Exactly What I Aimed At

Caffeine'll kill ya.

Megatron (to Rattrap, after he supposedly "missed"): You should have made your shots count!
Optimus Primal (freed from restraints): Oh, he did.

—Beast Wars

The Gunslinger has an opponent in his sights, and fires a shot.

To the opponent's surprise, the shot missed. The opponent takes a moment and sneers at their inaccuracy.

Ha! Ya missed!

The gunslinger points out that he wasn't aiming at the opponent, and hit exactly what he was aiming for: A trick shot that sets off something else (often a chain reaction) that slips past the opponent's guard, and takes out the target in a different way. Bonus points if it's actually far more effective than a direct attack would have been.

This usually involves getting some part of the locale to collapse on the enemy, or cause a slightly delayed explosion. Occasionally, this may be pulled off by someone to capture or disable his foe rather than kill him. Either way, there's usually enough time to see the opponent's reaction as he notices what's actually going to happen.

This trope is so well-known that inverting it by successfully pulling the trick shot, then admitting that they were really aiming at the normal target, is a trope in and of itself: Accidental Aiming Skills.

See also Deadly Dodging, Boomerang Comeback, Pinball Projectile, and Shoot the Rope. Also, it's bad juju to assume someone missed because they didn't hit you, specifically. Contrast Stab the Scorpion. If the shooter aimed at his victim, expecting him to miss in order to do a chain reaction; than it overlaps with Batman Gambit.

Examples of Exactly What I Aimed At include:

