Unrequited Love Switcheroos in Western Animation.
- On Adventure Time Finn and Jake both think this is going on when Finn's old crush, Princess Bubblegum, objects to him being involved with Flame Princess. It's actually something else entirely. Although the ending makes it ambiguous as to whether PB gets a Green-Eyed Epiphany as a result or not.
- American Dad!: For many years, Steve's friend Snot had a crush on Hayley, who made it clear that she did not reciprocate. In "The Missing Kink", Snot finally convinces Hayley to go out with him. Hayley ends up falling for Snot, while Snot completely loses interest in Hayley.
- Danny Phantom started off with Sam giving off most of the romantic vibe towards Danny who remained clueless for the most part. When Sam started dating someone else, Danny starts to realize by the end that he likes her. They eventually get a Relationship Upgrade.
- In El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, Manny falls for villainess Black Cuervo, aka Zoe Aves. When he figures out she's manipulating him, he loses interest, only for her to immediately develop a crush on him. Turns out this exact situation is generational between their families.
- Teebo and Latara in Ewoks. Throughout the first season, Latara seems to be talking only about Teebo when alone with Kneesaa (who teases her for it), calling him "honeydrop" and claiming that she "does not have it that bad". In the second season, when their characters are exaggerated; Teebo is doing everything for Latara's attention, while she's playing hard to get. Finally, she kisses him in The Tragic Flute and while the series ends with no further romantic interaction implied, they're indeed together in the Shadows of Endor comic seen here
. - Family Guy: 8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter: Meg becomes interested in Neil (who had been obsessed with Meg) only after she realizes he has a girlfriend.
- Played for Laughs in the Fanboy and Chum Chum episode "Fanboyfriend". Lupe, a Huge Schoolgirl falls for Fanboy after he... er... saves her from a spider. For most of the episode, Fanboy tries to make Lupe understand that he is not interested - but at the end of the episode, after Lupe gets radioactive superpowers, the feelings are flipped.
- Get Ace: In "Greener Tina", Tina, who normally barely registers Ace's existence, becomes a Clingy Jealous Girl for him when she sees Ace going out with another girl. When she realizes that the girl was just using Ace and wasn't actually in love with him, she goes back to normal in an instant.
- On Gravity Falls, twelve-year-old Dipper has a Precocious Crush on teenage Wendy. When he goes back in time ten years, she has a Precocious Crush on him, which he comments is "super weird" because of the age difference. Mabel promptly points out that now Dipper knows how Wendy feels about his crush. Which makes this...an Inversion by way of time travel or something?
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: In "Crushed", Mandy develops a crush on Billy's new friend, who's even more cool and haughty than she is (so much so he doesn't deign to speak when asked his name, so Billy just gives him the nickname "Piff"). Mandy is horrified to feel that way about anyone, and is ready to ask Grim to literally cut her heart out. Grim instead convinces Mandy to turn up the charm, which causes Piff to fall for Mandy... and lose his composure in the process, causing Mandy to get over her crush.
- Hey Arnold!:
- Largely the plot of the "Arnold Loves Lila" episode. When Lila believes Arnold has a crush on her (thanks to Helga's hastily re-written "Arnold loves Lila" graffiti), she starts to like him too, but he "likes her, but doesn't LIKE-like her". Once she gets the message, he really does start to "LIKE-like her," but too late; now she'd rather be friends.
- There's also the "Arnold Visits Arnie" episode where Arnold meets bizarro equivalents to characters in his own neighborhood, including "Hilda," a seemingly well-adjusted Helga he is immediately attracted to... who has a thing for Arnie. Meanwhile Arnie's girlfriend "Lulu" seems more interested in Arnold than her real boyfriend...
- Kaeloo and Mr. Cat have this happen rather frequently. Who's crushing on whom depends on the episode.
- Mako and Korra in The Legend of Korra. Korra starts crushing on Mako, but he rejects her when she asks him out since he's dating Asami. Then, he gets jealous when he sees her with his brother Bolin and the two let the issue drop until later on in the season when Asami finds out Korra had a crush on Mako and then she starts seeing that there are still sparks between the two. By the season finale, Mako breaks up with Asami and confesses that he's in love with Korra, who reciprocates it. Though in later seasons they break up, and in the series finale Korra gets together with Asami.
