"Here's a secret — when I finally okayed the clone saga, I told Danny Fingeroth to build a back door into it. I said that I wanted to be able to bring Peter back as the real deal...while the fans claim they want change, they tend to react negatively to it. So do most creators!"
— Marvel Editor Tom DeFalco on The Clone Saga
Creating a sequel or a serialized work comes with the opportunity to improve upon your previous work. An author will often look at elements that fans complained about, and try to address these in an attempt at appeasing their anger. This is what we call an Author's Saving Throw: a change meant to correct a mistake the author made.
Even writers without a direct line to the fans usually gain some form of access to the fandom that has spawned around their creation. They may find out that an ending they wrote was not well-received and decide to Retcon that storyline. Or they may learn what fans were inspired to do, and incorporate those things into later works as a Shout-Out to the fans.
This is common in games, where Low Tier Letdowns will receive a Balance Buff, High Tier Scrappies will receive a Nerf, or Anti-Frustration Features get implemented to make a Scrappy Mechanic less infuriating. Since The 2000s, the ability to release patches means that in video games, making a Saving Throw might not require the release of a whole new work: the game's developers can simply apply the changes to the base game.
Tropes Are Tools. When done well, the result may be a Salvaged Story, or a reviled character may be Rescued from the Scrappy Heap. This is also a great way to create a Surprisingly Improved Sequel or Even Better Sequel, as well as to Win Back the Crowd. It could also lead to Improved Second Attempt and Remade and Improved. However, going too far may lead to accusations of Pandering to the Base, and it's easy to overestimate the size of a Vocal Minority, potentially leading to implementing a change that not that many people were asking for in the first place.
Named for a common Tabletop Game term originating in Dungeons & Dragons; a "saving throw" is a die roll representing, say, a hero's attempt to catch themselves when falling off a cliff, or the Deadpan Snarker's attempt to resist the urge to taunt Cthulhu.
All examples that are not In-Universe require Word of God or Word of Saint Paul confirming why the creators made the changes.
Example subpages:
- Comic Books
- Fan Works
- Films — Animation
- Films — Live-Action
- Live-Action TV
- Tabletop Games
- Video Games
- Web Animation
- Web Videos
- Western Animation
Other examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Akame ga Kill!: The Akame versus Kurome story arc put Kurome into a position where she was bound to die. It was made evident that the illness caused by her Psycho Serum was becoming fatal and if she were to fight Akame she'd be too weak to fight back. This ended up being prevented when Wave stepped in during the Akame versus Kurome battle and was able to use reason to stop Akame from killing Kurome and instead withdrew from the revolution to bring Kurome to the hot springs that can heal her illness.
- Attack on Titan’s creator has said he asks the anime production to change parts of the story he didn’t think he got right in the manga, thereby resulting in a few of these. The most notable of these are the Uprising Arc having much brisker pacing and Eren and Armin’s final conversation having dialogue moved around and altered. Additionally, the controversial epilogue was shown to be a Distant Finale taking place 12,000 years in the future in order to make the ending feel less pessimistic.
- A common criticism of the Bleach anime was how much it diverged from the manga with its fillers. Its manga was also criticised of using The Worf Effect one too many times, primarily on the Royal Guard who were largely defeated offscreen. The anime adaptation of the final arc not only has no filler (Veering towards Adaptation Expansion) but also has Kubo's involvement. The second season also ends with a victory for the Royal Guard.
- Many City Hunter fans were angered when they learned that Ryo Saeba's partner, Kaori Makimura, was going to be killed off in the sequel Angel Heart. Because of this, Tsukasa Hojo, the author of both titles, went on to proclaim that Angel Heart was no longer a sequel to City Hunter, but a spin-off set in an Alternate Universe that just happens to have most of the same characters.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's first five parts, while having rather diverse casts in many ways, were lacking in terms of female characters. The sixth part, Stone Ocean, has a much larger proportion of women in the cast, including a major Action Girl as the lead character. Hirohiko Araki has stated in interviews that he was disappointed at how many of his previous female characters were either Neutral Females or Faux Action Girls, and Stone Ocean was an attempt to make up for this.
