Take That, Scrappy!
![](../I/m/Jar_Jar_in_carbonite_cropped_60.png)
Captain Picard: "Shut up, Wesley!"
[...]
Dr. Crusher: "'Shut up, Wesley'?"
Picard: "Doctor..."
Wesley Crusher: "And since I am finished here, sir, may I point out that—"
Dr. Crusher: "Shut up, Wesley!"
The Scrappy and his ilk are characters who are despised by most (if not all) of the fandom. However, occasionally there may be one moment where the despised character is the butt of a humiliating joke, or another character says what the audience is thinking to/about the despised character.
If this results in the character's death, this can result in mass rejoicing. If the Scrappy in question has been around long enough and especially if they happen to be the Creator's Pet character, this is probably an Author's Saving Throw. Can be the character's (on the firing end) Moment of Awesome, or a Funny Moment.
See also Discontinuity Nod. Contrast Creator's Pet.
Anime and Manga
- In the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time manga, there's a mini-story that includes Navi getting chased around with a fly swatter, being hit numerous times. "Shut Up [Navi]!" indeed. There Will Be Brawl references Zelda. "Shut the fuck up, Navi!". In The Powerpuff Girls, where the Mayor plays Ocarina of Time and accidentally kills Navi.
- School Days
- Girls Bravo: Kirie haters were quite pleased how she got a few humiliation moments here and there, getting close to Butt Monkey status when Kosame is around.
- Sonic X had quite a good one when Dr. Eggman gives Chris a verbal smackdown on how he's acting like a whiny brat because if Sonic goes away he'll be back to being normal.
- Some fans find an earlier scene in which Chris is thrown about by Shadow a lot less entertaining than Eggman's quite understandable verbal smackdown. This seems to be due to the fact that, like Chris or loathe him, Shadow is essentially beating up a twelve year old child.
- Piplup from Pokémon keeps getting punted by Ash's Gible's Draco Meteor. Many, many times. As well as hit by nearly every other stray attack, tormented by a Bratty Half-Pint...this goes beyond Take That, Scrappy!. They turned him into the Butt Monkey.
- Naru Narusegawa from Love Hina is a Tsundere towards Keitarou, and more than once reaches Domestic Abuser and Jerkass levels (and especially in the anime, where she reaches borderline Jerk Sue status). Well, at some point Keitarou's Yandere adopted sister Kanako gets fed up and punches Naru across a hot spring because of that... and a good part of the fandom cheers. That's more of an Americans Hate Tingle case though, since Naru is first in popularity polls in Japan.
- In the Heidi, Girl of the Alps anime series (part of the World Masterpiece Theater), Fraulein Rottenmeier treats Heidi so severely that she becomes abusive to the little girl. Then the last episodes of the series focus on Klara's visits to Heidi and her grandpa in the mountains, and Rottenmeiter is such a Fish Out of Water that she becomes The Chew Toy. It was not only hilarious, but cathartic.
- Quattro, the Smug Snake from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS that viewers love to hate. While her defeat by overkill from Nanoha may or may not be this, this scene from StrikerS Sound Stage X was clearly added just so that fans could point and laugh at how much she had fallen by now.
Jail: I've been keeping myself healthy. This transparent prison is unexpectedly comfortable.
Cinque: Uno and Tre are healthy as well.
Jail: They haven't changed at all. Quattro has even gotten a bit fat.
- Mega Man NT Warrior had the episode titled "The Purloined Princess" which brought back Yai in the show, only for the main cast to show that they are just as sick of her as the fandom.
- Possible example: Chizuru Kawanami and her dream demon, Leon, of the Yumekui Merry anime adaptation. When a dream demon who's possessing a person gets killed, the person loses their dreams, which seems to equate to them basically becoming depressed, unmotivated, and almost doll-like, with very little personality. Leon gets killed in the final battle after being completely ineffectual. Kawanami spends the rest of the fight sitting there with soulless eyes, and then is shown wandering aimlessly after the battle, having not recovered at all. Its mentioned that she MIGHT recover on her own someday. Of course, given the quality of writing of the final episodes, there's a very real possibility that it might just be bad writing at work.
- Zeta Gundam: the death of Katz. The kid suffers a humiliating death trying to take on Yazan Gable, fails miserably, and crashes into an asteroid. Fans consider it the high part of Zeta's gut-wrenching Bittersweet Ending.
Comic Books
- In World War Hulk - Frontline, Sally Floyd (y'know, the one who made that speech to Captain America) gets roaring drunk and wanders into the middle of a mugging. She's rescued by Moon Knight, who then tells her that if he'd realised who she was beforehand, he wouldn't have bothered saving her.
- Used for a joke in Dork Tower when Igor plays Star Wars Battlefront
Igor: "I'm killing Ewoks and Gungans! I'm killing Ewoks and Gungans!"
Carson: "Kewl! So what do you think of it?"
