Failure Is the Only Option/Western Animation

Examples of Failure Is the Only Option in Western Animation include:

• SpongeBob SquarePants - To this day, he still can't pass his driving test.

Mrs. Puff: Not even in your dreams, Mr. Squarepants!

• Johnny Bravo - Johnny will never succeed when it comes to women. This goes to the point that a few examples borderline on Diabolus Ex Machina.
• Invader Zim is one of the more obvious shows that use this premise. Both of the show's main characters (Zim and Dib) never actually complete either of their goals. Zim's goal is to take over the world (and be rid of Dib), Dib's is to expose Zim as an alien. Likewise, Zim never finds out that the Earth "invasion" was just a set-up by the Tallest to get rid of him. Had the series went on, a TV movie finale would have had Dib defeating Zim and the Irken Empire with his own army.
• Almost every cartoon with a Failure Is the Only Option premise never gets the luxury of actual proper closure. Many expected that Samurai Jack would become an exception, since it was on Cartoon Network, which had been known to actually treat cartoons with the respect they deserved. Sadly, Jack found itself cancelled, with Tartakovsky not being able write a movie to conclude it. ^[1]
• As for actual exceptions in animation: Conan the Adventurer and the animated adaptation of Jumanji.
• Without this, Dungeons and Dragons wouldn't have been the same. Also, this is the source for a bunch of rumours about the Missing Last Episode, with fans claiming that the heroes had died and gone to Hell, and Uni, the Team Pet, is a demon whose only task is to prevent them from going away. Again, these are rumors.
  • The writer of the lost final episode did release the script onto the web -- revealing quite a different set of Epileptic Trees. The D&D realm is a kind of Cosmic Zoo and all of its mythical creatures were stolen from their homeworlds and forced to coexist, including the kids - and Venger wasn't such a bad guy after all. Failure wasn't the only option in the end after all.
• Pinky and The Brain - Goal: To Take Over the World, despite only being lab mice (with a ton of resources to go by, however...).
  • Success: They managed to bait the entire living populace to a duplicate Earth. Day Two with Brain as leader they find that the original Earth is in the path of an asteroid, he and Pinky escape to the duplicate whilst the original is destroyed. New Goal: Take over the duplicate Earth.
• You could say that the trope can be applied to almost all villains in Saturday morning cartoon shows; no matter how hard they try, the heroes always must come out on top in the end for the sake of the status quo. Likewise, if the heroes could really get rid of the villains, the show is over.
• Lampshaded somewhat in Ruby-Spears' Mega Man, "2,000 Leaks Under the Sea": Wily's plan seems to be succeeding wonderfully, and Protoman remarks that it's about time something went right for once. Then Mega Man shows up...
• Subverted in a Justice League episode where Superman must stop Lex Luthor from pressing the red button, but the only way to stop him then is to kill him. Luthor states that Superman needs him to be a hero, and that they will continue playing hero and villain forever, as this allows them to have a purpose. The subversion comes when Superman takes a third option and kills Lex Luthor. Then Batman says he's okay with it. Then we pull back to realize the whole thing just took place in The White House. Cue Alternate Dimension reveal!
• The Venture Brothers makes a living off this trope with nearly everyone. Not only are the villains meant to fail, but the main protagonists are basically failures themselves, except Brock (and he's got some failures himself). There is a whole section on The Other Wiki about how, according to Word of God, the theme of failure is very key.
• Most Warner Bros. Cartoons, with the goal of eating/shooting/defeating Roadrunner/Bugs Bunny/Speedy Gonzales.
  • There was a roadrunner short that ended with the roadrunner being "caught", after a fashion. Wile. E. Coyote chases the Roadrunner through a series of pipes, which get progressively smaller. Upon emerging, both the Roadrunner and Coyote have been shrunk to only a few inches in height. The coyote whistles to the roadrunner to turn around, and they go back through the pipes in reverse. The Roadrunner comes out restored to his normal size but the Coyote remains small, and grabs onto the Roadrunner's ankle before realizing what has happened. In the last shot he turns to the camera and holds up a sign that reads "Okay, wise guys, you always wanted me to catch him. Now What? do I do?"
  • In the case of eating Tweety, when Sylvester finally did that in the final episode of The Sylvester And Tweety Mysteries, it resulted in the show being cancelled.
• Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines: - Goal: Catch That Pigeon!
  • Subverted in the episode "Stop Which Pigeon?", in which Dastardly uses a Yankee Doodle Pigeon doppelganger to fool the General into thinking they caught him. Lampshaded and then averted in the same episode when Dastardly catches the pigeon diving into a flying pool of water (what Iwao Takamoto wouldn't think of) but then letting him go when Dastardly learns he can't swim.