Anime and Manga

  • In The Law of Ueki, the villain thinks a shot has missed and mocks the hero for not doing what he thought necessary, before the effect ends in the villain getting crushed beneath a tree. In another episode, an opponent believes he expertly dodged Ueki's attack, only to find that Ueki had struck his targets (his pockets) precisely.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure features this multiple times. Doppio pretending to throw a pair of scalpels at Risotto, but he actually threw them to make the good guys help him, Buccirati attacking King Crimson, yet when he misses he claims he was aiming at a pillar all along, all of Joseph's various rope-tricks etc.
  • In One Piece, Usopp has done this at least once. While the Strawhats are on Thriller Bark, Usopp fights Perona, who has the Horo-Horo Devil Fruit ability, so her spirit can leave her body while fighting, and because of this has the upper hand on Usopp, until he finds where her body is hidden. He takes the opportunity to take a shot before Perona reenters her body, but he misses her body. Then, when Perona tries to get up, she finds herself stuck: Usopp had shot a glue star.
    • Also occurs within the arc Usopp was introduced in. Zoro, chasing after Jango, cuts down a tree branch. Jango thinks Zoro's attack missed, but really, he was cutting the branch down so that Usopp could aim at Jango with a Gunpowder Star.
  • In Inuyasha, the titular character pulls one of these off with a sword larger than he is. While fighting Hiten, the older of two Thunder Brothers, he flings his ginormous sword towards his opponent and misses. Hiten demands to know what sort of aim that was, and Inuyasha responds "Perfect!" At this point Hiten turns around to see that his younger brother, who was attempting to choke the life out of Kagome, has been perfectly skewered by Tessaiga without Kagome being struck.
  • In Amu's final battle with Nikaidou in Shugo Chara, she throws the Heart Rod in his direction, which flies out the window. Nikaidou sneers at her aim?just before the rod returns and smashes the machine on which his plans had relied.
  • Vash the Stampede, from Trigun, pretty much lives and breathes this trope—although he tends to make it look like Accidental Aiming Skills, and those who only know of his reputation think (incorrectly) that he's all Improbable Aiming Skills and Instant Death Bullet.
    • Well, he does have utterly improbable aiming skills—choice is his use of thrown pebbles to knock bullets askew and render shots nonfatal at a quickdraw tournament, as well as opening the back of his revolver to throw the bullets out of it and concuss an opponent—he just doesn't use them for Instant Death Bullet. When he does flirt with the intention to shoot someone to death, his instinct seems to be to put the barrel of the gun against their head to prevent any mistakes. And yell.
  • A variation of this happens often in Yu-Gi-Oh!!. A duelist will activate some trap/spell/monster card effect, only to have his opponent reply with something like "That won't work, my monster/trap/spell is immune to that effect". The duelist then replies along the lines of "I never said I was targeting that card" and reveals his true plan.
  • Happens twice in the third Ichigo/Grimmjow fight in Bleach Grimmjow was aiming for Orihime both times knowing that Ichigo would protect her. Needless to say, it worked pretty well.
    • Also used in the Hitsugaya/Gin fight during the Soul Society Arc. Though Hitsugaya dodges Gin's sword, which can extend itself to stab from a distance, he discovers that the unconscious Hinamori is directly in the sword's path.
  • Piccolo does this to Android 17 in Dragonball Z. He shoots either slow or badly aimed ki blasts which appear insignificant to 17, who dodges them all with little to no effort. Turns out it was a guided scattershot designed for Piccolo to control the energy blasts and ultimately converge them all onto his enemy at once.
  • Vato Falman pulls one of these in the Fullmetal Alchemist manga. Fighting against a seemingly invincible Sloth, he fires a standard pistol. As Edward tells him that it's useless, a large icicle falls on Sloth's head, making him dizzy and allowing the Elrics to take advantage. Guess Falman knew what he was doing.
  • This is used in one of the first battles of Zoids New Century/Zero. Bit Cloud is only allowed a few shots from his weapon and due to low accuracy wastes them all firing at a cliff. Much later in the episode, this cliff collapses causing the opponent to miss a crucial shot and come into melee range allowing him to land his Finishing Move winning him the battle.
    • Do note that nobody is sure whether this is what he meant to happen or not. It's possible he just got lucky.
  • A variation is used right near the end of Gun X Sword, when Ray Lundgren fires his last shot at the Claw before he is killed. The Claw laughs, saying that he missed, but Ray was actually aiming for the Claw's machine, and the bullet delayed the execution of his plan long enough for Van to stop him.
  • In Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Gas Skunk breathes stink gas all over Team Bullet Train. Railspike blasts a bunch of mines at him, all missing, and Midnight Express chastises him for inaccuracy. Railspike points out his mines did in fact reach their target - they exploded in midair, and the flame from the blast ignited Gas Skunk's breath, hurting him.
  • In Gundam Wing, Milliardo Peacecraft fires Libra's main cannon, missing both the Gundam Pilots and The Federation's space headquarters. Then everyone realizes with horror that his target was Earth itself. Of course, this may be slightly spoiled for the viewer since the name of the episode is "Target: Earth".
  • Happens in Yu Yu Hakusho when Hiei dodged Yusuke's spirit gun only to be hit from behind after the blast was reflected off a mirror.
  • Happened in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann episode 2, soon after Kamina obtains full control of Gurren. Gurren throws Lagann like a baseball towards some Beastmen who taunted Kamina that he missed. A few seconds later and with good control steering by Simon, Lagann came back and destroyed the Beastmen from behind.
  • In the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon manga called Ginji's Rescue Team, Ginji uses Flamethrower towards Moltres. This follows:

Moltres: Approaching me with a useless attack and missing from such a close distance...you are a fool!
Ginji: Nope. I hit the bull's-eye.

    • That meant he uses Flamethrower towards lava to raise it up, then Mudkips uses Water Gun to cool the lava down and harden it, resulting in Ginji and Mudkip using "Rock Slide" to defeat the legendary Pokemon.
  • During the game between the Shinryuuji Dragons in Eyeshield 21, Agon tackled Monta near the sidelines, effectively using up the last few precious seconds left in the game. Despite that, Monta had yelled "Catch Max!" and Agon mocked him for how his dream is over. It's revealed that Monta actually grabbed the SIDELINE, forcing the clock to be set back and giving the team one more chance to pull ahead and win.
    • During the match between Ojou with Sena out due to an injury and Yukimitsu is called as a replacement. The White Knights send Shin to score a touchdown and no one can stop him. With three seconds left, Yukimitsu instead of trying to hold Shin back, pushes Shin into the endzone. It was revealed that Ojou's plan was to score right when time ran out, leaving Deimon no time to catch up. Yukimitsu realized this and saved Deimon by giving them one second they needed for a comeback. And they did. As Shin said, "Even though you're an enemy, that's... magnificent."


