< Hoist by His Own Petard

Hoist by His Own Petard/Western Animation

  • As shown in the page image, in the Tom and Jerry short Mouse Trouble, Tom puts a shotgun through Jerry's mouse hole, but doesn't see the barrel bending out of the wall and pointing directly at his head.
    • The image became a meme online.
  • This was a frequent cause of Amusing Injuries for Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner, whose Acme Products would constantly backfire upon him.
  • In a Citizen Kane themed episode of Tiny Toon Adventures, Buster enlisted Babs and Plucky to discredit Montana Max after Max framed Buster for cheating on an exam by planting a false book of answers. The title is actually lampshaded by Babs and Plucky.

Buster: C'mon guys, it's time to hoist Monty by his own petard!
Babs: What's a petard?
Plucky: I hope it's not heavy to hoist; I'm hernia prone.

  • In the Codename: Kids Next Door episode "Operation C.R.I.M.E.", the Villain of the Week was a kid who was supposedly a psychic who would predict crimes by using crayons to draw what bad thing the students at Gallagher Elementary are about to do. However, it turns out it was a lie, so that the kid can be the only one to get pizza bagels in the cafeteria, but unfortunately, it was lima bean sandwich day.
  • Though he survives, it's his own love for Opera that undoes the villain's plan in An American Tail 2. How? Watch it for yourself.
    • Not to mention it was his own secret weapon that shot him and his cronies out of town.
  • In The Addams Family, Gomez Addams used the scissors of a member of a gang on the entire gang. The owner got promptly chased afterward when Mr. Addams explained, "Why blame me? He's the one with the scissors."
  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Zhao plans to conquer the Water Tribe by capturing the moon spirit (in the form of a koi fish) to cut off their ability to waterbend, rendering them defenseless. They end up anything but defenseless when he kills the spirit and enrages its companion, the ocean spirit, enough to use Aang as a medium to become a giant water monster, wipe out Zhao's entire fleet, and drag him to a watery grave. Him killing the moon spirit also makes this a Karmic Death. Especially ironic considering that his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Zuko a few minutes before would fit perfectly considering the circumstances behind him killing the Moon Spirit.
    • Later there's Combustion Man, who twice tries to use his explosion powers after a nasty blow to head. The first time it detonates prematurely, sending him flying back. The second time it doesn't even leave and blows him up.
    • Iroh's lightning redirection technique is basically a way to make this happen to someone. Zuko is the only one who uses it in a weaponized fashion, where Iroh and Aang (and actually Zuko too, once) use it to simply redirect the lightning off in a different direction.
      • The Grand Finale pulls this trope on Zuko himself with regards to this very strategy. When he tries to goad Azula into striking at him, she sees through this and aims her lightning at Katara instead, forcing him to take the blow for her. And in turn, to top it all off, she promptly gets her ass kicked by none other than Katara herself!
  • Plankton's first appearance in SpongeBob SquarePants results in this. Having controlled Spongebob mentally into delivering him a Krabby Patty, Plankton threatens to force him to drop it into a special analytical machine. However, after SpongeBob gives a mouth-watering 'eulogy', Plankton attempts to eat the Krabby Patty but falls into the machine instead.

Karen [the computer]: PLANKTON: 1% evil; 99% hot gas.

Plankton: [Trapped in the machine] Well, this stinks.