Igor: "Explain to me what part of 'I'm killing Ewoks and Gungans' was, exactly, hard to understand..."
- Vibe and Steel from the reviled Justice League Detroit were killed off several years after they were created due to negative fan reaction. Decades after their deaths, the characters are almost never mentioned in-universe unless in a negative manner.
- This itself got lampshaded when Black Lantern versions confronted the surviving Detroit Leaguers and basically asked why they were remembered as a joke while Gypsy and Vixen got to join the "proper" League.
- Almost all the titles introduced in the Bloodlines crossover flopped after less than a year, with the lead characters being regulated to Comic Book Limbo. This was brought up in-universe in JLA/Hitman, where Green Lantern and The Flash mockingly claimed that the Bloodline heroes were a bunch of incompetent losers that everyone else in the superhero community looked down upon.
- A trio of them later got killed in humiliating fashion by Prometheus, who was himself in the process of being Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
- Jason Todd's no holds bar smackdown on Damian Wayne in Batman and Robin #6, which ended with Damian getting a broken back for his trouble.
- Spider Island was one big Take That against infamous Spider-Man Replacement Scrappy, Creator's Pet (she's named after Joe Quesada's daughter), Shallow Love Interest, and all around Relationship Sue Carlie Cooper. While at first it seems like more of the same — Carlie gets to sleep with Peter Parker, she gets Spider-Powers while Mary Jane doesn't, and gets to be a "super awesome" fighter to complete the Character Shilling — she then gets her butt handed to her in a fight, turns into a giant spider with the rest of the hapless citizens of New York, and the day ends up saved largely by MJ who gets Spider-Powers without turning into a giant spider. The comic ends with a Peter and MJ Ship Tease of the highest order. On top of that, Peter forgets about Carlie's predicament, leaving her naked and embarrassed in the middle of New York. And then rejoiced louder when they broke up right after this.
Fan Works
- It's not hard to find a fanfic of any fandom in which a despised character is mercilessly bashed by its author.
- If anything, fanfiction revolves around this and Die for Our Ship.
- In Naruto Veangance Revelaitons is despised for, among other things, being a God Mode Sue, being a Jerk Sue and sharing many of the author's hateful viewpoints. Then the author's former stepbrother hacked his account and added a chapter after the end in which Ensemble Darkhorse Edfred restores everyone to normal and kills Ronan.
- Mary Sue Hunter fanfiction often specialize in this, although most often, the Mary Sues are fictional or "donations" from other fanfic writers.
Film
- The provided image is a depiction of the infamous Star Wars character Jar Jar Binks, who, for whatever reasons, gained a huge Hatedom upon debuting in The Phantom Menace. The statue was made by a fan for the Star Wars Celebrations. Lucas was sufficiently amused to commission one for himself.
- The fact that Jar Jar is also directly responsible for enabling Palpatine to rise to totalitarian power and form The Empire is also very likely this trope in spectacular action.
- Love or hate the Resident Evil films, one can't deny that Wesker bringing Alice back to normal and killing off the clone Alices in Resident Evil: Afterlife brought a smile to the faces of those who hated the way Alice became a God Mode Sue in the previous films. She still has the standard action hero powers, but at least no more psychic nonsense.
- Writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson may have even slipped in a stealth admission of his own writing screwup with Alice, in the form of what Wesker says to her while he kicks her ass. "I'm what you used to be, only better."
- A scene from Godzilla: Final Wars features a truly epic Take That against the much maligned American Godzilla. He's taken down in just twenty seconds; the shortest fight scene in the entire film. After an initial temper tantrum, the Xilian General doesn't care much.
- Puma Man, when Vadinho punches Tony, knocking him out.
Tom Servo: The Aztec speaks for all of us!
- The same applies in Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell when Deathstalker is repeatedly knocked out. In the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version Mike and bots cheer loud and repeatedly. Crow says it best when the guy has barely spoken two lines and asks, "Is it too early to hate this guy?"
- Saw - A lot of people did not like Detective Hoffman replacing Jigsaw late in the series, so having him chained to a wall with no means of escape by Dr. Gordon made it oh so sweet for some of the fans.
- Skids and Mudflap from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen got this treatment. Director Michael Bay cut them out for the following movie, Dark of the Moon, but in the film's novelization they both get killed off pretty early on.
- Not really. They each get a Dying Moment of Awesome. Skids & Mudflap go out in style against Sentinel Prime in the novelization, the former giving his life to save Bumblebee and the latter charging the villain in a rage and trying to beat him to death, giving the others time to escape, and continuing to attack the Big Bad Bot even as he's literally disintegrating.
Literature
- In the Star Wars Expanded Universe, both Mara and Corran go into rants about Kyp Durron and how he literally got away with planetcide. ...Actually, the whole of the EU to feature him after that trilogy counts. He can Never Live It Down.
- And then Callista dies in Fate of the Jedi.