- My Hero Academia: Volume 42 fixed a a lot of complaints that people originally had with the final arc and ending, to the point where many who were originally disappointed started to consider it one of the better manga's ending:
- An extremely vocal complaint was in chapter 423, Midoriya seemed indifferent at Shigaraki’s death, barely seeming to react to it despite having wanting to avoid it, with Shigaraki himself not looking content, making it hard to believe he really died at peace or that Midoriya was so regretful later on. Volume 42 updated their expressions, to Shigaraki smiling through their entire final conversation and Midoriya being visibly remorseful at his death.
- Although it was ultimately revealed Midoriya’s line about being lonely was a mistranslation, many people still felt the ending seemed to imply his friends and even the entire world forgot about him despite his efforts, with Dai being shocked to see he even exists and him seemingly not getting any credit for his actions (although he and the class actually did get statue’s built of them, they’re just easy to miss due to being in the background). Chapter 431 shows more interactions of him and his former classmates that show they are still very much close, and he’s even shown on billboard’s across the city, showing he’s very much still well-known.
- Midoriya and Ochaco’s relationship ending with a Maybe Ever After was one of the biggest complaints, with many feeling all their moments together throughout the story were for nothing and that it was an unsatisfying conclusion to her arc. Chapter 431 ends with the two becoming an Official Couple, which many felt was an extremely satisfying resolution.
- Pokémon the Series: XY: Series director Tetsuo Yajima has stated in an interview that there was a strong emphasis on making Ash look cooler and more heroic in XY due to the negative online reaction toward his character at the time, particularly after Black & White. He also mentions aiming to give this series a wider appeal to the Periphery Demographic than previous series, likely also as a response to the poor reception of Black & White.
- Samurai 8: The Tale of Hachimaru:
- Masashi Kishimoto had allegedly been planning the story since 2016, which could be so that he could avoid making the same mistake with Naruto by writing it as he went along, which led to him having a hard time figuring out a believable way to dispose of Madara and consequently the infamous creation of Kaguya.
- It's generally agreed upon that establishing the Samurai Leader, the strongest samurai in the setting, as a woman in the first pages of the work was an attempt by Kishimoto to avoid the criticisms from his previous work that the female shinobi were overshadowed by their male counterparts. What is up for debate is how well this saving throw works.
- One of the sticking points of Naruto was how the boy-girl relationships and potential romance was handled, with Kishimoto himself admitting his weakness and aversion to writing these issues; Samurai 8 on the other hand establishes early on that the relationship and interpersonal development between Hachimaru and Ann will be crucial to the story.
Literature
- The Fire Never Dies: Originally, update 89 had General Guy Carleton ordering the massacre of blacks in Kentucky and Tennessee after one of his subordinates was killed, making him responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the Second American Revolution. After Meshakhad received criticism that this was out-of-character for him, she changed it to Carleton himself being killed and succeeded by the KKK leader Joe Huffington, making him responsible for the massacres.
- The Last Battle is a controversial ending to The Chronicles of Narnia due to Susan no longer believing in Narnia. Lewis later made some comments assuring readers that he felt Susan would make it to Narnia in her own way, even thinking that it was a story worth its own book.
Music
- David Bowie expressed regret for his comments in interviews during the Thin White Duke era, during which he occasionally expressed sympathy with fascism (due, it's generally accepted, to getting Lost in Character as the Duke, who actually was a fascist). After this point, on the rare occasions when he would express political themes in his work, they often tended to be anti-fascist, anti-racist, or otherwise anti-authoritarian. Good examples are the videos for "China Girl" and "Let's Dance", as well as much of the content of Tin Machine. The line "To be insulted by these fascists is so degrading" from Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) is also generally considered to be an apology for this period. note
- The Chromance song "Wrap Me In Plastic" is subject to some playful mockery for the lyrics of its pre-chorus, which imply the protagonist does her makeup and applies perfume immediately before taking a shower. The music video for "Lollipop (Yum Bi Dum Like Bubblegum)" offers a tongue-in-cheek explanation, as an advertisement for "before shower" perfume appears in the background.
- Pop Smoke's debut album Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon original cover art was heavily criticized by fans for being low quality and many also saw it as disrespectful as Pop Smoke was murdered months prior to the album's release. A different cover art was created in response to these criticisms, selected by Pop Smoke's mother hours before the album release, to significantly better reception.