  • Towardsthe end of Barbie and the Diamond Castle, Lydia is turned to stone by the very spell she was casting on the heroines.
    • A better Barbie example would be how Exact Words screws over the evil lady in her version of Rapunzel.
    • And Diamond Castle wasn't even the first time Barbie bounced back a spell to its caster: in her version of 12 Dancing Princesses, her Evil Stepmother has a wish-granting flower. Barbie has a fan. Figure it out.
  • An interesting variant in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker in that Joker is killed by the same weapon he used on one of his own thugs in an earlier scene. What makes this interesting is that, while in order of appearance he shot the gun first, the scene where he dies chronologically happens some forty years before he actually killed the goon. Considering also that he was shot by Tim Drake, who was brutalized by Joker and used as a psychological weapon against Batman, he might have been hoisted on two petards at once.
    • Even the less-graphic, censored version fits the Trope, possibly even more so. In this version, Tim doesn't use the gun, but shoves the Joker into the very device the Joker used to torture him, and the villain is electrocuted. Not as graphic, but still a Hoist.
    • And then, later, Joker - now residing in Tim Drake's body with the wonders of modern technology - is ended for good by his own electrical joy-buzzer.
      • More than that. Joker is undone by the new Batman (Terry McGinnis) using the same methods Joker always used to unnerve Bruce Wayne - jokes and insults. Turns out Joker can dish out but he can't take it.
    • In the series proper, Derek Powers gets infected by the very nerve gas that he was going to sell to a foreign dignitary. The attempt to save his life from said gas exposure only ends up turning him into Blight, a radioactive meltdown incarnate.
      • Also, even later, he ends up being backstabbed by his son, who was acting under the belief that he should backstab anyone he can for power, a belief that Derek Powers ironically taught him.
    • Shriek is rendered deaf after his shockwave suit malfunctions, the drug dealer selling Venom slappers on the street dies(?) of an overdose after falling into a pile of them (and Bane himself was rendered a vegetable after a lifetime of using Venom), Dr. Cuvier's fate is sealed after he is injected with too much of his splicer formula, turning him into a walking pile of mutations...this happens a lot in the series.
    • Yet another example: in the episode "Sneak Peak," the villain wears a belt that makes him intangible. He uses it so much that it starts to alter his body and make him permanently intangible, After a desperate attempt to blackmail Batman for a cure fails, he ends up turning intangible for the final time and falls through the ground to the center of the Earth.
    • In The Batman vs. Dracula movie, even though The Joker has his namesake immunity, he briefly experienced this after he plummeted into a canal with a malfunctioning electrified joy-buzzer.
  • Syndrome in The Incredibles is knocked onto the wing of his jet and subsequently sucked into its engine. There's a long enough pause between the two that Syndrome easily could have survived had he not been wearing a cape -- which the audience has been warned is a bad fashion choice for a superhero, or remembered one of his rocket boots was still working.
    • This happened a good deal to Syndrome. His robot was so smart that it figured out his wrist computer was a threat and shot it off. He was knocked into the engine by Mr. Incredible's sports car, that Syndrome had essentially paid for by hiring him for secret hero work. Also, this secret hero work helped Mr. Incredible bounce back from a flabby has-been who barely survived a prototype robot, into the efficient, superheroic persona of his glory days who could fight back. And his right-hand, Mirage, betrays him at the critical moment, largely due to his own cavalier attitude when Mr. Incredible was threatening to kill her.
