocritical treatment of each other, especially against Buttercup)
  • Miss Keane often tends to receive flak from some fans due to her punishing the girls for attempting to stop the Gangreen Gang from bullying the other students at Pokey Oaks in "Schoolhouse Rocked" and (Like The Professor above) making the girls take a curfew and causes Townsville to descend into chaos so they'd stay awake in class in "Daylights Savings" despite her normally being a reasonable and friendly teacher in most episodes.
• Regular Show:
  • Benson's actions in the episode, "Best Burger in the World". From mocking Mordecai and Rigby to eating their burgers, that episode turned him into The Scrappy for some fans. At first, Benson was seen as just a strict boss with low patience, but now, people see Benson as a Jerkass Bad Boss that makes Mordecai and Rigby's lives hell, despite past, present, and future Pet the Dog moments.
  • Also, fans find it difficult to forgive Rigby for his actions in "Do Me a Solid", in which he puts Mordecai through a huge Humiliation Conga. Even though he goes through Character Development starting with Season 6, fans will still consider him to be one of the biggest assholes in the entire show.
  • "Lunch Break" certainly rivals "The Best Burger In The World" at having Benson at his very worst, from threatening to fire Mordecai and Rigby if they don't finish the sandwich on time despite Benson telling them that they can order whatever they want, to preparing to fire them by shipping their stuff back to their parents, and, the cherry on top, ordering them to do 50 laps on the new basketball court. Finally, to make matters worse, while "The Best Burger In The World" at least has the excuse of airing back in Season 3 when Benson's Character Development just started to take shape, "Lunch Break" aired late into Season 6.
  • While fan opinions about Mordecai and his shifting romance being the prominent focus have been divisive in later seasons, the infamous scene in Season 6's "Dumped at the Altar" where he hijacks Muscle Man's wedding to make an incredibly awkward speech about his relationship issues and attempts to dump CJ in front of everyone in attendance, is considered by many as his worst moment ever. He's even been called out on it by his friends as well.
• Rick and Morty is the three-season-long story of a wacky scientist who turns himself into a pickle. He also sometimes gets drunk and belches. And maybe there were some other episodes in there too?
  • The schezwan sauce incident is one of the most well known things about the series. The fanbase took a joke Rick made about an old McDonald's dipping sauce so seriously that they rioted at the restaurants when there wasn't enough to go around.
  • Both in-universe and out, the Smith family of Rick C-137 has achieved this trope courtesy of the massive mishap that consisted of underground horse people fighting giant mutated sperm and which resulted in a giant "incest baby" born of Morty's mutated sperm mixing with Summer's artificially-enlarged egg, giving birth to "Naruto". It's become such an infamous event for them that at least one Rick of another universe, "Hothead Rick" has heard about it and demonizes them for it.
    Hothead Rick: You got a lot of nerve acting better than us. (turns to his fellow Ricks) This is the family that made a giant incest baby! Had the government launch it into space! It's still floating around out there somewhere!
    Rick C-137: "Are we ever going to live that down?"
    • More fuel was thrown on the fire when Beth entered an intimate relationship with her clone, followed by an episode where the universe tries to force Jerry to have sex with his mother. Fans began being very vocal about the disproportionate amount of incest "jokes" the series has had, and wondering what exactly is going on with the shows creators.
• Rugrats (1991):
  • Despite Didi Pickles being a well-meaning and loving if not somewhat inattentive mother, many fans have not forgiven her for replacing Tommy's Reptar merchandise with Goober The Gopher merchandise (to the point where she actually considered throwing the Reptar merchandise away when Tommy showed a dislike to Goober) as well as not calling out a man dressed as Goober for rudely snatching Tommy's Reptar toy away and making Tommy cry in the episode "The Big Showdown".
  • In the movie, many people consider Tommy practically psychopathic for nearly pouring banana baby food on Dil and leaving him in the rain to be taken by the monkeys, even though he quickly becomes remorseful and embraces Dil when he starts crying. It doesn't help that some people state Tommy wanted to murder Dil, even though it's never implied the monkeys would kill him to get the food and that was not Tommy's intent at all, he just wanted them to adopt Dil.

S

• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Because of the Rule of Funny, Adora will forever be remembered for the events of "System Failure" and "White Out", where she basically got drunk because a magical virus infected her sword.
• Many characters in The Simpsons are constantly lampshaded by the things they did in the past (especially the secondary characters). Some characters have only become known by the things that happened to them.
  • Meanwhile, more prominent characters in the series have past status quo changes lampshaded around them. For instance, there is Apu, who is now currently defined by his marriage to Manjula, his eight children, and his affair.