Card Games

  • Variation: In the storyline of the Deadlands CCG Doomtown, the climactic battle sees Austin Stoker face down the manitou Knicknevin with the Holy Wheel Gun (modified by Mad Science to work especially well against monstrous creatures in general) - but he doesn't shoot Knicknevin, he shoots an undead Abraham Lincoln. With the same bullet that killed him the first time. This results in another manitou (who reanimated Lincoln intending to wreak its own havoc, but badly underestimated the man's willpower) gaining control for the first time in years, and promptly tearing Knicknevin to shreds for being a glory hound.


Comic Books

  • Spider-Man likes to shoot his webbing past an opponent, wait until the bad guy gloats, and then yank on the webline - inevitably pulling something large and heavy into/on top of the baddie. (In one instance, he suggests that the taunter should see Batman Returns. Seriously.)
  • In one Usagi Yojimbo scene, Usagi is annoyed at a band of ruffians causing a ruckus at the inn he's staying at. When the ruffians' leader refuse to back down, Usagi draws his sword and unleash a series of strikes... and the leader is at first stunned, then realize he's unharmed. He scoffs at Usagi's bad aim... until his gang point out the various flies, neatly bisected or trisected, lying on the ground. They back off very quickly.
    • Most likely based on a Chinese tale of a group of toughs in a restaurant who are about to challenge a supposedly legendary swordsman. In that version, he doesn't cut the flies...he picks them out of the air with his chopsticks. All of them, in a couple of seconds.
  • Captain America (comics) uses a variation on Spider-Man during Civil War. Cap throws his shield, missing. Spidey webs it to a wall. Spidey turns to gloat, only for Cap to close the distance and punch him silly.
    • In a late '90s DC/Marvel crossover, Captain America is working his way up to fighting Batman, and runs into Bane. Cap does a standard shield attack, Bane dodges, and taunts Cap while grabbing him and setting him up for his standard backbreak attack. Of course the shield ricochets right back into Bane's head.

Captain America: Now, no more back talk from you!

    • Bucky Barnes shortly after taking over as Cap following Civil War goes up against some AIM mooks with the Black Widow and throws the shield missing the 3 mooks in front of him and has it rebound away from him. The bad guys say something along the lines of "Captain America? Yeah right." only for Bucky to take advantage of their distraction to (nonlethally) shoot them. The shield? It knocks out a fourth mook that was creeping on the Widow.
  • The Dresden Files comic Welcome to the Jungle has Harry going up against three Hecatean Hags trying to perform an Ascension ritual, and at one point during the big throwdown, he aims a spell at the wall behind one of them. When the Hag calls him out on the supposedly misaimed spell, Harry agrees... and the ceiling above the Hag collapses, crushing her.
    • Happens a second time when Harry tracks down the last hag, low on juice and stumbling. He lets loose one spell, and the Hag laughs at him for missing. He just threw open the lock on the cage of the very pissed-off gorilla whose zookeeper friend the Hag was holding hostage...
  • This is Bullseye's entire schtick. Anything he throws will hit his intended target, even if he throws it in the complete opposite direction. He doesn't even have any powers, he's just that absurdly good.
  • In Batman No Mans Land, Batman is ordered at freeze-gunpoint by Mr. Freeze to toss his Batarang "to the side." Batman does so; as it is a Batarang, it flies off to the side, curves back, and hits Mr. Freeze.
  • In Bookhunter, Agent Bay is pursuing a book thief, riding a library cart, through a library. Bay throws a large book at the thief. The book misses the thief's head... and flies into the magnets at the entrance, triggering the library's security system.
  • Cyclops has pulled this off from time to time as well, bouncing his optic blasts off reflective surfaces.
  • In Justice League; Another Nail, after Mr. Miracle is killed by Desaad, his disembodied spirit makes his home in Big Barda's Mother Box. Later, after acquiring a Green Lantern power ring, Barda confronts Darkseid, but when she fires her power ring at him she misses by a country mile. Darkseid gloats that living on Earth has made her soft, until it's revealed that her first attack was really a GL construct of Mr. Miracle, who is now free to disrupt Darkseid's machinery, causing it to overload and ultimately destroy him.

"A distraction. The first principle of any clever illusion...or a really sneaky attack. Barda didn't miss you, she was positioning me where I could do the most harm!"