Pinball
- Pokémon (2026): During the lead-up to the game's release, co-designer Jack Danger made a point to highlight
how the Squirtle whirlpool includes bumps and cutouts to ensure the ball won't keep swirling around for too long. Not coincidentally, Stern's previous cornerstone game — Star Wars Fate Of The Empire — had a similar whirlpool that lacked these features and was commonly derided as a pace-killer for that exact reason.
Sports
- Formula One has thrown a succession of these over the course of the 21st century:
- On the eve of the 2009 season, it was suddenly announced that the driver with the most wins would be crowned world champion, regardless of all other results. The announcement was universally condemned, not just because everyone hated the idea, but because it was announced with the worst possible timing - the 2008 season had been decided at literally the last second, with Lewis Hamilton making an overtake at the last corner of the last lap of the last race to take the title by one point from Felipe Massa. Everyone agreed it was the most dramatic and exciting conclusion to a season in years, but under the new system it would have been ruined, because Massa had one win more than Hamilton.note Within days of the announcement, the change was postponed until 2010, and then scrapped entirely in favour of a new points system that weighted wins more heavily.note
- Prior to the 2016 season, the qualifying format was changed so that drivers would be progressively eliminated until only one was left, instead of two bulk eliminations followed by a top-ten shootout. When this led to anticlimactic qualifying sessions in which nobody left the garage for the final few minutes, it was scrapped after just two races and the old system was brought back.
- Toro Rosso's signing of Max Verstappen for 2015, at the tender age of 17 and after just one year of open-wheel racing, led to much criticism about such a young, inexperienced driver being allowed to compete. The FIA duly announced that from 2016 onwards, only drivers over 18 would qualify for a superlicense, and when 2016 arrived, they added further restrictions including a minimum of two full seasons' experience. Any lingering criticism vanished once Verstappen actually started racing and everyone realised he was ridiculously talented for his age.
- Cleveland professional teams in every major league present in the city have revamped their imagery in response to various complaints:
- For most of the 80's and 90's, the Cavaliers were simply known as the "Cavs" and had generic basketball-hoop logos, to the point that many a young Clevelander didn't even know what a cavalier was.note In 2003, the Cavs revealed a new logo with a rapier and "All for one and one for all" as their slogan, thus invoking classic cavaliers. They've been sticking to sword logos ever since.
- For decades the Browns were roasted for having brown and orange as their team colors. The Browns may be Cleveland's pride and joy, but their color scheme was considered hideously ugly to pretty much everyone else (as well as some fashion-conscious Clevelanders). In 2015, the Browns altered their colors to be more pleasing to the eye: the brown was made darker, almost black, and the orange more reddish.
- The Guardians were known as the Indians for over 100 years, but ever since the Civil Rights Movement, people began to decry the name—and especially the Chief Wahoo logo—as racist. For decades many wrote off those complaints as politically-correct nonsense, but in 2018 the team's corporate leadership responded by officially retiring Wahoo, adopting a plain "Block C" as their logo. Then in 2021, in the wake of the George Floyd protests of 2020, the team announced they would change their name to something less racial, the Guardians. This may sound generic, but it's a reference to the Guardians of Traffic◊, eight Art-Deco statues along the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge near Progressive Field, and fixtures of Cleveland culture.
- Washington, D.C., like with the Cleveland Guardians, has a history of rebranding its sports teams to be more socially-conscious, as its basketball team, the Wizards, were originally known as the Bullets until their owner realized it was distasteful to glorify guns at a time when DC was a notorious Wretched Hive.
- The state of Washington's football team, the Commanders, were previously known as the Redskins, a name that was heavily criticized just as much as the Indians. Like the Guardians, they announced they would change their name in the wake of the George Floyd protests. But whereas the Guardians remained the Indians until a new name was chosen, the former Redskins immediately dropped their name and were simply known as the "Washington Football Team" for two years, for which they were roundly mocked, before rebranding themselves as the Commanders.
Web Animation
- Chimptopia: The characters were redesigned to look more cartoony and energized in response to criticism regarding the character designs seen in the promos.