- In Breaking Dawn, the final Twilight novel, there's one brief, shining moment when Leah chews Bella out for leading Jacob on like she has been. It happens offscreen and the reader is supposed to hate Leah for it, but it's still something.
- A Song of Ice and Fire loves creating unlikable characters and then invoking this trope. Joffrey getting slapped by Tyrion several times when he goes to backtalk, Viserys humiliation and abuse, etc.
- The author of Warrior Cats confirmed that she killed off Ferncloud in The Last Hope because of said character being unpopular among the fanbase.
Live Action TV
- One mistaken example is in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Datalore". At one point Picard yells a big loud "Shut up, Wesley!", but only so that it makes Wesley look more heroic when he insists on being heard, and when he's still ignored, he goes against Picard's orders and as a result, and saves the ship and everyone on it from being killed. Nonetheless, it was just about one of the funniest scenes that season, and satisfying to hear.
- Happened a couple of times on Star Trek: Voyager
- In The Thaw, the crew are having a debate about the nature of fear. Neelix suggests telling a joke might help, because laughter overcomes fear. The rest of the crew just stare at him with a collective look of irritated disgust and he just sputters out in mid-sentence when he realises how badly his idea is going down.
- In Meld, Tuvok fears he is losing his self-control after a mind-meld with a psychopath. He decides to test the limits of his self-control by exposing himself to the circumstances that he thinks are most likely to make him snap by simulating them on the holodeck. His choice? Having to share a room with Neelix at his most obnoxious. Needless to say, he discovers what his limit is.
- In Coronation Street, after surviving a Minor Car Crash, Janice Battersby acts like even more of a Spoiled Brat than ever, and goes about ruining Sally Webster's work. Sally finally snaps and punches her in the nose. Not only that but it went further by Danny Baldwin firing Janice (again), and not one person sprang to her defense.
- Rosie Webster is more or less a walking Take That, Scrappy.
- Law and Order SVU had almost nothing but these for Dale Stuckey during his run.
- Perhaps the ultimate example of this towards him was in "Zebras" where he (having already screwed up an open-and-shut case) made a comment that provoked Stabler into angrily shoving him. When he complained about it, Cragen simply blew him off.
- The original Scrappy of House, Dr. Allison Cameron, got up on her high horse once again in an early season three episode, prompting Cuddy to channel the viewers and comment: "She's not nearly as delightful as she thinks she is."
- There's also the season 1 episode where Cameron forces House to go on a date with her. During the date, House goes on a rant about how she has a complex requiring her to fall in love with "broken" guys (her ex-husband, who was dying when they got married, and House himself) and try to fix them. It's heavily implied she cried herself to sleep that night.
- Robin Hood
- Robin decides to work with Isabella, resulting in a snide: "She always gets what she wants" remark from Clingy Jealous Girl Kate. Robin irritably snaps: "Just leave it Kate!" Unfortunately, like the Wesley example above, Kate is eventually proved irrefutably right in her insistence that Isabella can't be trusted, and gets to say "Maybe next time you'll listen to me" and "I told you so," as well as receive an influx of Creator's Pet-shilling when Little John calls her "a treasure" and Robin tells her that she's "brave, compassionate and beautiful" before making out with her. This is after Kate demands that Isabella be left to get raped and strangled at the hands of her abusive husband. Still, Robin's "shut up" was nice while it lasted...
- Several episodes later though, when Isabella's brother Guy joins the team, he calmly informs Kate: "You don't have to like me. I don't like you."
- In the Grand Finale of the show, Robin discovers that he's been fatally poisoned. Kate attempts to give him a Last Kiss, but he deliberately turns his face away, and a few moments later is reunited with Marian. Kate has to settle for a one-armed hug, and when Robin leaves to die alone, he doesn't even look back.
- Robin decides to work with Isabella, resulting in a snide: "She always gets what she wants" remark from Clingy Jealous Girl Kate. Robin irritably snaps: "Just leave it Kate!" Unfortunately, like the Wesley example above, Kate is eventually proved irrefutably right in her insistence that Isabella can't be trusted, and gets to say "Maybe next time you'll listen to me" and "I told you so," as well as receive an influx of Creator's Pet-shilling when Little John calls her "a treasure" and Robin tells her that she's "brave, compassionate and beautiful" before making out with her. This is after Kate demands that Isabella be left to get raped and strangled at the hands of her abusive husband. Still, Robin's "shut up" was nice while it lasted...
- Lost: Widmore's henchman, Zoe, in season 6, is widely hated for being a pointless, annoying character, eating up valuable screen time... and also for the actress claiming that she's the key to all the show's themes and is on "every page" of the series finale.[1] In the penultimate episode, The Man in Black violently slits her throat, killing her and pleasing everyone who hated her.
- Earlier, in season 3:
Hurley: Dude, Nikki's dead.
Sawyer: Who the hell is Nikki?
- Word of God is that Paolo and Nikki's manner of death was a direct response to their Scrappy status.
- Vanessa of Gossip Girl gets a lot of this from Blair, who hates her.