  • One issue of The Warlord had Machiste throw a knife at an evil wizard. It passed over the villain's shoulder and stuck into a wall -- and then it turned out good wizard Mongo had transformed Mariah into the knife just long enough to put her close behind the bad guy this way.


Film

Loveless: "All that and you missed?"
Gordon: "Actually, I didn't."

  • In Batman Returns, Batman launches a grapnel at a foe who has Selina Kyle at stungun-point. The clown taunts him for missing, just before Batman pulls the wall down upon him.
    • In The Dark Knight, when Batman misses the Joker's truck during the chase scene, the Joker mocks him "He missed!" only to have the truck flipped over; the aim was to tripwire the truck.
    • Sort of similar, in Batman Begins: "Who said anything about stopping it?"
  • In Treasure Planet, Delbert shoots at some pirates but hits the rope holding a longboat instead, dropping it on the pirates.

Captain Amelia: Did you actually aim for that?
Delbet: You know, actually I did!

  • In the 1985 film Silverado, as a posse is chasing the leads into some hills, several warning shots come from Danny Glover's character, who is hiding somewhere out of sight. As his shots ricochet off nearby rocks and cacti, a deputy says: "Let's go, he ain't hittin' nothin'". This prompts the sheriff, played brilliantly by John Cleese, to retort: "You idiot, he's hit everything he's aimed at". [cue the sheriff's hat getting knocked off by the next shot]
    • "Today, my jurisdiction ends... here."
  • Happy Gilmore uses this on the 18th hole.
  • In Mulan, when the Huns attack the army in the mountains, Mulan lights a rocket and prepares to aim it at Shan Yu... then changes the direction at the last second, sending it flying into a mountain in the distance. However, her strike then sets off an avalanche that buries the Hun army.

Mushu: "How could you miss?! He was three feet in front of you!"

  • At the end of Tank Girl, the final round of ammo goes way over the head of the bullet-deflecting main villain to knock over a bucket of water and short out his 100%-electronic life. Oh, the irony ... he was the head of Water & Power, and now he's lost power because his head is full of water.
  • An interesting variant is in Toy Story. Buzz is flying (or falling, with style) towards Andy's moving truck, and flies over it. Woody yells that they missed the truck, and Buzz says they weren't aiming for the truck. They ditch their momentum and fall perfectly through the sunroof of Andy's mom's car into a box next to Andy, resulting in Andy's mom not questioning how they got there since she thought they were there all along.
  • In Moonraker, James Bond accompanies Hugo Drax on a quail hunt. One flies out at him and he fires, missing the quail. Drax says, "Sir, you missed such an easy shot." Bond replies "Didn't I?"... whereupon a thug who had been trying to kill him falls from a tree near where the quail flew out.
    • Similarly, in The World Is Not Enough, the dying Valentin Zukovsky chooses to shoot the cuffs holding Bond to a torture device rather than try to take a potshot at Elektra King. Fatally for the latter, this shot is mistaken for a subversion by her. She thinks he'd aimed at Bond and and missed, taunting him that the ally must have really hated him.
      • Bond and Valentin had previously been enemies. His shot proves exactly the opposite, however: since Zukovsky had been fatally wounded, if he had chosen to shoot Elektra instead, Bond would have been unable to escape the torture device.
  • Variant in The Court Jester: During the climactic swordfight, Basil Rathbone swipes at a candle in frustration, chopping it clean off its candlestick. Danny Kaye swipes at a row of candles, apparently missing; Rathbone looks smug for a moment before Kaye lightly blows at the candles, making them fall apart where he just sliced them.
  • In the Thunderbirds movie, Alan shoots rocks from his rock-throwing gadget (!), seemingly at The Hood.