  • Thanks to an unexpectedly widespread Memetic Mutation, many people will remember Groundskeeper Willie solely for calling a group of French students at Springfield Elementary "ya Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys!" It's the one thing he has ever said about French people, derogatory or otherwise, and longtime fans of the show will tell you that Willie has contempt for people of many different nationalities, including his own. ("Damned Scots! They ruined Scotland!")
  • As for Lisa, occasional references have been made towards her vegetarianism and Buddhism, both of which were made permanent into order to get celebrities Paul & Linda McCartney (3F03) and Richard Gere (DABF02) to make their one-time appearances in the respective episodes.
    • Lisa is also well-known for her profile quote "Embrace nothingness!" from the arcade game despite her saying this only once in the actual show.
    • She'll never be forgiven for any of her holds of the Jerkass Ball either, and that's a main reason on why people see her as a Creator's Pet and hate her.
  • Then there's Seymour Skinner, who has been referenced by his false identity, calling hamburgers "steamed hams" in one short skit, as well as his relationship and break-up with Edna Krabappel.
  • The town of Springfield as a whole will probably be never forgiven for driving Bart to try to kill himself in "The Boys of Bummer" (among other things).
  • Maude Flanders is known for how she died— being hit by a T-shirt gun. Also, her last words being part of a dirty joke about how foot-long hot dogs make Ned "uncomfortable" because he thinks they're phallic.
  • Ned himself is known for being the Trope Namer for Flanderization and Stupid Sexy Flanders, for screaming like a little girl because he likes purple drapes, and for being a lightweight.
  • Homer (and the show in general) gets a lot of flack for the "Jerkass Homer" era from around Season 9 to 12, where he Took a Level in Jerkass and became an unlikable and unsympathetic character who would do terrible things just for the sake of Rule of Funny. This was a relatively brief phase of the show (by Long Runner standards, anyway) and was mostly toned down afterwards. But people will still throw this criticism at modern Simpsons, even if a criticism some viewers have is that Homer's actually too nice now.
  • Maggie shooting Mr. Burns, even though (barring the spooky closeup of her we get at the end, which was played as a joke) all evidence points to it being an accident.
    • On a sweeter note, her saying, "Daddy" to Homer.
• South Park:
  • Wendy broke up with Stan exactly once, in the seventh season. They got back together in the eleventh season finale and have been together ever since (except for two other short-lived breakups, in one of which Stan was the one who broke up with her). Yet fanfic writers tend to portray Wendy as a manipulative shrew who breaks Stan's heart again and again. This is usually done to justify Stan leaving her for Kyle. But even some writers who do like Wendy latch onto the idea that she and Stan break up and make up all the time.
    • It may have more to do with how shallow their relationship is shown to be at times. Both have shown heavy attractions to other characters in an extremely unsubtle manner (Stan once constantly attempted to make passes to a substitute teacher and even gloated about supposedly making love to her to Wendy's face while Wendy became disinterested in Stan in favor of another popular jock less than one season after they got back together). Their less than affectionate relationship was even Lampshaded in Raisins.
      Bebe: Wendy broke up.
      Stan: Wait what did I do wrong? I haven't talked to her for weeks!
  • The "Ms. Ellen incident" is of course, an early example of Kick the Dog from her and probably one of the most sadistic things done until Cartman fed Scott Tenorman his parents' ground-up remains. The action was so incredibly cruel that it proves that sometimes this trope is justified, but to hear it from some fans, you'd think Wendy is a constant Yandere looking to kill anyone in her way, and this idea gets used in fics where she freaks out and attempts to murder Kyle for liking Stan, rapes and butchers Stan for liking Kyle, or turns her attention on any unlucky OC. Fans also won't forgive her for the poor communication in breaking up with Stan as noted above, although both of them used their friends instead of spitting out their actual feelings.
  • Sheila is commonly called a megalomaniac Moral Guardian, despite this side not showing up in over a decade and having taken a huge level in kindness after that. This one may actually be justified, considering that she did almost cause The End of the World as We Know It.
  • Series-wide among other things, it's still known as "the show where Kenny dies on every episode" years after the show stopped using it as a Running Gag after five seasons.
  • "Ass Burgers" has Stan become an alcoholic for one episode, and despite the implication that he was still drinking in the last scene, he was never actually shown drunk again. This didn't stop the fandom from turning Stan into a regular alcoholic, sometimes even making him as indulgent and stupid about it as his father, despite Stan's embarrassment with such behavior. Most of this was before South Park: Post Covid depicted adult Stan as an alcoholic, and many fanon portrayals have Stan's alcoholism start much younger. It's also worth noting that Stan is implied to have general addictive tendencies, such as getting sucked into mobile gaming, but fanon squarely focuses on the alcoholism to maximize angst potential.