- Dan used to get his share of this too, mainly from Chuck and Blair. By season five he's become too much of a Mary Sue for this to happen more than rarely.
- Doctor Who: The Doctor certainly has some choice words for Adric and his dubious behavior in "Four to Doomsday:"
Fifth Doctor: Now listen to me, you young idiot, you're not so much gullible as idealistic. I suppose it comes from your deprived delinquent background.
- And earlier in the same story, Nyssa tells him to shut up.
- In an extra on the DVD version of "Earthshock", Adric survives the spaceship crash, lands on prehistoric Earth... and is promptly eaten by a Tyrannosaurus. A detatched Cyberman head remarks, "Excellent".
- A 1975 Happy Days episode has Fonzie in police gear just long enough to stem a possible gang war. When a gang member takes notice of Ralph, Potsie and Richie:
Gang member: Who are these nerds?
Fonzie: These are not nerds, these are my friends.
Potsie: (defiantly) Yeah!
Fonzie: (to Potsie) Shut up, nerd!
- Power Rangers RPM: When exploring ruins, Tenaya7 finds a battered Operation Overdrive Red Ranger helmet and, without too much thought, tosses it aside. Now, this can be seen as a Continuity Nod, showing what happened to other Rangers who tried to stop Venjix. But you gotta wonder if this was deliberate: out of all the 15 previous Power Rangers teams available, the one they explicitly showed to have died was the one from the most reviled season of the franchise.
- On an episode of So Random, there is a Wheel of Fortune skit that ends with Vanna hitting Fred (Who is one of the contestants) in the head with a piece of the set before looking towards the camera and says "You're welcome, America."
- In Smallville fandom, Lana Lang is almost universally loathed. Her constant hypocrisy, passive-aggressive behavior, and manipulation of both Clark, and her own best friend Chloe, caused most viewers to despise the character, to the point where whenever Lana would bumble her way into a dangerous situation with the Monster of the Week (an almost weekly occurrence), many fans seemed to view it as this trope. But perhaps the biggest Take That, Scrappy was the scene where Lionel Luthor, while trapped in Clark's body, notices Lana approaching, and rolls his eyes, growling "This one." Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Funny. Mind you, Lionel was still the Big Bad at that point, so presumably the showrunners were hoping that fans would view Lionel as being obviously wrong, and sympathize with Lana instead. It didn't work.
Professional Wrestling
- Mick Foley pulled one on his last night at TNA on Bubba the Love Sponge. As he was finishing saying his goodbyes to the roster, Bubba gets in Mick's face and tries to interview him. Mick brushes him off and Bubba then mocks him for getting fired. Foley proceeds to do what every TNA fan has been wanting to do for a while... knock Bubba the Love Sponge on his ass.
- Pretty much any time someone takes a shot at Michael Cole.
- Michelle McCool superkicking Hornswoggle on the October 1st 2010 episode of WWE Smackdown. This one may have been unintentional and actually an attempt for cheap heat by having Michelle attack the diminutive one. YMMV on whether it worked, given that Hornswoggle is one of the few Scrappies bigger than Michelle.
- Michelle McCool losing her Divas Championship to Natalya.
- The Sandman beating Eugene with a kendo stick when he went to give him a hug at ECW One Night Stand.
- Heels are often deliberately written to be pathetic and obnoxious. After all, you're supposed to hate them, right? Its pretty much standard procedure for faces to call them out on it and generally mock them when it comes time for promos.
- Melina being the first eliminated from a #1 contender's battle royal after weeks of being a God Mode Sue.
- The Miz to Maryse at Night of Champions:
Miz: You're not a champion, you're a tease. You had your chance with me and you butchered it, just like you butcher the English language every time you open your mouth.
- At the 2011 Extreme Rules PPV, not only does Michelle McCool end up losing a "loser leaves the WWE" match, but after the match, she gets attacked by the debuting Kharma (who is better known by her TNA name, Awesome Kong).
- From one Scrappy to another:
Maryse: Oh my God, Michael Cole, you vintage nerd.
- Speaking of Michael Cole he got the mother of all of them at Over The Limit 2011. He lost a "Kiss My Foot Match" to Jerry Lawler and had the following things happen to him: he got his pants ripped off, Eve Torres came out and performed a moonsault on him, Jim Ross poured barbecue sauce all over him, Bret Hart made him tap out to the Sharpshooter, and Lawler stuck his foot in his mouth.
- In WCW, a match where The Perfect Event (Sean O'Haire and Chuck Palumbo) beat the team of Lex Luger and Buff Bagwell in 56 seconds.
- The Undertaker chokeslamming John Cena after the latter tagged himself in to steal the win for their team during their 6-man tag team match against their two respective title contenders (Taker and Cena were respectively the World Heavyweight and WWE champions at that time) Jeri-Show and D Generation X (HBK and HHH].