The Hood: It's not me you're angry at!
Alan: It's not you I'm aiming at. * shoots one last rock and hits the trapdoor release*


Literature

  • A rare villain example in Artemis Fowl the Arctic Incident: the protagonists are surprised when enemy fire appears to miss them, until they realize there is now an avalanche bearing down on them. They had ducked under an ice sheet to avoid the enemy fire, so the goblins couldn't get a shot in. To solve this, they decided to just shoot the ice sheet. Although, considering how stupid they are, they might have been aiming at them.
    • Also used again in the next book: "It was a testament to the goblin's stupidity that he could be trapped in a melting vehicle in a lockdown with an LEP officer firing at him and still think he had the upper hand."
  • In the Discworld novel Wyrd Sisters, Granny Weatherwax pulls off an interesting variation with lightning and a bit of social engineering headology.
  • Played for laughs in The Pushcart War. After the pushcart vendors use their pea shooters to take out the tires of the large trucks, they listen to a news report which details the outcome. The report includes a woman claiming to have been hit by one of the pea shooters. Maxie asks the group "Who missed?" One vendor admits he intentionally "shot" the woman for making fun of his products.
  • In Mike Lee's Warhammer Fantasy Battle Time Of Legends book Nagash The Sorcerer, Nagash himself pulls this in his fight against the Druchii sorceress, crushing her beneath a big statue.
  • In The Lost Hero, Leo sends a bolt of fire over a Cyclops's head. She barely has time to be smug about it before it becomes clear what Leo was aiming at: a chain that was suspending an engine block directly over her head. Squish.
  • Done with a vampire's knife throw when Harry and Carlos were dueling vampires in White Night. Done immediately back when Ramirez blasted the floor in front of one of the vampires ... turning it to almost-frictionless dust.


Live-Action TV

  • This happens twice in Red Dwarf:
    • In "White Hole", Lister fires a shot to knock a planet into a white hole but misses... only to hit another planet, which collides with another planet, which plugs the hole. He then claims this was a "trick shot".
    • This also happens in the second novel. With disastrous consequences.
    • In "Gunmen of the Apocalypse", the Cat stops a fleeing Kryten by firing a bullet in apparently the wrong direction. It ricochets of several objects, hitting a sign just as Kryten is passing under it. The sign collapses on top of him.
  • In one episode of Angel, Faith hurls a construction hook at Angelus, who easily dodges the slow-moving, dangling object and snarks about Faith's bad aim, and is about to close in for the kill when the hook shatters a covered window, releasing brilliant shafts of sunlight that separate the two.
    • Buffy the Vampire Slayer does this too. As a training exercise, Giles blindfolds Buffy, hands her a ball, and asks her to throw it at him. She throws it in the wrong direction, he starts to wax sarcastic, and the ball bounces back and hits him in the head.

GILES: It's not that simple, is it- (ball bounces off his head) Ow.

    • There's also "The Harvest" (S1x02), in which this trope is inverted and subverted. Buffy picks up a cymbal stand to attack Luke, and the following dialogue occurs:

Luke: You forget; metal can't hurt me.
Buffy: There's something you forgot about, too: sunrise.
Buffy throws the cymbal stand at the window behind Luke, breaking it. Luke writhes in pain for a couple of seconds before realizing there isn't actually any sunlight.
Buffy: * stakes Luke* It's in about nine hours, moron.

    • In the season 3 episode "Graduation Day Part 1", Faith decides to distract Buffy by shooting Angel with an arrow coated in slow-acting poison.

Mook: Missed the heart.
Faith: Meant to.

  • In the Doctor Who episode "The Visitation", the Doctor is at one point required to shoot the lock out of a door with a single-shot musket. He fires, and misses, prompting the person he's trapped in the cell with to whine about how he's wasted their only shot and clearly missed the lock. The Doctor then smiles smugly and pushes the door open.
  • In one episode of Psych, Shawn shows off his shooting skills to a female cop; she thinks he's missed the target completely, until she gets a closer look and sees that every shot he fired hit exactly where hers had.
  • In one episode of Farscape, Chiana confronts someone who'd murdered an old friend of hers. He claims she can't bring herself to shoot him because of their past together, but she shoots an acid-filled pustule on the wall that sprays all over him and leaves him to die.

