Mugging the Monster/Western Animation

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Examples of Mugging the Monster in Western Animation include:

  • On Avatar: The Last Airbender, a mugger tries to rob Iroh. Who promptly takes him down, teaches him a proper fighting stance, has a talk and some tea and convinces him to get a job. Beneficent, yes, but since he's earned the name Dragon of the West, still a monster.
  • In Sequel Series The Legend of Korra a Power Trio of protection racketeers from the Triple Threat Triad attempt to extort a Republic City music store owner, just as a teenaged girl tourist from the Southern Water Tribe is walking past. When she calls them out, they try to put her in her place, and make the mistake of attacking her with their respective Elemental Powers, only to learn the hard way that she's the current Avatar Korra, already master of three of the four elements. Cue a Curb Stomp Battle, made more hilarious by Korra taking out each mook with their respective element, with grinning gusto.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
    • An episode of the 1980s cartoon has Shredder being jumped by a mugger upon being teleported into Central Park after a long imprisonment in Dimension X. It is one of the few occasions on the show where Shredder actually gets to kick someone's ass.
    • Another episode has a mugger try to mug the disguised turtles, which is delt with in a similar way to the Crocodile Dundee example shown above. The mugger demands "Give my your wallet!". Leonardo replies "I've got a better idea *draws huge katana blade* give me your knife!"
  • In one episode of The Powerpuff Girls, a thief—not a supervillain, just a regular, common burglar -- actually tries to rob the Girls, because he had somehow never heard of them. Needless to say, it does not go over well, though they couldn't just kick his ass immediately because they didn't want to wake the Professor.
    • At the end of the episode, the thief was heading towards Mojo Jojo's house intending to rob him.
  • Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo has Robin on the run from the police who wrongfully accused him. He hides in an alleyway and notes that he needs a disguise to escape. Suddenly a thief appears, pulls out a gun and says "Give me your money." We don't get to see the fight, but we do see a tied up thief in his boxers, and Robin wearing his clothes (and shades).
  • Happens several times in Gargoyles with Elisa Maza. She's an NYPD detective, skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and an expert markswoman. And then there are her very protective friends....
  • Batman Beyond
    • The two-parter "The Call". In an attempt to escape Terry, Inque takes an approaching bystander hostage... who turns out to be Superman. On the whole, not her finest hour.
    • Something similar also happens in the very first episode, when a group of Jokerz (a street gang patterning themselves after the original Joker) decides it would be a good idea to intimidate a certain old man by saying "We're the Jokerz!" Unfortunately, said old man was Bruce Wayne. Cue the Curb Stomp Battle.

Bruce: Sure you are.

  • A small group of Jokerz harrasses Willy Watt midway through "Golem". They try to put the squeeze on him, but Willy calls out his little friend...
  • And in "Bloodsport", a lone Joker tries to mug Terry when he's chasing the Stalker—and gets dismissed in an especially pathetic fashion.
  • Continuing with the Jokerz in a crossover with Static Shock: the Jokerz lure two teens onto their turf... but one of them is Terry and the other one is Static. Uh oh.
  • In the Spawn Animated Adaptation, when Angela is first introduced, a couple of thugs follow her into an alley to rape her. Naturally, only she leaves the alley.
  • In the Fantastic Four cartoon (the one that took place in the Iron Man Hour), a mugger tries to rob a guy in a trench coat with a young woman. That guy turns out to be the Thing. Alicia points out that with Ben, she feels safe walking in the park at night.
  • Season's Greetings, the cartoon short on which Trick 'r Treat is based, is also about this. A man chases the adorably creepy trick-or-treater Sam into an alleyway, and, for whatever reason, attacks him. Sam is then seen walking out of the alleyway with bag full and a big smile on his mask.
  • Superman/Batman Apocalypse features a naked Kara Zor-El wandering confused into an alley just after arriving on Earth and being spotted by three workers. One decides to play Lothario and gets his ass kicked. The second tries to help his friend. The third wisely proclaims he's not with the other two and offers her his coat.
  • A variation occurs in the South Park episode "Up the Down Steroids", where Cartman's rather ill-conceived Evil Plan is to pretend he's disabled in order to enter the Special Olympics and win the $1000 cash prize. How hard could it be to beat a bunch of disabled kids? Well, as it turns out, pretty hard, and because Cartman is an overweight, out of shape, junk-food-junkie, he comes in dead last after being humiliated utterly.
  • Knight Time from the DCAU featured another Superman/Batman crossover in which Superman had to disguise himself as Batman in order to help Robin (Tim Drake) find out where his boss had gone. At one point, Superman also found it necessary to round up Bane, the Mad Hatter, and the Riddler. The Mad Hatter and the Riddler, who knew they were no match for Batman physically, wisely tried—unsuccessfully—to make themselves scarce at once. Bane, who did have reason to think he might do better (using a refined form of Venom), ended up having "Batman" beat the CRAP out of him while the Riddler (detained by Robin) watched in utter disbelief.

Robin: He's been working out.