- Marine Houshou of hololive once released an MMD video of herself getting slapped and running off in tears. Knowing that her fanbase shares in her perversions, she thought they will be into this sort of thing, but to her surprise, her fans reacted with horror and concern, stating that watching the clip has made them want to comfort her. She followed up with some variations of this, such as this video, which has her getting aroused by the slap; a rather wholesome version that corporates a Bait-and-Switch, ending with a pat on the head; and another one in which she turns the tables on the other person.
- RWBY:
- Volume 5 was seen as the show's nadir for several reasons. The fandom's criticisms centered around the passivity of the heroes compared to the previous volume's journey-bound tone, the reduced relevance of main protagonist Ruby during major story beats, and lack of exploration of Mistral's exotic setting. CRWBY confirmed they addressed these complaints for the next volume by kicking off Ruby's development into an active leader in the fight against Salem and exploring the Mistral underworld via Cinder's storyline.
- After Blake's Volume 7 haircut was criticised for poor texturing and looking unflattering in certain lighting, CRWBY confirmed that this led to them upgrading her hair texture to appear more natural, and upgrading Weiss's hair at the same time.
- Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers: It seems to be reoccuring that this channel will listen to its audience about multiple things, usually to clear out an upsetting topic, or returning to the classic formula. Here are the following examples:
- An early example is SMG4's second comment regarding the backlash to "Tubbie TV":
Well looking at all the replies I believe that a lot of you are traumatized or thought the vid was plain stupid plus I've been using Gnostic a bit too much which I understand lol, here is what I promise to you guys. I'll revert back to sm64 and avoid using gmod as the main thing. Hehe so sorry D: can you guys pls forgive me?- During the early days of Meggy's addition to the main cast, one of the main complaints regarding her was how she seemingly had no flaws and was perfect at everything, especially compared to the rest of the cast. Since then, SMG4 has taken steps to make Meggy more relatable by giving her noticeable flaws such as her utter inability to cook, her pathological fear of anime, and most notably her impatience and Trigger-Happy nature (seen most clearly in "Final Fantasy Mario" and "Mario and the Bob Mansion"), as well as showing her actually losing, such as in "The Mario Carnival" and "Super Challenge 64".
- Quite a few concerning the shafting of older characters:
- A common complaint from older fans in 2017-18 was that while the newer characters from Fishy Boopkins onward were unique and cool, they still took a lot of screentime away from older characters. "Mario And...The Well" and "A Day In The Life Of Everyone" are both episodes devoted to showing many of the older and shafted characters, showing that SMG4 hasn't forgotten them.
- Another complaint that some fans had was Peach became Out of Focus and barely appeared in the bloopers following Meggy becoming the most prominent female character. "Stupid Mario 3D World" brings Peach back to prominence, even having her Lampshade her long absence.
- Among the many characters fans felt had been shafted, Swagmaster and Chris were among the most heavily requested to be brought back from 2018-2019. "Mario's Prison Escape" and the Anime Arc merge the Guards N' Retards series with the main SMG4 series and give Chris and Swagmaster major supporting roles from there on.
- The 10th anniversary movie addresses and finally provides an explanation for one of the most common questions classic fans had: What happened to the Mario recolors? They were all gradually kidnapped over the years by Zero in his hunt for Mario, explaining their gradual disappearances. Many of them proceed to reappear for the movie, with FM and X in particular getting supporting roles alongside the main cast. When they're all freed at the end, they establish their own In-Universe town, Bloopersville, providing Worldbuilding and showing that while most of them likely won't appear again, they haven't been forgotten.
- During Saiko's early appearances, she was criticized partially for her voice lines, with many finding them too annoying and repetitive. This was rectified with her gradually gaining a wider selection of voice clips that everyone agrees makes her Voice Grunting far more bearable than it was.
- If you thought Waluigi got off too easy for all the destruction he caused during his arc, the next Arc Villain, Bob, wasn't so Easily Forgiven, and had to work on setting things right. This is taken to an even bigger extent with the villains of most future arcs, who aren't given a chance at redemption like the first two and are given heavy comeuppance instead. It helps that most of the later villains are generally more unlikable than Waluigi and Bob and usually meant to be seen as evil to begin with.