• Spider-Man: The Animated Series — whole show, for the censorship issue. Yes, they couldn't say "die" or "kill", or have Morbius suck blood. But it seems that's all anyone says about it lately. In fact, it was an ambitious arc-based series with a lot of depth, emotion, surprises, and a portrayal of Venom that has impacted every adaptation since. Interviews with showrunner John Semper reveal that as it was on the notoriously meddlesome FOX, it was a 24/7 battle to keep it that way. And just because they couldn't say "die" doesn't mean no one ever did die.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Mr. Krabs selling SpongeBob's soul for 62 cents, despite it being more out of thoughtlessness than malice, and Krabs is guilt ridden after Squidward calls him out on it. It's commonly brought up in YouTube comments even when it's irrelevant to the video.
  • SpongeBob has been seen as an abusive caretaker for Gary since "A Pal for Gary", where he mistreated the snail for "bothering" Puffy Fluffy, even though the latter was clearly tormenting the former. This is despite said episode being considered one of the worst due to how Out of Character SpongeBob is, opposite of his normal depiction of a loving pet owner.
  • Patrick in general is constantly demonized for his Jerkass Ball moments, despite the fact that there are just as many episodes where he's his usual incredibly stupid but well-meaning self. In particular, he gets flack for torturing Gary in "Pet Sitter Pat", stealing SpongeBob's Krabby Patty toy in "Yours, Mine, and Mine", and gluing SpongeBob in a wringer in "Stuck in the Wringer". He also gets a lot of heat for "The Card" over a single joke (said joke was implying he's being deliberately dumb to spice things up. The thing is, he made a similar joke like this in an earlier episode where Sandy asks if he needs to be stupid somewhere else).
  • Squidward's toenail ripping off scene in "House Fancy" ruined what was an otherwise mundane episode.
  • Mrs. Puff trying to murder SpongeBob in "Demolition Doofus".
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil:
  • Marco's princess disguise from "St. Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses", which ended up being so popular that it gave birth to one of the show's most well-known theories (that Marco is a closet trans girl).
  • Despite his genuine attempts to improve in Season 3, Tom still has plenty of detractors who haven't forgot some of his more violent and manipulative actions in the first two seasons.
  • Some fans seemed to still be squicked out by Marco technically being 30 and Star still a teen due to Marco being stuck inside another world for thirty years inside there, but only a few minutes outside of the regular world.
  • Moon is hated by many fans for betraying her daughter and Eclipsa to the insane Mina over her distrust of Eclipsa and being bitter about losing her family for a short time. Although her distrust for Eclipsa was mostly baseless and it was also some of her fault she lost her memories.
  • Star destroying magic dooming countless beings and civilizations in the Series Finale is practically the only thing fans talk about her or the series since. Star alone is the target of backlash, or genocide jokes, ignorig the objectionable OOC actions of other characters this season thwarting peaceful alternatives leaving Star no clear other option to save her people.
• Steven Universe:
  • Onion is seen as evil by a lot of fans. This is due in no small part to the episode "Onion Trade", which has him wreaking havoc and nearly destroying Beach City with Pearl's replicator, which Steven traded him for a toy that it turned out he stole from Steven in the first place. When the show offers any kind of explanation for Onion's behavior, the explanation is that he's strange, he's acting out because he's lonely and bored, and his mother openly does absolutely nothing about said behavior (insofar as she's even aware of it; it's unclear whether she knows about any of his actual crimes, which range from theft to attempted arson). He does have some positive traits, but these are often ignored by fans.
  • Pearl saying she "likes pie" in the episode "So Many Birthdays", which she seemingly counters in "Fusion Cuisine", being repulsed by all food and the concept of eating and digestion. Writer Matt Burnett laments this as a case of Early-Installment Weirdness that fans wouldn't stop discussing, with an argument with a fan concerning an offhand retcon statement he made about it ("She likes the process of making pie") being one of the things that led to him ceasing interaction with the fanbase.
  • Many people love to portray Lapis as somebody who really, really loves to do fart noises, or sometimes just being a general prankster, despite only doing it in two episodes. Rather more seriously, many fans will never forgive her for destroying Peridot's tape recorder, despite Peridot herself seemingly forgiving her for it by her next appearance. There's also some people who won't forgive her for trying to steal the ocean, almost drowning Connie and Steven, and breaking Greg's leg.