• Super Mario Brothers Super Show - Goal: For Mario and Luigi to get back home to Brooklyn. While this was mentioned as the reason the four heroes were traveling all over the vast multiverse, it's not a frequent topic of discussion in most episodes.
  • There was one episode where Mario and Luigi did get back to Brooklyn once, only for Bowser to follow them and invade, which causes the Princess and Toad to go to Brooklyn and attempt to help the Mario Bros. Mario and Luigi returned to the Mushroom World after that. Another episode also showed Mario and Luigi having one chance of returning home, only for them to pass it up since they couldn't simply leave the Princess behind, even though she wanted them to go after she got captured by Bowser.
  • In a piece of irony, in the show's sequel, The Adventures Of Super Mario Bros. 3, the characters were frequently able to visit "the Real World". By then, though, Mario and Luigi had apparently given up their old goal of returning to Brooklyn and were comfortable living in Toad's house.
• The Smurfs - Goal: Kill the Smurfs. Sadly, Gargamel never got that chance. in the last season, the Smurfs were sucked into a time warp and spent the remainder of the series desperately trying to make their way back to Smurf Village. So it's two Sisyphean goals in one!
  • Actually, only one Sisyphean goal replaced by another, as the time-traveling Smurfs dealt mostly with Gargamel's ancestors and not the wizard himself.
• Kidd Video - Goal: Escape the sinister music executive and return to their own world.
• Silver Surfer - Goal: Find and return to Zenn-La. Would have been achieved in the first season finale if the producers hadn't decided to bank on a cliffhanger.
• Class of the Titans- Goal: Defeat Cronus. As it is, the heroes tend to just defeat the monsters he sends their way.
• The Secret Saturdays seems to be shaping up this way for the titular family. No matter how hard they try that can't seem to keep up with Argost, except for the handful of episodes where they come ahead.
  • They finally succeeded in the last episode, obviously.
• Tale Spin Goal: For Baloo to buy his beloved plane, the Sea Duck, back from Becky. This actually happens more than once, but in every case he's forced to give it back by the end of the episode. In fact, in more than one episode Baloo acquires a huge amount of money, more than enough to buy back the Sea Duck, but is later forced to pay the EXACT same amount to someone else to settle a bill. Another he actually buys back the Sea Duck but gives it back out of guilt after Rebecca's business falls apart without him, implying he is doomed to failure willingly or not.
  • Also the Sky Pirates getting past Cape Suzette's security to plunder the city. They actually succeeded in the pilot thanks to the Lightning Gun however.
• In almost every original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season, Shredder and Krang's goal is to free the Technodrome from wherever it the universe it's trapped. It's always in the season finale or next season opener that they succeed, only to get it trapped somewhere else.
  • The Turtles are essentially victims of this trope as well, as Shredder and his minions always escape through the dimensional portal or transport module, thus avoiding being brought to justice. (Just how many episodes climaxed with "they got away again?")
  • There was also the goal of Master Splinter to return to human form. Happened once, but he was back by the end of the episode.
• Challenge of the Superfriends - Goal: Catch the Legion of Doom. They always escape via some ridiculous method, sometimes not even really escaping, just turning invisible in front of them or slooowly pushing a button to teleport away.
• Inspector Gadget - Does it three times: Doctor Claw's Goal: Conquer the Earth (or at least a little bit of it, maybe buy a small country). Doctor Claw's secondary goal: Kill Gadget. Gadget's Goal: Arrest Doctor Claw. None of these goals are ever achieved.
  • Gadget almost never actually solved a case himself either. Even in his rare bouts of competance it was Penny that stopped MAD ultimately, Gadget at his best assisted or rescued her while doing so (at his usual worst he just spent the majority of the episode on a wild goose chase). Of course, for all he and and the majority of the population except Penny and Brain know, Success Is The Only Option for him.
• Dave the Barbarian - The parents are out fighting random evil around the world, and they never call it a day. Apparently, they consider this to be much more important than raising their three children and running their kingdom.
  • In one episode, the parents actually DID achieve the goal of stomping out all evil everywhere in the world...except that MORE evil had popped up back in the place where they started, so they had to do it all over again!
• Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy. Usually the goal is a variation on getting jawbreaker/money/respect. Never works out due to wacky hijinks, and the few times they manage to get one of the three they lose it in the end of the episode.