  • Jonny Quest TOS episodes:
    • "Mystery of the Lizard Men". The Big Bad fires a laser at the Quests' ship, Dr. Quest reflects it back with a mirror and blows him up.
    • "Arctic Splashdown". An enemy Mook tries to blow up the Quest's ship with a bomb. It ends up falling off the ship (thanks to Bandit) and lands in the Mook's raft and blows him up.
    • "The Curse of Anubis". The Big Bad is killed by a cave-in while trying to trap the Quests inside a burial chamber. To be fair, the walking undead mummy who'd been after him for the whole episode and had finally caught him would most likely have killed him anyway.
    • "Dragons of Ashida". Dr. Ashida breeds huge carnivorous lizards that he uses to hunt down escaped servants (and eventually the Quests). At the end of the episode his servant Sumi finally has had enough of the doctor's abuse and throws him into the dragons' pit, where he's eaten alive.
    • "Pirates from Below". Villains try to blow up the Quests' underwater vehicle with a mine. Race Bannon removes it and releases it, whereupon it floats up to the bottom of the Big Bad's boat and goes "Boom".
    • "The Devil's Tower". Von Dueffel blows off his biplane's wing with a hand grenade he was attempting to throw at Dr. Quest and crashes.
    • "The Quetong Missile Mystery". General Fong shoots a guard out of pure frustration at the Quests escaping him. The dead guard then falls on a Plunger Detonator and blows Fong up with one of his own planted mines.
    • "House of Seven Gargoyles". Enemy Mooks shooting at Dr. Quest while they're under a glacier cause an ice collapse, killing them and the Big Bad as well.
    • "Terror Island". Dr. Chu Sing Ling is blown up by a power plant explosion caused by one of the giant monsters he created.
    • "The Riddle of the Gold". Ali plans to use a tiger to kill Dr. Quest, but the tiger ends up killing him instead.
  • Happens in Jonny Quest the Real Adventures also. The first episode even uses the trope name, almost word for word.
  • My Little Pony: He doesn't get killed, but in the episode "The Revolt of Paradise Estate", the wizard Beezen gets chased away by his own magic wand, which was brought to life by his own magic paint.
  • Transformers Armada has a schemer by the name of Thrust. Sideways convinces the guy to side with giant, planet-eating Transformer Unicron. While everyone else is trying to defend their home planet from Unicron, Thrust is standing on the big guy's shoulder. Unicron starts to transform, and Thrust is knocked off balance and crushed in one of Unicron's joints.
    • To make it even more ironic, Thrust was in the middle of gloating to Galvatron (whom he'd betrayed) when this happened; he ended up begging Galvatron to help him, but Galvatron simply walked away, leaving him to his fate.
  • In the finale of the 1981 Spider-Man cartoon's Story Arc, Doctor Doom, who has finally taken over the world through clever use of a satellite-mounted laser, has his plot foiled and is subsequently vaporized by the same device.
  • Happens all the time to Dr. Doofenshmirtz on Phineas and Ferb--in one episode he invents a deflating ray and wields it from a blimp.
    • In "Leave the Busting to Us", Doof escapes from Perry in the van he stole from the Bust 'Em people. He then mocks Perry for having to stop at the traffic light since he's a good guy, while as a villain he doesn't have to obey the rules... then is promptly caught up in the tornado accidentally created by his Gloominator 5000-Inator.
    • As you can see, Doof isn't particularly fond of this trope. Once when Perry uses it on him, Doof says, "That isn't clever, its just cliché!"
  • On Drawn Together, Clara shuts down Wooldoor Sockbat's "Clum Babies" store (Wooldor's sperm have magic healing powers) in a transparent parody of religious objections to stem-cell research. She contracts tuberculosis shortly thereafter.