  • Amethyst also hasn't lived down her shapeshifting into Rose in "Maximum Capacity" for a lot of people. This is despite this incident happening before her Character Development started to take off, and her and Greg resolving the issue.
• Aquaman is commonly haunted by his portrayal in the Superfriends cartoons; as a guy whose only real powers are swimming and talking to fish he was (almost) always useless, to the point of Memetic Mutation. This has actually worked out for him a little, as later iterations of the character usually go to great (and awesome) lengths to subvert this image.
  Aquaman: King of the seas, remember?
  • Unfortunately for Aquaman, this image of him continues to perpetuate via parodies of him in other works, most notably Mermaidman and Barnacle Boy in SpongeBob SquarePants.
• One season 2 episode of Superjail! depicted the Twins as cannibalistic, insect-like, and also consuming bleach and other toxins. Even though some of the alien traits depicted in it were not referred to again in the following season, the episode definitely left a mark on fans' minds and fanart and comments will mention them in some way. For some, the episode seemed to ruin the characters and exaggerate the alien nature a little too much. And then you have the fans who claim the characters should never have any fans that like them over the actions they pulled in the episode.
  • Alice, er, "assisting" the Mistress in the season 3 premiere goes down this way for other fans. Never mind whatever else Alice did before or after that episode, there are some that give her the reputation of "Ruined Warden/Mistress forever and is in the way".
• If someone's first exposure to Yoshi is through the Super Mario World cartoon, he may be more remembered for his behavior in that series. He talks like a three-year old, eats many unusual items, and fears childish things, such as water and ghosts. To his credit, Yoshi faces his fears whenever his friends are in trouble and his stomach in the cartoon is perhaps the strongest of any Super Mario adaptation. Also, in many later games and media, Yoshi is capable of speech (even evidenced in the actual Super Mario World game when he thanks Mario for saving him).
• Sym-Bionic Titan: Xeexi got his Memetic Molester status by mind raping two characters in an episode. Only one instance is really ever noted, but now Xeexi is only remembered as a rapist, even though he's also a tactical genius, and well... dead.

T-Y

• Starfire of Teen Titans (2003) was shown drinking mustard once. It's common for it to be referenced in fan works. She is, however, shown at several points later with a bottle of mustard with a straw in it in the background, even if she's not actually in the process of drinking it.
• Thomas & Friends tends to get flak from many fans over odd episodes that display Fantastic Racism towards the diesels (particularly in Misty Island Rescue, a feature length episode which is generally considered poor in every other quality anyway).
  • While Edward's Character Rerailment is a well appreciated blessing to many fans, the phrase "new fangled nonsense" will forever make them cringe in despair.
  • Despite The Fat Controller mostly being a kind yet strict parental figure towards the engines, a lot of fans as well as some critics tend to associate him with many of the episodes where he blames the engines for accidents beyond their control.
• Tygra in ThunderCats is known as a weak-willed junkie, despite being addicted twice, only one of which was actually presented as a drug.
• The latter character of Tom and Jerry frequently gets flak with fans due to the handful of episodes in which he is a Designated Hero who defeats Tom despite starting the feud. This disregards that Jerry was usually genuinely benevolent (or at least more so than Tom) and one of the most vulnerable heroes to the loss of Karmic Protection in Western Animation, not to mention a similar number of occasions Tom got the last laugh despite still being the instigator. This is best illustrated in The Itchy & Scratchy Show, where the two main characters are blatant Expies of Jerry and Tom respectively. The show's portrayal of the Jerry-like mouse character is that of a sadist with a penchant for murdering not only Scratchy but any other cat or sometimes even any other animal that happens to appear in the episode.
  • Itchy And Scratchy were in fact stated by Word of God to be based more on the far more violent Herman and Katnip shorts, yet another Follow the Leader to Tom And Jerry that helped Flanderize the one sided sadism of the cat and mouse dynamic.
  • To a lesser degree, nearly all slapstick animation associated with the Karmic Trickster formula (especially in the Golden Age era) is believed to be revolved around a tall order Disproportionate Retribution method, with the protagonist being a self righteous little masochist who heckles, brutalises and just acts ten times crueller than the "villain" throughout the entire cartoon over a very minor slight at the beginning of the story. This is despite the fact that many series (the better written ones at least) actively tried to ensure their heroes look provoked. Warner Bros in particular were rather wary of Bugs Bunny turning from a mischievous trickster into a bully, going through an endless number of increasingly malicious antagonists that could look repugnant enough against him, and even having Bugs lose odd shorts he acted up to completely debunk the Double Standard.