- At the end of the first part of their two-part special, "Treasure Hunt with the Bois", SMG4 and Kevin rush in to assure fans that it's not going to be an arc, stating that they're experimenting with making two-parter shorts rather than overarching plots. Considering one of the main complaints of the The Anime Arc was how long it was, it's not hard to see why.
- "The Big Bad Bully" and "Untitled Mario Video" were uploaded in early October of 2019, when the annual War of the Fat Italians is normally released, leaving fans wondering if SMG4 and Kevin had forgotten about it. The latter video was flooded with comments either asking when the war would be or suggesting challenges for it. Two days later, the WotFI announcement was posted.
- In direct response to "The Fan Written Episode" being seen as an inferior Subscriber special compared to the fan collabs by some, Luke and Kevin announced a collab to celebrate the end of 2020. In their words, "we heard you loud and clear".
- Melony unlocking the powers of the Fierce Diety Mask during the 10th anniversary special was seen as this after Luke and Kevin claimed prior that she didn't get any of the mask's powers.
- Starting in "Meggy's Bootcamp", Meggy began getting a notorious reputation for her Wangst behavior, which got lampshaded in many episodes and started getting rectified in Sunset Paradise. Upon returning from Port Aurora, she was shown to be finally moving back towards the positive, spunky attitude of her earlier characterization, leaving many happy that she was finally getting out of wangst territory.
- The beginning of "If Mario Was In... Anime" addresses many complaints concerning Axol's flanderization. In addition, the ending sees Inkweaver finally getting fixed, quelling a complaint that the pen getting broken in "The Internet Graveyard" took away one of the big things that made Axol interesting and unique.
- While the event itself remains controversial, Axol's death seems to go out of its way to avoid the caveats the previous permanent deaths (such as Desti's) fell under. It's the death of a mainliner, addressing the criticism that true deaths only happened to minor characters, is established as the only way to stop the Big Bad from winning in the moment and the body disintegrates after, answering the questions of whether it could feasibly be justified in the world of SMG4 and why it can't simply be undone.
- Following the massive fandom divide over Kaizo's finished design, SMG4 confirmed ahead of time through the original Instagram post revealing his finished concept art that he would be tweaked to better fit into the series.
- After the upload of "The Meme Games 2022", SMG4 addressed concerns that The Meme Games were potentially replacing WOTFI by confirming it wasn't.
- Paul Stylianou, better known as MediExcalibur2012, one of SMG4's editors, has been observing fan feedback and reactions and finding ways to incorporate them into future videos. After seeing the fandom's opinions on Mario and Meggy's friendship, for example, he adlibbed a scene in "The Cursed Tapes" where Mario catches her. This went over very well with fans, and he would continue to add moments that establish that Mario and Meggy are indeed close friends.
- To say that Fishy Boopkins’ Lawsuit Arc redesign was controversial would be an understatement. After a new design was teased with the intro for "Mario Plays Cat Mario but every time he dies the walls close in" showing a brand new design for Boopkins among the other character heads, the video announcing the movie "It's Gotta Be Perfect" not only officially reveals Boopkin's new redesign, which leans closer to the original Spike design than before, but also reveals slight upgrades for the designs of SMG4, SMG3, and even Meggy (the second time her human design has been tweaked, having previously been upgraded after returning from Sunset Paradise). Bob, whose Lawsuit Arc redesign was the least controversial of the bunch, is pointedly announced as being left as is.
- Overall, the entire first quarter of 2023 is this. After massively divisive episodes in 2022, 2023 has been producing episodes mostly well-received by the fandom, with several complaints about 2022 being addressed. Tari and Bowser are both given episodes with them as the focuses in "Mario Goes to Ohio" and "Mario Steals the Constitution" respectively after they were Out of Focus last season (Though justified in Tari's case as the final season of Meta Runner was airing, and it was always longstanding policy for her to take a backseat when her own show aired) and the massively divisive Lawsuit Arc redesigns would get redesigned themselves, which many fans think is for the better. Additionally, Tari herself would finally get a redesign of her own to better fit the rest of the cast, after spending most of the year as the only remaining mainstay without one and would also become one of the main focuses in the middle of the season, yet again due to her Out of Focus status last season.