Driven Up to Eleven in one episode, where the candy store is giving away free jawbreakers, and the Eds have ten minutes to get there before the place closes. Everything that can possibly go wrong goes wrong: Sarah blocks them, Eddy accidentally runs into Kevin, who drops a piano on him later, the Kankers attack, they lose the Bamboo Technology vehicle that Edd makes, and when they finally reach the store, the sky opens up and they get pelted with a sudden storm of rain and driving winds. At this point, Edd laments that "Fate has conspired against us!" When Ed uses his brute strength to get past the storm, a completely random "Chicken drive" overrides Ed's priorities and he dives into the crowd of chickens. Eddy gets out and has to make a "Friend or Idol?" Decision: get a jawbreaker, or save Edd. He chooses the jawbreakers, but in the time it takes him to jump at the door, the place suddenly closes and he just ends up smacking against the door. Oh, and the storm then immediately ends. Just wow. The Eds finally win their peers' respect in the finale movie.

• • Which is Lampshaded.
• Phineas and Ferb - Neither Candace nor Doofenshmirtz will ever succeed in their goals, or at least not any kind of success that will affect the status quo. For example, in Phineas And Ferb Get Busted she finally busts the boys but then it turns out to be All Just a Dream. She succeed again in "She's The Mayor." where she bust the boys but then Doofenshmirtz's latest invention makes time go back to the beginning of the episode.Doofenshmirtz also succeeded in taking over the Tri-State Area in Quantum Boogaloo. Said episode also featured Candace (a future version) busting the boys, but then she has to stop it from happening as it creates a dystopian future. The present version of Candace does it in the future, but then decides to simply keep on trying anyway.
  • the creators have stated that, if Quantum Boogaloo is taken as the canonical future of the characters (barring the various ways futures can be messed up, of course) she will never succeed in busting her brothers, but eventually learns to accept it.
  • The episode "The Doof Side Of The Moon" featured the boys making the tallest building ever that stretched to the Moon. It was literally said by one character that no force on Earth could make it disappear and it disappears anyway when Doof's Lunar-Rotate-inator causes the moon to rotate and drag the building away.
  • In "A Real Boy", Candace manages to get Linda to see the giant spring-loaded toy the boys have built... and then Linda gets zapped by Dr. Doofenshmirtz's "Forget-About-It-Inator". After this happens several times in a row, Candace ends up leaving when Linda blurts out the hypnotic code phrase that makes Candace want to stop busting the boys, and after getting hit by the Forget-About-It-Inator one last time, Linda wanders off before she can see the project again.
  • On the Doofenshmirtz front, the movie reveals that in Another Dimension, he actually has taken over the Tri-State Area.
  • Exploited by Candace in the movie, where she attempts to get her mom to see outside where robots from the alternate dimension are invading. She reasons that getting her mom to see them should make the robots disappear since her mom never sees what Phineas and Ferb have done.
• Street Sharks - Goal: Find their dad, get the Mad Scientist arrested, get turned human again. None of that happens. One episode has them temporarily turn human, but they decide that they like being sharks better, since they can fight off the evil mutants. There are rumors of an episode in which they nearly meet their dad and he leaves them a note saying that he'll see them soon, but they never actually find him in the series. The last few episodes actually do have Dr. Paradigm exposed and arrested, but he escapes.
• Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?? Obviously, if they catch her, she has to escape. Depressingly lampshaded in one episode, when Zack moans to Ivy that they never seem to catch her.
• The goal of The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang was to get back to 1957, except when there was a "Friend or Idol?" Decision, in which case some of them would reach 1957 but have to leave to save their friends.
• The Cutie Mark Crusaders from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic will never get their cutie marks (not at the rate they're going, anyway).
  • This is not an issue in-univers though, as all ponies eventually get cutie marks.
  • Similarly, it doesn't look much like Rainbow Dash is ever going to get past "loose acquaintance" with her quest to join the Wonderbolts. Maybe they're just embarrassed by naked hero worship. The hero worship is naked, we mean. Not the heroes. It's actually the worshipper who's usually naked. Not that that's unusual for ponies or anything. Shutting Up Now.
  • It is still possible for Rainbow to join them.
  • As of season 5, the CMC have their cutie marks. Ironically, their cutie marks are in... "helping other ponies find their cutie marks".
    • This fits in with the general purpose of cutie marks -- they do not dictate what your special talent or purpose in life is, they re-affirm what you are already talented at and love doing but haven't quite realized yet.
  • Welcome to season 6! Rainbow Dash is now a Wonderbolt. This show has apparently decided that it's cutie mark is in 'subverting tropes'.
• Zordrak and the Urpneys capturing The Dreamstone, or at least holding onto it long enough to do much constructive with it.
  • Played with when reversed around with the Nightmare Stone. In both situations the heroes succeeded in capturing it, rather handily, however they could never truly despose of it.
• In Hey Arnold!, Arnold never ends up finding his parents. Furthermore, Helga's secret infaturation with him is a pivitol theme in the show and in several episodes her secret is almost revealled... but of course, Arnold never does end up finding out. Even when Helga eventually confesses in the movie, the two later decide to blame it on the "heat of the moment" and forget all about it.
  • Becomes more painful when you consider the rumored second movie, which was to resolve both of these issues by having Arnold find his parents in San Lorenzo and finally reciprocate Helga's feelings.

1. ↑ There is an episode which depicts Jack failing to gain access to a time-portal shows a visibly older Jack in the portal, implying that he will one-day succeed in his goal, but not quite yet. The Future Jack that will apparently make it through the portal carries a different sword and wears a crown on his head. Presumably, the point of the quest will be to bring him to that state.