• Total Drama:
  • Ezekiel made one sexist comment during his short time on the island. Two seasons later, even though others have shown far more sexist tendencies, Zeke was pretty much labelled a Straw Misogynist, and is still hounded for it — even after he devolved into a feral subhuman monster.
  • Gwen — both in-universe and out — will never live down being kissed by another girl's boyfriend. That one scene led to Gwen getting voted out and all her allies abandoning her, (Sierra even referring to her as the 'New Heather) even though she'd been a good friend and strong competitor up till then. In All-Stars, she is placed on the villain team entirely because of this, and becomes their Token Good Teammate.
  • Noah and Cody seem to be mostly remembered by a good chunk of the fandom for that one time they kissed each other while sleeping all the way back in the early part of the first season. Even despite Noah eventually getting a girlfriend (and Cody being a firmly established Casanova Wannabe), many fans still remain adherent to the idea of the two being gay for each other.
  • Beth, despite being a Nice Girl, will forever be remembered as the "cookie eater". This move was what strained her relationship with her friends, even LeShawna and Owen. A lot of fans disgrace Beth just for that one scene.
  • Bridgette getting her tongue stuck to a pole when she tried to kiss Alejandro. A lot of people in-universe (especially Blaineley) and in the fandom love to ridicule her for it or are angry at her for her actions, even despite the fact Bridgette herself showed immense guilt and shame for what she did and was ultimately forgiven by Geoff, and how the couple moved on from it to happily continue their relationship.
  • Geoff's Acquired Situational Narcissism as host of the Aftermath and nonstop make-out sessions with Bridgette during Action. He stopped with both after the season, but many fans will still never forgive him for either actions and often use them as an excuse to demonize his character.
  • Any actions a season's villain performs will forever leave them a pariah amongst the other contestants (and for some fans as well), no matter how much of a Heel–Face Turn they make in their later appearances. Heather for instance is still hated by the other 21 competitors from Island, even though she started becoming more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold during Action and World Tour.
• VeggieTales: Mr. Nezzer has become a Memetic Psychopath thanks to a truly memorable debut appearance in which he tried to murder Bob, Junior, and Larry for not appreciating him sufficiently. He's had a few villainous roles since then (most notably as a corrupt toymaker named Wally P. in "The Toy That Saved Christmas"), but none so psychotic and memorable as in "Rack, Shack and Benny".
• X-Men: Evolution:
  • Scott was always a nice guy to everyone unless they deserved otherwise. However, he and Avalanche had a known rivalry due to leading opposing teams, usually Avalanche instigated it, and mostly Scott was defending someone else or simply reacting. However, during season 2, Avalanche had changed. Not as in he developed, but his personality had completely taken a U-turn as he was suddenly in love with Kitty and willing to join the X-Men simply to be close. Obviously, Scott remembers how he's acted and doesn't trust him. When Avalanche proves he's not interested in learning at the institute Scott retaliates by reactivating the Danger Room control for a second to make him trip up, a complete Out-of-Character Moment (he made a joke, completely forgetting who this is). And when someone starts stealing the X-Vehicles, Scott, as well as EVERYONE thought it was Avalanche. When it's all over, Scott apologized for this and offered to start again. Lance decides to quit because, after his time here, he's realized it's too much work and not really him. However, the Brotherhood fans and a few others refuse to think of Scott as anything but a petty jerk who, without reason, just hates Avalanche who is nothing but a saintly loving Boyfriend to Kitty (despite that by the end of this season he returns to previous characterization and breaks up with Kitty), and that Scott was the reason he quit, having driven him away with his bullying and accusations when Avalanche would have made a great addition to the team. Sigh. That's two characters remembered for a personality they didn't have, because of one episode and one Out-of-Character Moment.
  • Similarly, the New Recruits are only remembered by some fans as idiots who only want to cause trouble and if left alone would destroy the world. They only did two stupid things, steal the X-Vehicles, and break into the Danger Room unsupervised. Not only did they learn their lesson, they actually showed they were smarter than previously thought (how many of you could fly a jet or survive a Danger Room session designed for the more experienced children?), in fact, it wouldn't have been a problem had Avalanche and Kitty not got in the way and caused the systems to get fried and fired at two Air force jets. But because one caused Avalanche to quit and another was 'confirmation' people always think of them as Too Dumb to Live assholes.
• Young Justice (2010):
  • Superboy is still seen as an Emo Teen as for the first two seasons he was upset over Superman refusing to accept him and later an ugly breakup with Ms. Martian. For reference, the show has 4 seasons.
  • Superman being a stubborn, insensitive Jerkass towards Superboy throughout the first season, even though season 2 depicts them as having buried the hatchet on the matter.

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