- In a way, the announcement of "War of the Fat Italians 2023" addresses the controversial inclusion of characters other than SMG4 and Mario, which was criticized as defeating the purpose of the title (that Mario went to "war" with a recolor of himself). The trailer for "WotFI 2023" implies the challenge will be strictly between Mario and SMGs 3 and 4 – while the Meme Guardians are no longer Mario recolors due to the events of the previous year's WotFI, it at least keeps the "fat" part of the title relevant, given they're both still designed with a similar build to the plumber himself. Sure enough, the episode really is just SMGs 3 and 4 against Mario and Marty (a cardboard Fat Italian). While most of the rest of the primary cast appear, their parts in the episode are minor at best.
Webcomics
- Better Days: In the aftermath of negative reaction to Fisk joining a group of privately funded vigilante assassins, Naylor made several journals trying to distance himself from the character, stating that he didn't necessarily agree with Fisk's actions and views, and that Fisk was not his self-insert.
- VG Cats: After backlash for the joke about the death of Iwata being tasteless, the strip that had that joke was republished, with the joke and part of what led to it being removed, changing the strip's punchline.
Websites
- DeviantArt reviewer The Media Man ruffled a lot of feathers in the "Boys of Bummer" entry of his Top 11 Worst Simpsons Episode List, where he said Bart deserved what he went through in that episode. He considered Bart The Scrappy, in contrast to his Ensemble Dark Horse status to Simpsons fans, and as his least, later second-least, favorite character in all media (his new least favorite being the more justifiable Damian Wayne). An interpretation of the entry is that his hatred of the character led him to misinterpret the massive Disproportionate Retribution that Bart experienced from the entire town of Springfield as a Take That, Scrappy! that copped out at the end due to Status Quo Is God. One of the parts that really turned off readers was the part where he believed Marge was wrong to stand up for Bart, her own son, against Springfield. In response, he later rewrote his list to make it less controversial and acknowledged how bad the town's Disproportionate Retribution really was (comparing it to "One Coarse Meal" from SpongeBob SquarePants), even saying that, as bad as he believed Bart to be, even he didn't deserve to be treated so cruelly and that he didn't mean to say Marge shouldn't stand up for Bart.
- The Onion attracted a bit of controversy in February 2016 when it published an uncharacteristically charitable article about Hillary Rodham Clinton ("Female Presidential Candidate Who Was United States Senator, Secretary Of State Told To Be More Inspiring") shortly after the website was bought by Univision chairman Haim Saban, one of Clinton's most prominent financial backers. Several readers accused the website of "selling out", implying that their new owner had pressured the writers into making the Clintons look good—particularly since they had previously written several articles openly mocking her and her bitter rivalry with Bernie Sanders. Shortly after, the writers showed that they were quite aware of the criticism, and went right back to unabashedly thumbing their noses at Clinton with several better-received articles, showing that they were still equal-opportunity satirists committed to making fun of everyone.
Web Videos
- In one r/AmITheAsshole episode, rSlash made the mistake of giving a bridezilla 0/5 buttholes for not wanting her nephew-to-be at her wedding because of a connection with her ex, reasoning that she has a right to invite/uninvite whoever to her wedding. The comments ripped him to shreds for ignoring the fact that she was taking out a petty grudge on a child, and one that's about to be part of her family at that. He agreed with this and revised the rating in a pinned comment to 2/5 buttholes, while jokingly giving himself 5/5 buttholes for daring to be wrong on the internet.
- Enforced by The Angry Video Game Nerd in his Ikari Warriors review. He resurrects Kyle Justin to help him play the game, but Kyle berates the Nerd for only bringing him around when he needs a favor (as his iconic theme song hadn't been used in quite a while). This exchange occurs:
Kyle: I'm not helping you! Besides, you never play my theme song anymore.Nerd: Yeah... the theme song... I thought people were getting tired of that.Kyle: You thought wrong.Nerd: Yeah. (Looks right at camera) I know.
- Atop the Fourth Wall: Fans claimed The Entity storyline from "Pokémon: The Electric Tale of Pikachu" didn't explain why Missingno was afraid of Lord Vyce, when it was built it up as an unstoppable universe-devouring Lovecraftian demon. So the writer Lewis Lovhaug explained in the commentary that Vyce's attacks were able to hurt it but not kill it, at least according to Missingno, and it found getting rid of him to be enough of an inconvenience that it hid in our world so Linkara would defeat Vyce. Lewis also comments that Vyce not being able to kill it was only claimed by Missingno, who is full of itself even for a god.