Software
- Microsoft Office 97 and 2000 were plagued with Clippy, an assistant paper clip who tries to help you whether you want it or not. As advertisement for Microsoft Office XP, these three videos (in which the paperclip was voiced by Gilbert Gottfried) were released by Microsoft.
- It also features the line "Next to Microsoft Bob, you are the most annoying thing in computer history!"
Theater
- In one memorable scene in Angels in America, Belize gives Louis a "The Reason You Suck" Speech that doubles as a huge Crowning Moment of Awesome from Belize and in which he voices all the things about Louis that the audience has been thinking the entire play. Subverted, in that Louis actually learns from the speech, and that he never was really the Scrappy as he was always supposed to be either the Jerkass Woobie or The Atoner, depending on how you look at it.
Tabletop Games
- In Magic: The Gathering, the Onslaught set's version of Shock depicts a Psychatog being shocked by lightning, both in reference to the creature's time as a Tier-Induced Scrappy. Also, Deep Analysis has art depicting a decapitated Masticore, with some great flavor text:
The specimen seems to be broken.
- To a lesser extent, Magic R&Ds primary strategy for weakening dominant strategies, rather than banning cards which people put effort into acquiring, is to print cards in the next set that are very niche in their practicality, but usually devastating against the top deck. For example:
- When the best card in the format was Blightning, they printed Obstinate Baloth that could be pitched to Blightning to give you a big creature and offset the life loss.
- When Ravager Affinity, a powerful artifact strategy, was the king of the hill, they printed Oxidize, one of the cheapest artifact destruction spells every printed. (It wasn't enough, but it's the thought that counts.)
- When Faeries was the best deck, Conflux released a lot of cheaply-costed or hard to counter spells that wreaked havoc on hordes of small, flying creatures.
- To a lesser extent, Magic R&Ds primary strategy for weakening dominant strategies, rather than banning cards which people put effort into acquiring, is to print cards in the next set that are very niche in their practicality, but usually devastating against the top deck. For example:
- In the Yu-Gi-Oh Card Game, the "Legacy of Yata-Garasu" card features Yata-Garasu lying dead on the ground. The effect even counters his own special ability.
- In the Old World of Darkness, the eventual fate of the much-hated ghoul-werewolf-mage God Mode Stu Samuel Haight was...to have his spirit crafted into an ashtray.
- An odd case: the Squats were retconned out of existence in the third edition of Warhammer 40,000, and the creators got so fed up with fans asking about their return that they began to consider the Squats as the in-universe Scrappies. The official explanation now is that all of the Squat homeworlds were eaten by Tyranids. Occasionally one or two survivors turn up in the fiction, usually played for laughs.
Video Games
- The various Star Wars licensed games love to do this to Jar-Jar:
- Star Wars: The Force Unleashed presents the beautiful sight of Jar-Jar frozen in carbonite
- Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga has an achievement called "Crowd Pleaser", earned by killing Jar-Jar 20 times.
- Star Wars Battlefront has a level where you invade Naboo and fight lots of Gungans, all of whom act a lot like Jar-Jar and fight poorly. Needless to say, it's a very popular level.
- He's crushed by a falling N64 logo in Star Wars: Battle for Naboo.
- In the casual MMO Clone Wars Adventures, one of the minigames is punting him for distance (all in the name of practicing Force Push, of course).
- In Bounty Hunter he's a holographic target on the firing range in the first level.
- An RPG supplement Galactic Campaign Guide mentions that while Gungans after the Battle of Naboo started naming their children "Annie", "Obi", "Quiggon" (Qui-Gon), and "Ami" and "Rugor" (Boss Nass) increased in usage, "The name "Jar-Jar" never becomes terribly popular".
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Sonic Rush Adventure introduced a character called Marine the Raccoon, whose Motor Mouth Reckless Sidekick tendencies and delusion that she's the real hero brushed a number of fans the wrong way. Sonic, Tails, and Blaze Lampshade Hanging how annoying she can be, ultimately leading up to a scene before the final level where Blaze finally blows up and yells at her: "You're a nuisance!"
- A lot of people dislike Silver from |Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 for being wangsty, or for being a a ridiculously cheap boss fight. (Even those who like Silver think his story could have been handled a lot better.) So the cutscene following the Silver vs. Shadow boss fight, where Shadow gives Silver a solid roundhouse kick to the back of his head, was remarkably cathartic.
- The entire character of Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is this: He looks exactly like Raiden, the last game's widely-hated protagonist, and appears in the game as the sadomasochistic colonel Volgin's homosexual love interest (even his name is a Japanese double entendre: 'Raidenovitch' can be read in Japanese as 'Raiden no bitch', which itself translates to 'Thunderbolt's bitch', hinting at his and Volgin's relationship).
- Well, technically, he was only hated by American fans. Apparently in Japan, Raiden's fanbase potentially rivals that of even Solid Snake. Also, apparently, the player is also given the option to either kill or knock out Raikov, depending on what the player feels like, and the player doesn't even get a Time Paradox if he does the former.