  • G.I. Joe: Renegades features James McCullen attempting to play hardball with Cobra Industries CEO Adam DeCobray, saying he'll save Dr. Mindbender (who he put in danger by luring the Joes to the building) if Cobra gives in to his "proposal". Cue DeCobray revealing his true identity as Cobra Commander and making the arms dealer a "counter-proposal" with a giant, hungry, mutant cobra.
  • Used nonviolently (but very sadly) in a Russian cartoon "Maska". It's Halloween, and a little pretty girl walks down a street, alone. Then two blokes with huge monster masks jump from the corner and attempt to scare the little girl. The girl first watches indifferently, then she has enough, and tears down her face—which turns out to be a mask concealing her real face, scarier than both monster mask combined. The blokes, horrified, drop their masks and run away, leaving the girl weeping—by their scare they reminded her of her own face.
  • An episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes had the Rodeo Clowns kidnap Heloise. The results were obvious.
  • Transformers Prime has the organization MECH attempt to steal a nuclear device from "an unarmed civilian truck". The Autobots trash the attacking cars, without bothering to transform.
  • An episode of Futurama had Bender constantly harrassing a thin robot sitting in front of him at the movies. Finally he has enough and challenges him to "fisticuffs". Bender laughs...until he transforms into a much scarier form. Turns out he was a professional robot fighter.
  • Batman: The Animated Series has several:
    • In the episode "Birds of a Feather" proves that just because Penguin always loses to Batman doesn't mean he is a bad fighter. He is able to hold his own against three muggers before Batman intervenes and defeats all four of them (Batman thought he was with them until it was funnily resolved.
    • Jervis Tech's first appearance in "Mad as a Hatter". He hadn't quite become the Mad Hatter yet, but when escorting his date Alice through the park, two muggers accosted them, and he quickly used his mind control devices on them. After doing so, he ordered them to "go jump in the river". They took it literally, climbing to the top of a bridge to do so.
    • Joker ends up begging Batman to save him from some particularly crazy/tricky victims of his crimes in "Beware the Creeper" and "Joker's Favor".
    • Speaking of which, "Joker's Favor" starts out with one of these moments. Normal Joe Charlie Collins has had a bad day, and so when a car cuts him off on the freeway, It's The Last Straw and he begins to yell at the other driver- until he gets a close look and sees that the other driver is The Joker.

Charlie: That was the Joker. I cussed out the Joker!

  • In Invader Zim, Iggins learns the hard way why it is not a good idea to withhold the Game Slave 2 from Gaz. How? She follows him all the way to his house, writes "the game is mine" on the bathroom mirror, appears in the door, steals all the batteries in the house to keep him from getting to the save point on the game, causes the elevator to malfunction when he's still in it, and finally throws him down said elevator shaft.
  • The Simpsons:
    • In a future episode, Jimbo, Dolf, and Kerney try to mug Lisa and Milhouse, who are now married. Unfortunately for them, Milhouse is now a zombie for some reason, and not having to breathe means no more cowardly bouts of asthma attacks. He defends Lisa and has the three for lunch - literally.
    • In "22 Short Films About Springfield", Nelson makes the mistake of laughing at the Very Tall Man, who punishes him by forcing him to walk down the street in public in his underwear.
  • In one Woody Woodpecker short, this happens to Woody twice:
  • In the Looney Tunes short "Mexicali Shmoes", Jose decides to give up chasing Speedy Gonzales and go after the much slower Slowpoke Rodriguez, only to learn, the hard way, that Rodriguez is packing heat.
  • In the Justice League Unlimited episode "Ultimatum", Giganta (at giant size) is about to wreck the maximum security wing of a prison, and finds novice hero Long Shadow in her way:

Giganta: Out of the way, tiny!
Long Shadow uses his own powers to grow until he's a head taller than she is.
Long Shadow: You were saying?
Giganta: Oh, poop...

  • Zigzagged in an episode of Star Wars: Clone Wars, where Chancellor Palpatine seems to be doing this, at least from the point of view of the characters witnessing it. When General Grievous barges into his penthouse, he stands up to the General (who has already killed at least three Jedi Knights) calling him a thug and ordering him to be gone. Of course, as the fans doubtlessly know, Palpatine is far more a "monster" than Grievous is, and unbeknownst to everyone (Grievous included) this is a ruse where he is orchestrating his own kidnapping to remove himself as a suspect in the greater conflict.
  • In an episode of Family Guy, Peter's evil father-in-law Carter Pewterschmidt tries to dispose of Scott Greenberg (who comes to deliver a lawsuit representing a client who was injured while listening to Carter's audio book) using a trap door that leads to a Rancor pit. (Which, it seems, Carter has there for just such an occassion.) Unfortunately for Carter (and tragically for the Rancor) "Greenberg" happens to be a Jedi name.
  • This happens to Sylvester every time Hippety Hopper (a baby Boxing Kangaroo whom Sylvester mistakes for a big mouse) appears in Looney Tunes. Fortunately for Sylvester, Hopper really just wants to play with him.
  • In the Helluva Boss short "Hell's Belles", a masher at a bar has the bad luck to put unwanted moves on two Monsters at once, Millie (who has been known to slaughter hundreds of other demons when she is angry) and her sister Sallie Mae (proof that this trait is hereditary). Seeing as the bartender gives them a round on the house for beating him to a pulp, one could Call It Karma.
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