From Bad to Worse/Western Animation

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • What happens in Danny Phantom episode "Public Enemies". It's bad enough he has to deal with his parent's constant pursuit of his ghostly half, but that's been upped to the nth degree after Ghost Cop Walker sends waves of cops to terrorize Amity Park, leaving Danny to not only stop the mess, but deal with the aftermath of the ghosts possessing authority figures and eventually the mayor, who declares Danny the leader of the whole ghost invasion, causing him to be a Hero with Bad Publicity. Despite Danny striving to do good regardless, the real kicker is how the entire town mistreats his ghostly alter ego for the rest of Season One, solved only by the beginning of Season Two. That's got to be frustrating.
    • Another great example is "The Ultimate Enemy." Under stress for a big test, Danny accidentally ends up with the answers for said test! And he plans to cheat. Of course, that's not just the end of it. His teacher found out and the Fentons and friends gather together to talk about it when they're all killed. Oh, but that's not all, folks! He goes to live with his former archenemy, Vlad, whom he asks to remove his emotions (by splitting his human and ghost halves). And you'd think it'd end there, but it doesn't. Danny's ghost half kills the human Danny and then unleashes 10 years of complete destruction on everything in his path. This is why the Reset Button exists.
      • You forgot something there, his ghost half removes VLAD'S ghost half and takes it over, which causes him to become evil in the first place, and also INSANELY overpowered. It gets MUCH worse as he only gets stronger from there.
    • Oh, and probably the best example of the series? In the scene in Reality Trip where Danny's Secret Identity is revealed to the entire world, Sam looks at him and says, "Well, it could be worse." "Oh really, how?". The Guys in White then proceed to show up: "You're coming in for questioning-" "-And experiments. Lots and lots of really painful experiments." Thankfully, this episode also had a Reset Button.
  • The Simpsons episode "The City of New York Vs. Homer Simpson", Homer's flashback to his last visit to NYC goes like this, all to the tune of The Entertainer: he gets a stranger to take his photo, but after taking it, the guy steals his camera, so Homer goes to a cop to report it, and the cop steals his suitcase. Then someone steals his wallet and a bird steals his hot dog. He's covered in trash dumped from a nearby window by none other than Woody Allen, and while cleaning himself off, inadvertently tosses a banana peel onto a pimp. The angry pimp chases him and the ladder he climbs to escape falls down a manhole...

Homer:... and that's when the C.H.U.D.s came at me.

    • It was also Lampshaded in the episode A Star Is Burns with the Film in an Episode Bright Lights Beef Jerkey where, from what was obviously security footage, Snake is holding up Apu with a sawed-off shotgun and Apu calling for help from the Police. Although Chief Wiggum was actually on the scene, he wasn't able to help because his tie was caught in the Hot Dog rotissery machine, and was pulled in, causing him to remark "Oh boy, looks like it's gonna get worse before it gets better."
    • Played for laughs in an episode where Marge is trying to chase down an obscene wind-up toy. She sees it pass by Wiggum and pleads with him to get it; he makes an honest attempt, but he's too fat to bend over, and tells her "anything on the ground is outside my jurisdiction." Then Snake crawls by, simply to spite him. He makes a grab for Snake, and drops his hat. He tries to use a pen to pick it up, but drops it and causes his pants to fall down. As a final slug to his pride, his old girlfriend from high school appears and recognizes him.
  • Where to even begin with Avatar: The Last Airbender? In Season 2 the Gaang starts getting chased by Zuko's much more competent sister, Azula, and her two friends who can throw knives and block bending. Then they make enemies with the government (Dai Li) of Ba-Sing-Se and the Fire Nation captures the city by the end of the season. Then in Season 3, the Fire Nation successfully captures the entire invasion force.
    • You could begin with season 1: in the first episodes, the plot is: the only hope to restore peace is a young, untrained boy. But a few episodes later, we learn that in a few months, the bad guys' powers will be multiplied by 100 for enough time for them to destroy all remaining opposition single-handedly.
    • Speaking of season 2's finale; when Aang gave up his love for Katara in order to save her by activating the avatar state, his most powerful trump card. And is shot down almost immediately by Azula, nearly rendering him worse than dead.
    • Or how they introduce the Series Finale? Zuko revealling that the plan by his father upon the advent of the comet is to burn the entire Earth Kingdom to the ground, destroying all life in an attempt to claim the land as permanent Fire Nation Territory. Making the whole "Stop the Fire Lord" thing a whole lot more serious.
  • In Teen Titans the episode "The End Part 1" ends with Raven seemingly being destroyed and her demonic father Trigon appearing, bent on destroying the Earth. "The End Part 2" then has Trigon succeed in destroying the Earth, killing every single person on the planet except for the Main Characters. And that's before The Teaser is even over.
  • The Transformers Episode "Kremzeek" is basically a huge "It Got Worse" episode featuring the eponymous Kremzeek's rampage spiraling out of control.
  • G.I. Joe: Renegades episode "Enemy of my Enemy features an almost constant escalation of this trope. Joes are swarmed by Bio-Vipers with guns, and that are smarter than their cousins. No problem, exploit their new fatal design flaw! But now comes Destro's Iron Grenadiers in indestructable mech-suits. Pretty bleak, right? Now how about Mech-Vipers, mech-suits wearing constantly regenerating Bio-Vipers as their skin, which proceed to rip the I Gs apart and are about to do the same to the Joes?
  • ThunderCats (2011) Trapped in servitude to a thematically inappropiate villian, hated by all other races as a taskmasters, and said villian is immortal and powerful beyond belief to say nothing of his awesome pecs, then you gain one of the most powerful artifacts in existence, you face said villian and tell him you now have said weapon only for him to whip out the other 3 most powerful weapons in existence....well we can work through that I mean after a bit of fighting i seperate him from one of the stones and...dear god did a that immortal mummy just whip out flying body armor, a spear, and a good 10 feet in height.. ya it got worse.
  • Happens regularly on My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic for comic effect. Noteworthy examples include "Swarm of the Century" and "The Best Night Ever", which are episode-long sequences of things getting worse.
  • The games in ReBoot often embody this trope. They have a tendency of appearing when the situation is already problematic, such as downloading while Bob is still unwittingly carrying a bomb. They subvert it sometimes as well, occasionally becoming a Deus Ex Machina.
  • It truly got worse with the second season opener of Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated than it did when season one ended, which had the Mayor of Crystal Cove as the Freak who had played Fred as a patsy (pretending to be his father) in an attempt to locate the hidden treasure, which resulted in Fred disbanding the gang so he can locate his real parents while Scooby is being sent to a farm, Shaggy is sent to military school, and original Mystery Inc. mascot Professor Pericles makes off with two pieces of the puzzle leading to the treasure. Season two starts off with a creature called Crybaby Clown causing mass destruction, prompting the Mayor (new mayor Janet Nettles) to reassemble the team, but Daphne has moved on to greener pastures, Fred's trap to capture the clown completely fails, and the town is left in a smoldering wreck at the episode's conclusion.
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