- BattleBots: After the first Pro League video was widely criticized for its overly frenetic editing, the official channel commented that they would tone it down in future episodes.
- Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
- Fans weren't thrilled with the sex scene in Episode 55 because it sounded an awful lot like Chi-Chi was raping Goku. The next episode clarifies that Goku is indeed consenting to the sex, he's just getting exhausted from doing it so much (they were trying for another baby at the time).
- The Krillin Owned Count was a Running Gag that some felt was getting too old and especially too cruel, since the count kept going up at inappropiate moments (such as when he was trying to defend 18 from Cell). Fans were quite happy when Krillin and 18's Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex lowered and then DESTROYED the K.O.C.
- The Garlic Jr. Saga was passed over and finished in five minutes due to it being filler content. This disappointed fans, who thought there was still potential for good jokes about it. Team Four Star would later do a proper abridging of the saga as Dragon Ball Z Kai Abridged Episode 2.9 (the April Fool's episode), complete with a lampshade on how it got skipped.
Krillin: Man, I'm glad we skipped this the first time.
- When in the main series it was revealed that Dodoria was female, the jokes about it honestly came off as quite transphobic. The creators would go on to regret taking this course of action. In spinoff HFIL Dodoria is acknowledged as female from the beginning and shown the respect she is due.
- Also in HFIL, fans pointed out an obvious plot hole that Cell is capable of regenerating limbs, so what is stopping him from chopping off the leg with the ankle monitor and regenerating it? The next episode addresses this first thing: apparently souls are invulnerable in HFIL so Cell can't lob off his foot.
- The Music Video Show had this in a way. Season five through seven were released in three different days and there would be no content for months inbetween seasons. This caused the channel to become stagnant for a while. Season eight was released five episodes a day for a week, scaling back the 25-30 episodes in a day. Then, season 9 went back to one episode a week, like the first 4 seasons.
- Speaking of season 9, it was extended for a while longer as an apology for seasons 5-7.
- She has put out a video, stating that she had to take a break from making videos in order to avoid another Creator Breakdown, learning from what happened during season five.
- In season two, there were two episodes that had multiple music videos looked at, leading to some music videos being shortchanged and somewhat glanced over. Kiara herself has stated that they were both weak episodes. In season four, she made a week dedicated to Fall Out Boy, where she made six videos (seven later on), all of which got equal attention in terms of jokes.
- The The Nostalgia Chick team were getting a lot of flack over the "Nella abuse", which some took way too seriously and thought it was happening in real life. So Lindsay made a "Thanks For Your Feedback", detailing that the Nostalgia Chick had sinfully low self-esteem and was paying Nella to make her look better. This seems to have also influenced "the Dark Nella Saga," where the evil entity possessing Nella gets revenge on the Chick for all the hell she put her through. (Note that the "Nella abuse" has pretty much stopped since the Saga ended.)
- The Spoony One did a review of Final Fantasy VIII. After Zell is informed he passed the SeeD exam, Zell struts off, with Spoony making chanting things like "gay, gay, sissy, gay" along with the Can Can as backing music. Later, in the first episode of Spoony's review of Final Fantasy XIII, Spoony admitted that the gay joke was in bad taste, and said that he deserved all the mockery and backlash he got for making the aforesaid joke. Spoony was also more critical of the writing, character motivations, and themes of Final Fantasy XIII instead of making that kind of cheap joke at the expense of the fanbase or the characters' personalities.
Spoony: I still feel humiliated and sincerely apologize for that "gay gay sissy gay" thing I did in the first episode. I really don't know what in the hell I was thinking. I deserve every single rebuke you can give me over that one.
Western Animation
- One thing Jhonen Vasquez came to regret about Invader Zim was Gaz's abusive behavior and Professor Membrane's apathy towards Dib. Despite the show running on bad things happening to the characters for comedy, he thought the Membrane family's dynamic was a little too cruel to be funny, a sentiment shared by many fans. The comics and movie would try to alleviate this by giving the Membranes more positive interactions and affirming they do care about each other despite their dysfunctional tendencies.