- The player also has a mask of Raikov's likeness that's used late in the game to impersonate him, and there's a lot of fun to be had with the mask: Calling your Mission Control while wearing the mask will lead Snake's superiors to comment on how just wearing the mask is already making Snake seem more annoying, while Snake himself insists that wearing the mask is bound to make him more popular.
- The Secret Theatre FMVs also poke fun of Raiden: One FMV involves Raiden and Snake fighting over who gets to be the protagonist in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, with Snake winning in the end. In another FMV, Raiden goes back in time to eliminate Big Boss during Operation Snake Eater so he can be the main character, but can't bring himself to it when he finally meets the man face-to-face. However, as Rose consoles him, there's always going to be a fifth MGS game...
- Eric Sparrow, the antagonist of Tony Hawk's Underground and something of a memetic Jerkass, spent the entirety of THUG 2 pissing himself, squealing like a girl and getting the crap beat out of him.
- The season 2 finale of Sam and Max Freelance Police does this to the Soda Poppers, combined with a Brick Joke. They become the rulers of hell and, long story short, Sam and Max drop them into a small island in a pit of lava. The Stinger of the episode/season shows them doing the 'we'll be back' monologue...then, the purple Bermuda Triangle from the end of Moai Better Blues appears. Last we saw, a volcano had been erupting into it...the Poppers get vaporized.
- This was completely intentional from the very beginning - The Soda Poppers are hated both in- and out-of-universe. Only two characters like or care about them in any capacity aside from how they can be exploited to further Sam & Max's goals, and one of them is Max (who you may recognize as someone who regularly exploits the Soda Poppers to further Sam & Max's goals).
- From the Mass Effect series:
- In Mass Effect 1, we have Ambassador Udina, a brown-nosing politician who later in the game impounds the Normandy when your dire warnings aren't heeded and you become politically inconvenient. Your good friend Captain Anderson hatches a plan to rectify that and send you on your way to save the galaxy and take the heat for it himself. One option involves Anderson storming into Udina's office, downing the ambassador in one punch, and then freeing the Normandy from her dock. You can later do one on him yourself by endorsing Anderson for the Council seat instead of Udina. The third game takes this even further with a Renegade interrupt that lets you kill him.
- There's also Khalisah al-Jilani, the reporter, who tries to make Shepard look bad in pursuit of ratings. In Mass Effect 1, you can crack her jaw. In Mass Effect 2 Shepard can crack her jaw again, or s/he can give her an an equally awesome verbal beatdown. Lair of the Shadow Broker also includes videos of her getting punched out by a krogan... and kicked in the shin by a volus.[2] If you try to punch her again in the third game, she's finally wised up enough to dodge...but then another interrupt appears that lets you headbutt her.
- In a case of the scrappy being a vehicle / game mechanic rather than a person, James and Steve can be heard bickering over the flaws / merits of the Mako and Hammerhead. Steve thinks the Mako handles like a drunk rhino, James thinks the Hammerhead's made of tissue paper.
- Fable II mentions a rumor that Weaver the Guildmaster was found dead with the words "Your health is Low!" carved onto his forehead.
- Not to mention that you can optionally kill him as part of a quest in The Lost Chapters edition of the first game. The rumor could be referring to that.
- Wipeout Fusion was was heavily different from the rest of the series and divisive among the fanbase. Wipeout Pure returned to the style of the original series and the backstory indicated that Fusion's F9000 league was corrupt and riddled with scandal, and almost killed anti-gravity racing as a legitimate sport.
- Ultimate Spider-Man has one in the Venom tutorial, when it's telling you that you need to eat people to survive, your first target is...a child who loses his balloon, a jab at the extremely annoying lost balloon missions in the Spider-Man 2 movie game. The child even says "I lost my balloon!" using the exact same vocal clip from that game.
- Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition/Plutonia Pack features Scrappy "Due". In a cage. In the basement of a burger joint staffed by Beavis and Butthead. Surrounded by his own excrement. About to be made into hamburger. You can do the humane thing and blow him to bloody ribbons.
- A...scrappy meal?
- The PSP remake of Final Fantasy Tactics features a new battle which brings its resident Scrappy Argath Back from the Dead just so you get the pleasure of killing him again.
- Carter Blake from Heavy Rain is a complete asshole from the moment he appears, and in one optional chapter he goads you to hit him. You can.
- In the Fan Remake of King's Quest II Romancing the Throne, during the Cloud Spirit test, if you pass the first two questions you can choose an optional answer where Graham asks Connor to free the kingdom from a dreaded beast... revealed to be Cedric the Owl, and then he draw his blade and chase the damned owl himself.
- A recently introduced quest chain in World of Warcraft has the player delving into Thrall's inner emotional struggles in an effort to bring him back after he's killed by the Twilight Hammer. When the player gets to his inner rage, there are hints that he's... less than pleased with Garrosh's run as Warchief. For those who see Varian Wrynn as The Scrappy, Thrall ain't happy with him either.