Clara: Please! [cough] I don't want [cough] to die [cough] so ironically... [passes out]

  • Mentioned in DVD Commentary for The Lion King when the hyenas eat Scar.
  • Twice in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 (2003):
    • The first occasion occurred in "Return to New York" with Baxter Stockman, where, after the main power source of his exo-suit is destroyed, he gets back up, again, and gloats about how each component of it has its own backup power supply, which prompts Donatello to work over to an arm-cannon that was cut off earlier and says "So what you're saying is, this arm should still be fully functioning right?" Cue hilarious Oh Crap! moment before Don blows away Stockmen with his own gun.
    • The second occasion occurs in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover movie Turtles Forever, where the Utrom Shredder's latest body proves surprisingly vulnerable to his Technodrome's super-laser.
  • In the season 2 finale of The Spectacular Spider Man, Green Goblin's glider is damaged after Spider-Man uses one of his own bombs against him, which then sends Goblin into a large container of more of his own bombs, originally intended to kill Spider-Man, creating a tremendous explosion. Unfortunately, Joker Immunity applies, because, of course, No One Could Survive That.
    • An earlier example would be Venom's return. Venom stole a genetic cleanser in order to strip Spidey of his powers, and then reveal his identity to the world, so he would be defenseless against all the enemies he made over the last few months. However, it was Spider-Man who used the cleanser to separate Eddie from Venom.
  • In The Princess and the Frog, when Dr. Facilier's demonic amulet gets shattered, that's considered to his Friends on the Other Side as breaking their contract, causing the shadowy demons that once worked for him to drag him into a gaping mouth to his doom, all the while happily chanting the exact same song that he was singing when he was cursing Naveen.
  • Batman says this almost word-for-word in Batman the Brave And The Bold when his reliance on Superman-like powers while on the alien planet Zur-En-Arrh leads to his being taken out by a Kryptonite Factor-like weakness.
    • Said again in another episode by second generation Batman after The Joker is exposed to his own gas.
    • Batmite, in the final episode of the series, ends up falling due to his own scheme: the plan was to make the show jump the shark to the point that it would be cancelled, to make room for a new Batman show. He did get it cancelled... but failed to consider that, as a fictional character that is part of the show and too silly for most Batman adaptions, he would also vanish.
  • The Herculoids. Gorvak, the leader of "The Android People", is killed by the warrior android duplicate of Zandor he created.
  • In The Mr. Men Show, Little Miss Naughty's pranks tend to backfire on her.
  • In G.I. Joe: Resolute, Cobra Commander's last-ditch effort to get back at the Joe's is aiming his super weapon on Washington, and to ensure he survives he locks himself up in a saferoom. Duke then aims his WMD at his base and traps the Commander in his own saferoom. However, he somehow escapes.
  • Happens nearly constantly in Rocky and Bullwinkle to Boris and Natasha.
    • In one episode, the narrator even said the phrase word for word. Clearly, this saying has been around for some time.
  • V.V. Argost gets this during the finale of The Secret Saturdays. After killing Zak's Mirror Universe counterpart and absorbing his powers, he proceeds to absorb Zak's powers as well. And here's where V.V. made his big mistake. Zak Monday was an anti-matter counterpart to Zak Saturday. And anti-matter and regular matter do not mix. Argost learns this the hard way when the combination atomizes him out of existence.
    • He actually gets a triple' dose of this because Zak tried to warn Argost about it but he couldn't hear him because he had to protect himself from the sound-based weapon he was using to absorb his powers in the first place. So not only did the mixing matter and anti-matter cause his death, the weapon he used to do it and what he was using to protect himself from it all lead to his demise.
  • In Justice League, Amazo has copied the powers of six of the seven Leaguers and is winning handily. Just as he's about to win, Martian Manhunter reveals himself and deliberately lets himself be copied so that Amazo can use telepathy to reveal Lex Luthor's true intentions. Once he realizes he was just a pawn in Luthor's latest scheme, Amazo leaves to explore the universe and find himself.
  • In the South Park episode "Crippled Summer", Nathan's attempts to get rid of Jimmy backfire on him, thanks to his sidekick Mimsy.
  • While he almost always walks away from it, this seems to happen to ReBoot‍'‍s Megabyte quite often:
    • Megabyte steals a supposed weapon from Hexadecimal, which turns out to be a viral bug that freezes whatever it comes in contact with, starting with him.
    • His attempts to leech energy from games backfires when he gets stuck within two games merged together and attacked by the resulting game characters.
    • Attempting to steal Mainframe's core energy gets him knocked into said energy and becoming part of a game which would destroy the entire system if lost.
    • Double-crossing Mouse more than once turns out to be more than a mistake when she reconfigures his portal to the Supercomputer to one leading to the Web.
    • Then there's turning Hexadecimal into a weapon, which, once she gets free, gets his Tor wrecked.
  • In Transformers Animated Optimus beats Soundwave to scrap, using Soundwave's own electric guitar, Laserbeak.
  • In the Family Guy episode "Padre de Familia", Peter demanded that the brewery where he works fire all illegal immigrants. Soon, he found out that he himself is an illegal immigrant. Three guesses what happens next. Although this is only an example because the writers evidently have no idea what an illegal immigrant is.