Videogames

  • Players can do it themselves in games with Exploding Barrels.
  • In SaGa Frontier, the "Trickshot" gun skill, when used with only one gun. The character fires directly above the enemy, and shortly after, rocks cascade down.
  • In the 2005 update of Sid Meier's Pirates!, the method by which the player defeats the named pirates in swordfights is the same - player throws his sword, enemy ducks and advances, player smirks, giant crate (whose rope the thrown sword just cut) swings in and knocks the enemy captain off the ship.
    • Unless you've taken out half of the named pirates, in which case, they start to become Genre Savvy, ducking under the crate... which then swings back and knocks them off the ship anyway. And the last captain you defeat will actually jump up on the crate, and celebrate his acrobatic ability by swinging his sword over his head...cutting the rope on the crate and landing him in the drink.
  • In Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, Freddy confronts a poker cheat named Aces in a saloon. When Aces pulls out a gun, Freddy upturns a table and hides behind it. The player is then given a targeting cursor, and everything you can hit with it results in a trick shot. Only one specific object ends up bouncing the bullet into a chandelier that falls on Aces, though.
  • This quite exactly happens in Ratchet and Clank Up Your Arsenal near the beginning. In Clank's Show Within a Show "Secret Agent Clank," Clank throws a tray directly above the bad guy who stormed in. The antagonist gloats about Clank's bad aim, then the chandelier directly above him crashes down on him and somehow electrocutes him.
  • Done in several RPGs, where you are encouraged to destroy a support, to cause the enemy to fall or get crushed, such as the chandelier chain at the beginning of Super Mario RPG. Usually not very subtle, since the support will be one of the options when you cycle through the enemies, at which point you can be sure that destroying the support will be helpful. It's more commonly done near the start of the game.
  • This is arguably part of Revolver Ocelot's MO, being a "ricochet genius".
  • Jin Uzuki gets one during his first cutscene fight with Margulis early on in Xenosaga II ... Just watch it.
  • In Mass Effect 2, during Mordin's loyalty mission, Shepard and Mordin are confronted with a clan speaker for a krogan clan who has Mordin's student. The speaker is taunting Shepard while standing over a gas pipe. A Renegade interrupt option allows Shepard to shoot the pipe, prompting the clan speaker to mock Shepard's poor aim. Until he looks down and sees the escaping gas...
    • If you do not take this interrupt option, the krogan will continue his little rant for about a minute and a half, in which the interrupt trigger remains on screen THE WHOLE TIME, almost begging you to shut him up.
      • What's even more hilarious is that his buddies will back away while he's taunting you that you missed. It seems that the trigger was not the only one begging you to shut him up.
    • Zaeed tries to pull a similar stunt off in his loyalty mission. It's subverted this time, as he not only fails to injure his target, but sets on fire the refinery full of people that he was hired to save, potentially killing all of them.
  • In Sin and Punishment 2, in the cutscene before the last boss fight in the second level, Isa shoots at Armon Ritter while he's monolouging. The shots go through him. After Isa shoots a charged shot, Armon points out "You missed." A second later, a giant machine falls on top of him. He was better by the boss fight, though.
  • Razing Storm: When you defeat the Spider Tank, those missiles it fires are not running on faulty aiming devices. Remember, you are standing on a suspended platform. A platform that is suspended over a great height... Long story short, shoot the missiles.


Webcomics

  • In The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, The Great Flying Shooting Juan's trick shot is a ridiculously over-the-top example.
  • Girl Genius pulls this trope off with a thrown sword.
  • In Cheshire Crossing, Alice does this to the Wicked Witch of the West. The witch dodges her vorpal blade... Which goes snicker-snack on her "faerie-powered battery" orb.
  • Something*Positive does the a version of this with a carnival game here.
  • Tempts Fate pulls this off with a magic pool of goo in one of the TF strips for Goblins. The villain was a skull that came to life when TF dropped it in the pool - since the pool will turn anything organic into a living monster or something - and TF threw two boards into the pool, thus conjuring two big golem-like things to attack the villain.
  • Subverted in Lint, when Xylic's attempt to hit the Dragon's weak spot resulted in his killing the dragon's goblin mariachi servant and causing an emotional breakdown (no kidding).
  • Used in this comic of Captain SNES, titled "Three Words You Never Say to a Samurai".
  • Subverted in The Last Days of Foxhound, when Liquid pilots a helicopter to fight the Cyborg Ninja. His attack is to press a button - a button whose function he has yet to determine. The button detaches the helicopter's main rotor, and the Ninja laughs and laughs... up until the rotor impales him.
  • Haley uses a variant in this Order of the Stick comic.
    • This one too, albeit the villains don't have time to make a 'You missed!' remark.
    • Here's one for Roy.
  • Subverted in Kid Radd:

Radd: You missed.
Kobayashi: Heh heh. Did I?
Radd: Yes. Badly.
Kobayashi: DAMMIT! And I've been practicing, too!