- A case from Miraculous Ladybug has a Two-Person Love Square. Marinette has a crush on Adrien, who (initially) doesn't really notice her much, though later befriends her. However, in their superhero identities, it's Adrien (Cat Noir) who has a crush on Marinette (Ladybug), but she continually rebuffs him. The weakness of their disguises just makes it more ridiculous.
- In the fifth season, a more traditional version comes to light, as Adrien starts to fall out of love with Ladybug and in love with Marinette, while Marinette feels that being with Adrien will only lead to disaster while finding herself falling for Cat Noir. They're still completely oblivious to the Two Person Love Square.
- Done three times with Pepé Le Pew:
- In For Scent-imental Reasons, Pepe is chasing Penelope, as usual. He winds up plunging into a blue paint bucket, which masks his smell. Penelope falls in the neighboring rain bucket, rendering her ragged and soaked and not so pretty. The switcheroo follows, as she chases him.
- In Little Beau Pepe, Penelope is attracted to Pepe after he uses all the deodorants. In this case, there's no particular reason why he stops being interested in her except the fact she's now chasing him.
- And in Really Scent (a bit of an oddity, as Fabrette is interested in Pepe apart from the smell) Pepe again uses deodorant to be more appealing to her, but at the same time, she's doused herself in Limburger cheese to be more skunk-like.
- Played for Laughs on Pepper Ann: Milo and Gwen Mezzrow do this a lot. One episode had a Running Gag where every time a day passed, it switched which one was the Abhorrent Admirer and which was the prey.
- Phineas and Ferb:
- The Distant Finale episode "Act Your Age" reveals that Phineas developed a crush on Isabella around the time that they entered high school, which was also right around the time that she gave up hope of him ever noticing her feelings for him. He doesn't even realize this until, right before college, he casually mentions his crush to his friends, who promptly fill him in.
- This also happens towards Candace and Jeremy. We keep seeing Candace's crush on Jeremy and we found out in "Knot My Problem" that Jeremy also likes Candace when they're were grade-schoolers. Jeremy remembers that in grade school, a pretty girl loaned him that pencil and he kept it. That pretty girl turns out to be Candace, which Candace didn't realize after Jeremy told her.
- The Simpsons:
- The episode "Lisa's Date With Density" plays this out between Lisa and bully Nelson Muntz after she develops a crush on him. Though mostly just confused by her feelings, he goes listlessly along with her efforts to reform him until she realizes she can't change him and breaks up with him. By that point he's developed feelings for her, while freely admitting that her attempt to better him wasn't working, simply because she made it at all.
- A Downplayed version happens between Seymour Skinner and Edna Krabappel over their engagement, breakup, and subsequent Relationship Revolving Door. At first he has Commitment Issues and admits he only proposed and set a date because she pressured him, causing her to leave him with the words, "I can't marry someone who doesn't want to be with me." He later pursues her desperately and even eagerly suggests marriage after they've gotten back together (while she's trying to break up with him again).
- In Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Star Butterfly has an obvious crush on supporting character Oskar Greason, getting incredibly flustered whenever she sees him. But by the end of Season 2, she's completely lost interest in him due to having developed a crush on Marco, with Oskar now getting a crush on Star.
- In Season 3, this happens to Marco. Jackie breaks up with him after seeing how much he misses Mewni and Star, but when he returns, Star and Tom are dating again, having gotten over some of the issues that caused their breakup in the past. It takes Marco a while to realise his feelings for Star, but it appears that she is trying to move on from her crush on him. Ends up subverted, though, as Star still has feelings for him regardless. Tom eventually accepts all the warning signs and breaks up with Star in the final season, leaving her open to pursue Marco again.
- Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race has Devin and Carrie, a.k.a the Best Friends. Carrie has been crushing on Devin since they were young kids but he has stayed oblivious to her feelings. Eventually, Carrie decides to try and give up on him and focus on the race...just in time for him to realize he's actually in love with her. So most of the series involves Carrie trying to confess her feelings to Devin with the last third reversing this and having him trying to confess to her. In the end, he does, and they get together.
- Undergrads, Nitz develops feelings for Jessie after seeing her naked... for exactly one episode. Prior to this episode and in every episode following, she loves him but he has no interest in her. Which makes her blowup at Nitz in the finale about not noticing her feelings rather silly since he openly said he had feelings for her... In the one episode where he showed interest in her, she rejected him because his approach to her was completely wrong, mostly by just acting like they're already a couple.