- Anders and Carver of Dragon Age 2 were both divisive characters among the fandom. Of party banter of the game's DLC made the two the butt of many jokes from other characters.
- Nobody liked the minstrels in Assassin's Creed II: they got in your face and sang annoying songs until they either went away or you tossed coins, possibly blowing your cover. Assassin's Creed: Revelations has a mission where Ezio dresses up as a minstrel and sings. One of the songs is this little gem:
I am a tactless minstrel,
I sing off-key for coins,
If you see me in the street,
Please kick me in the loins.
- Not to mention that, to get the costumes in the first place you get to beat eight of them up. The fact that they go down in one punch each is just icing.
Ezio: Minstels from Italia? I'm going to enjoy this.
- In Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist, Freddy may stumble across a "lost and out-of-place" Cedric the Owl, who later gets eaten by vultures.
- Animal Crossing: Wild World introduced Lyle, an insurance scammer who would appear outside of the player's house on Saturdays. If talked to, he would force the player to pay him to buy insurance from him. If the player ignored him, he would try to follow them around until they talked to him and bought insurance. This combined with his annoying personality, the fact that he would continue to harass the player even if they gave in and bought insurance from him, and that his insurance was generally worthless (he would occasionally "cover" players who were stung by bees or sold forged paintings, but only in pitiful amounts that generally did not come close to what the player paid for his insurance in the first place) made many players despise him. Possibly due to this, in Animal Crossing: City Folk, Lyle has lost his job as an insurance salesman and now works at the Happy Room Academy, a job he absolutely hates, and frequently talks about how his dreams have been crushed.
Web Comics
- Satan turning resident Jerkass Holier Than Thou Knight Templar fundamentalist Seymore into a demon at the end of the Bomf series of Sinfest. Also an example of Kick the Son of a Bitch.
Western Animation
- Scooby Doo
- In the first live action Scooby Doo movie, Scrappy-Doo is the villain and Scooby actually punches him. Earlier on the gang have a fond flashback to how horrible having Scrappy around was, along with how glad they are he isn't around anymore.
- In Cartoon Network's Big Game between Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, two jokes were made at Scrappy's expense: It it said by the pregame show hosts that Scrappy barely lasted in the playoffs, and during the game itself, Pat Summerall listed adding Scrappy to Scooby Doo as one of the worst business decisions ever made.
- In the "The Best Place for Cartoons" promo, Scrappy was ranting on how the Cartoon Cartoons characters are more popular than him, despite his being there longer than them. (Ironically, YouTube posts of this clip have comments from people saying they agree with what Scrappy is saying.)
- There was also a game on Cartoon Network's site at one point where the point was to throw tomatoes at Scrappy. The very first game on the site, no less.
- Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law has the "Shaggy Busted" episode end with Scrappy showing up for a brief cameo only to be taken away to be eaten by Avenger (in later episodes, he is depicted as a corpse). And the cast laughs about it.
- Even Warner Home Video is in on the act, starting with minimizing Scrappy's presence in clips in the trailer for The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show and not mentioning him at all on the descriptions for the DVDs of the late-'80s Scooby movies. Seeing as only Scooby and Shaggy appear on the cover of the 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo set, one can imagine that this trend is going to continue. This is presumably due to the fact that Warner Bros is aware of the backlash Scrappy-Doo had received.
- In Scooby Doo and the Goblin King the living Mystery Machine runs down a stand with Scrappy dolls as prizes.
- In the new Scooby Doo series, Scooby Doo Mystery Inc, a recent episode shows off a statue of Scrappy Doo in a museum. Daphne was about to make a comment about him, but Fred reminds her that they'd never speak of him. Not ever again.
- One sketch of Robot Chicken had the Scooby Doobies team planning retribution for the Really Rottens attack on Laff-A-Munich. The Blue Falcon wanted to partner with a "more subtle talking dog" and had the choice between Dynomutt Dog Wonder and Scrappy-Doo. Guess who he immediately kicks out (literally).
- The very same sketch also has terrorists blow Booboo Bear's head off with a shotgun, and blows up Scooby-Dum for literally no reason. It's almost a masterpiece made for killing off Hanna-Barbera Scrappies.
- Another sketch portrays what would happen if Jar Jar met Anakin after becoming Darth Vader. The short answer is, he would be thrown out of a Star Destroyer's airlock. But then he comes back as a Force Ghost to pester Vader some more.
- A later sketch involving Jar Jar strongly indicates that his status may not have been unjustified.
- The Venture Brothers has the Murderous Moppets, two creepy and unpleasant dwarf henchmen that The Monarch inherited through marriage, to his (and the fans') displeasure. When Mrs. The Monarch orders the Moppets to distract him, they try to get in his face, only for the Monarch to coldly and plainly tell them that he doesn't like them and that if they ever try to give him an order he will kill them and feed them to the neighborhood dogs. Given that the Monarch is a man who, however physically unimposing he might be, still picks fights with Brock Samson for fun, one wonders what the Moppets were thinking.