Stewie: I-like-pudding-pops. And-Ghost Dad-was-the-greatest-movie-since-Leonard Part 6.

  • Discord from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic is ultimately defeated thanks to quite a few of his own petards. First, he let the mane cast get back the Elements Of Harmony and letting them try to hit him with them, which he'd ensured wouldn't work since he'd broken apart their friendship, in order to crush any hope they had left. Unfortunately for him, Twilight Sparkle figures out how to break his Mind Rape on the rest of the gang and they confront him with their friendship, and the Elements Of Harmony, renewed. Applejack mentions this, but Discord, having turned her into a liar and not knowing she's turned back, doesn't listen to her. He refuses to believe his Mind Rape had been undone and thus tries to repeat what he did before, only to be done in by his own Genre Savvy. It's impossible to tell whether or not the Elements Of Harmony will fizzle out until they're just about to fire, rendering Discord incapable of realizing his folly until it's too late.
    • Queen Chrysalis, the leader of the Changelings and Big Bad of the season 2 finale, is revealed to have been feeding off of Shining Armor's love for Cadence to make herself stronger. When Shining is broken free of her control, he and Cadence use the real Power of Love to send her and her Mooks flying off into the distance Team Rocket style.
  • In the animated film version of Planet Hulk, the Red King gets a triple whammy on this trope, as he is betrayed by his Shadow who he had personally sought after, infecting him with his greatest weapon which he personally called his "Legacy", which led to him being burned to death by the very Mecha-Mooks that he had called upon as reinforcements as they had been programmed to exterminate all infected beings.
  • In Dial M For Monkey a villain obsessed with gold ends up being melted underneath a pile of gold bars.
  • Rugrats: If Angelica does something to the babies or tries to get something for herself, chances are that what she did will turn around and bite her in the ass. These have included revealing she broke Tommy's lamp (and forgetting that the grown ups can hear her), handcuffing herself to her bed, and wiping out on the ball that she had earlier tossed over the fence.
    • On the non-Angelica side of things, there's the Junk Food Kid, a toddler bully who was beaten when Tommy burst the humongous bubble gum bubble using a candy cane she tossed aside.
  • When Princess becomes the Mayor on The Powerpuff Girls, she makes crime legal. She figures this will put an end to the girls stopping crime. This means crimes can be committed against her, like being robbed of all her items. The girls agree to give her back the items they took if Princess gives The Mayor his job back.
  • Since Courage the Cowardly Dog isn't a hand-to-hand fighter, this is his preferred methods of beating the Monster of the Week
  • In Transformers Prime, Silas gets crushed by his own creation, Nemesis Prime, when it falls through the roof of his base, where it'd been fighting Optimus Prime. However, MECH has Breakdown's body, so it appears that Silas will pull an Emergency Transformation/Grand Theft Me.
    • This is how Airachnid got Put on a Bus. Arcee tricked her into getting frozen in a stasis pod formerly occupied by one of her Insecticon minions.
  • The ultimate goal of Krytus, from Hot Wheels Battle Force 5, is to free the locked away Red Sentient civilization, so they can have their revenge on the Blues. When he accomplishes this goal, he finds out the Reds are just as sick of the war as the Blues, and they promptly seal Krytus away.
  • American Dad: "People always forget the mic is on," according to Steve. Later, he, too, forgets the mic is on. Later still, Snot does, too.
  • Happens to Darkwing Duck‍'‍s enemy Negaduck a lot. For instance, in one episode he has a surplus of Cartoon Bombs, commenting on how a store catering to folks like him is having a two-for-one sale on them; unfortunately for him, Darkwing knows where that store is, and when the villain tries to escape on his motorcycle, he finds the hero has taken advantage of it; Darkwing thanks him for the tip-off before the bike explodes.
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