Western Animation

  • Parodied in Chilly Beach, after Dale takes a shot at the net, he declares: "He shoots, he!...." and, after many ricochets, the puck inevitably just goes up into the sky, causing him to finish with "... just misses the cloud he was aiming for."
  • In one Bugs Bunny cartoon, Bugs brags to Yosemite Sam that he can perform a complicated trick shot that will part Sam's hair right down the middle. After he fires, Sam says, "You missed!" A second later, his hat splits apart, revealing a perfect part on his hair.
  • In one episode of ReBoot, Enzo is placed in a cartoony setting where he and the others must kill Rocky the Rabid Racoon. He reboots into Elmer Fudd. Everyone laughs at him, until he steals Fudd's signature line-"Be vewy vewy quiet-I'm hunting wacoons"-and takes aim, firing one shot and setting up a chain reaction of impossible proportions that ends with Rocky getting killed by a dead vulture.
  • In American Dad, this happens in a memorable episode when Francine is in a government building, searching for Stan's sperm sample, but all she can find are unmarked, unlabeled containers full of white fluid. Stan appears, and threatens to stop her, and she pulls out a handgun and fires four shots. Stan cringes, and smiles smugly when he thinks that she missed. When Stan points that out, Francine smiles in a way that would terrify any Genre Savvy character, and says "Oh, I didn't miss." Stan realizes that he's standing in front of a container roughly two stories high, FILLED with white fluid. After Stan gets washed away, while Francine jumps onto a shelf to avoid it, it is revealed that the white fluid was simply milk, leading Francine to quip "That's not nearly as disgusting as I thought it was."
  • In an episode of The Simpsons, Bart is in a military school where they teach him to handle a grenade launcher. He hits the first four targets, but the fifth shot goes spiralling over the horizon. When the instructor points out he missed, Bart smiles and says, "Did I?" Cut to Principal Skinner back in Springfield standing by the smoking crater that used to be his car.
  • One episode of Word Girl has Granny May do this by pulling a shelf full of groceries down. When she attempts this later in the episode, WordGirl simply steps aside.
  • In The Spectacular Spider-Man, Spidey does this (as described in the Comic Books section) Once an Episode, and it's almost his signature takedown. It's not entirely absent from the other Spider-Man series, but this version absolutely loves it.
    • Rhino also pulls a variant on Spidey himself in one episode.
  • In an episode of King of the Hill when Ladybird, Hank's bloodhound, is thought to be rabid, Bobby takes aim with a rifle and fires. Hank and Dale think he missed; Bobby says "I didn't miss," and points at the body of a raccoon he had earlier adopted as a pet and whom they thought gave Ladybird and Dale rabies.
    • Also in the episode "How to Fire a Rifle Without Trying" Hank buys Bobby his first gun because he discovers he has a newly discovered talent for skeet shooting when they try still target shooting Hank explains the rules about gun safety while Bobby quickly fires off all six shots at the target, Hank is disappointed that he didn't listen to him only to be shocked that all six of his shots hit the target dead center.
    • Subverted somewhat with Dale - who throws a knife into a mannequin beside his target, then threatens "Next time I'll aim for the mannequin and hit you!"
  • Buzz Lightyear of Star Command "Bunzel Fever", Buzz shoots his laser at Torque and misses. Torque chides "Missed!", Buzz replies "No I didn't" as a stack of boxes falls on top of Torque.
  • Ms. Endive does this in the Chowder episode "Schnitzel Quits" with a cake and a panic button.
  • In one episode of She Ra Princess of Power, Bow fires an arrow at Shadow Weaver, but it goes right past her. As Shadow Weaver taunts her, Bow responds with "I wasn't aiming for you", then we see his arrow triggers a containment force field Hordak was using earlier to torture her earlier.
  • Occurs by accident in the first episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Zuko easily dodges Sokka's boomerang and keeps handing Sokka's ass to him for a bit longer, until the boomerang comes back to nail him in the head.
  • In an episode of Ed Edd and Eddy, the Eds were dueling against the Kanker Sisters using turkey basters as squirt guns. The Eds shoot at the Kankers (while missing every shot) until they run out of water. Then the Kankers only shoot at their feet. Eddy makes fun of their aim until the Eds realize that what they were shot with was some sort of sticky solution to hold them in place while the Kankers kiss them.
  • In an episode of Beast Wars, Megatron is holding Optimus Primal captive inside an alien spacecraft. Rattrap arrives to save the day and fires two shots in Megatron's direction. The shots miss Megs, who prepares to shoot Rattrap while sneering, "You should have made your shots count." Then, from right behind him, Optimus calmly replies, "Oh, they did," and proceeds to fight Megatron. Rattrap's "missed" shots actually hit, and cut through, the two cables that were holding Optimus.
    • Something similar happens in an earlier episode, when the Maximals are fighting the Predacons near a cliff face. Rhinox's aim is way off, and Cheetor calls him out on it. But a few seconds later, an avalanche of rocks, dislodged by Rhinox's carefully aimed fire, falls from the cliff and crushes the Predacons.