- In the final episode of Season Four, Dr. Girlfriend finally tells them off and admits that they're starting to creep even her out. The Monarch's reaction is similar to that of the fanbase's.
- One episode of Family Guy had Quagmire rant at Brian for a good minute and a half, pointing out pretty much every criticism fans had been making about the character recently, including his anti-religious views, his sponging off Peter, his moral superiority, his manipulative ways of attracting dumb women (with Quagmire adding that even though he does the same thing, he's at least honest about it), and so forth. Especially odd as both characters are voiced by Seth MacFarlane, and even odder since Brian is the writing staff's Author Filibuster mouthpiece.
- It should be mentioned that the fact that it was Quagmire speaking, combined with how cemented Brian's status as a Gary Stu Author Avatar had become, led some viewers to see the rant as one big, long Take That, Critics! with Quagmire as a Straw Critic.
- The secondary mouthpiece, Stewie, has barely two appearances on the episode mostly to say that Brian shouldn't obsess over being liked by everybody as long as he likes himself, and that he (Stewie) likes him no matter what.
- Less ambiguous is the next episode, "Dog Gone": Brian learns that his writing style is only enjoyable to the mentally retarded, and starts a crusade to get dogs recognized as having the same rights as humans after he accidentally killed another dog and nobody cared, which starts out looking like his usual political Gary Stu behavior, but in a total reverse of events, Brian fails to make everybody realize his beliefs.
- In that episode, and a few others, Lois has taken to saying things like "Oh God, what now?" when she senses Brian is on another crusade, mirroring the audience's reaction quite well.
- Which is sad, considering that for once he may have a point.
- In a case of retroactive Take That, Scrappy!, frustrated Family Guy fans may find it cathartic to watch Stewie mercilessly beat Brian over a loan he kept putting off paying.
- It should be mentioned that the fact that it was Quagmire speaking, combined with how cemented Brian's status as a Gary Stu Author Avatar had become, led some viewers to see the rant as one big, long Take That, Critics! with Quagmire as a Straw Critic.
- It's obvious that the characters - especially the Clone Troopers - in Star Wars: The Clone Wars find Jar Jar Binks just as annoying as the audience. Oddly, this seems to make his character much more bearable.
- Even in the Lego Star Wars short, Jar Jar only appears on camera for a few seconds to be shot into many lego pieces.
- The Animaniacs episode "The Warners' 65th Anniversary Special" states that the Warners were created as Buddy's funnier co-stars, and he later tries to kill them for stealing his (nonexistent in real life) fame.
- Irving is treated with contempt by the rest of the Phineas and Ferb cast, except for the title characters. But then again, who doesn't Phineas tolerate?
- The Cloverfield parody segment in MAD takes a jab at Sam Puckett from iCarly, by her getting shoved out of the camera by other co-star Freddie.
- In The Simpsons episode "On A Clear Day I Can't See My Sister", Lisa spends the class field trip to (what's left of) Springfield Glacier ranting about Hollywood Global Warming and saying things like "How can you stand around being kids when serious things are happening?!" to her classmates. Bart, in turn, pranks her by making it sound like she's farting and hitting her with a snowball that knocks her into the glacier-lake. However, this inspires the A-plot, where Lisa slaps Bart with a restraining order and uses it as carte blanche to be a jerk to him.
- After all the abuse and isolation, Bart builds makes a wicker statue of Lisa - who takes it as a symbol of love and respect. In actuality, Bart was planning to burn it as an effigy. Ironically it was Lisa who sets it on fire.
- In "Bart Star" Lisa signs up for the school's football team to be a very annoying Granola Girl only to realize they have already done the "progressive" things she was going to complain about in the first place. She leaves in tears.
- Miko of Transformers Prime, who is derided by the fanbase for being The Load, and often Too Dumb to Live, finally gets called out by Jack during "One Shall Rise, part 1".
Jack: Miko, Raf was almost killed! This isn't a game; when are you going to get that through your thick skull!?
- Given that Jack gave her the exact same speech in the pilot, fans are cynical about whether this will stick.
- Rodimus Prime in Transformers Animated, in his first appearance he ends up getting afflicted with cosmic rust. This has satisfied some fans who don't like Rody.
- Princess Bubblegum, after being called various names from "Mad Scientist" to "Heartless Bitch" to "Terrible Parent," got a surprising Take That in the Adventure Time episode "Five Short Graybles." After spending hours exhausting herself by making the most perfect sandwich that has ever existed or ever will exist, she gives it to Cinnamon Bun... who shits it out all over her without even tasting it.
- ↑ Apparently the "every page" referred to the watermark on her script.
- ↑ Imagine a morbidly obese hobbit... inside a bulky environment suit... that has a reaction time approximately half as slow as a human being. Your average volus couldn't win a fistfight with a ten-year-old.