Rhinox: There's more than one way to skin a cat... so to speak.

  • In the Fairly Oddparents TV movie AbraCatastrophe, the climax is a duel between the now all-powerful Mr. Crocker and Timmy Turner's collection of gifts from magical beings. They are eventually sucked down to an atomic level and Timmy fires one of Cupid's Arrows at Crocker, which lands at the latter's feet.

Mr. Crocker: Ha! You missed!
Timmy: Wasn't aimin' at ya.

    • Thusly Crocker realizes that he was standing on an atom, which splits apart due to the arrow and explodes in a nuclear reaction.
  • An episode of Batman: The Animated Series featured Robin fighting a Ninja on the roof of a building. The Ninja makes a single leap and slash with his sword, prompting Robin to dodge. After the exchange, the ninja casually returns his sword to it's sheath, which Robin looks at quizzically. Then the support beam for the water tower the ninja is standing by dramatically slides apart, prompting him to tap it lightly, sending the tower crashing down and sweeping Robin over the edge of the building in the resulting flood.
    • Averted the "Missed me" dialog: Mad Hatter had trapped Batman under a playing-card wall and was about to axe off Batman's head. Batman throws a batarang directly at Hatter, to which Hatter easily dodges. Rather than sneer, Hatter resumes his attack only to discover Batman's toy severs a line suspending a huge gargoyle statue. Paralysed with horror (Oh Crap), Hatter is pinned beneath the statue's claw with Batman escaping in the nick of time. Yeah, just as he planned it.
  • In an episode of Archer, Cyril, who appears to be incapable of keeping his eyes open while firing a gun, threatens the villain of the week. When the villain approaches anyway, he fires a volley of bullets...and then the camera pans to Archer's reaction: "Cyril...YOU SUCK AT EVERYTHING!" The villain, unharmed, starts to respond only to see that the McGuffin he was protecting is completely destroyed.
  • In the Justice League Unlimited episode "Flash and Substance", Flash goes through one of the Mirror Master's mirrors after Linda Park, which leaves them both lost in the mirror dimension. Batman shoots his flare gun past the Rogues and into another mirror, showing them which one to go through to get out.

Mirror Master: Missed me!
Batman: (stares at him)

  • On the Young Justice episode "Home Front," Dick throws a batarang while retreating and it hits a piece of debris right next to Wally, who's been captured by the villains. It seems like he just missed the bad guys, but shortly thereafter we discover that the batarang has a built-in communicator, and Wally uses it to walk Robin through the steps of making the EMP device they need to regain control of the base.
  • Batman the Brave And The Bold: From "The Super-Batman of Planet X":

Rothul: Your aim is terrible!
Batman: Is it, Rothul?
(Cue Oh Crap moment as the robot Rothul is standing on explodes)

  • In Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Ghost takes a few shots at Iron Man, going straight over his head. Iron Man mocks him for this, until he points out that the wall is about to collapse on Black Widow, forcing Iron Man to rescue her instead of stopping Ghost.
  • In one episode of Transformers Prime, Optimus Prime and Dreadwing duke it out in the arctic. Optimus fires a shot that flies clear of Dreadwing, citing the 'con to call his aim "poor". Optimus replies "That is a matter of opinion." as the cliff face behind Dreadwing collapses on him.
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