Simple Solution Wont Work / Western Animation

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Examples of the simple solution not working in western animation.

• American Dad!: In "The Kidney Stays in the Picture", after a drinking contest, one of Hayley’s kidneys dies, and her other one is failing, so she needs a transplant as soon as possible. Unfortunately, her family members aren't able to do it for the following reasons:
  • Francine, her mother, would give her own, but she only has one. She lost the other in a tequila pounding contest with her friend Kelly and comedian George Wallace, who went on to become the second-most famous black man in a Congo hat.
  • Stan, her father, is willing to give one of his own kidneys, but Francine shoots that idea down, confessing that she had a drunken affair with a man during one of her bachelorette parties years ago, so there's a chance Stan isn't Hayley's biological father and therefore won’t be compatible.
  • That leaves Steve, Hayley’s biological brother, as the only suitable donor. Unfortunately, he ends up getting scared out of it when Roger tells him a frightening story of how the hospital takes people’s kidneys out.
• American Dragon: Jake Long:
  • In "Professor Rotwood's Thesis", in an effort to raise money replace a broken vase, Jake tries selling photos of himself in dragon form to Prof. Rotwood, who's offering money to anyone who can provide proof of mythological creatures. Unfortunately, Rotwood is quick to decry them as fakeries; as he explains, he finds it hard to believe an amature photographer like Jake was not only able to get clear photos of such an elusive creature as a dragon, but get the thing to strike poses. Jake tries again with scales and talon clippings, but these are likewise dismissed, this time because they don't fit into his (incorrect) theories.
  • In "Body Guard Duty", when Jake has to take an important exam in Rotwood's class or face summer school, Jake initially thinks that, since the topic of the exam is mythical creatures, he should be fine. Unfortunately, Rotwood's blatant ignorance of the magical world means that none of Jake's magical know-how works.
  • "The Rotwood Files": When Jake learns that his new principal has developed a dragon-revealing chemical, Lao Shi and Fu Dog tell him that he needs to get said principal fired. When Jake suggests simply sneaking into the principal's office to steal the chemical, Lao Shi voices concerns that if Jake were caught, the principal's belief of who the dragon is would be confirmed.
• Animaniacs: Slappy Squirrel wants to cook something but she's out of walnuts, so she decides to raid a tree guarded by one of her enemies. When her nephew Skippy asks why she can't just go to the store and buy some, she has a very effective rebuttal for that: it wouldn't make for a very good cartoon.
  Slappy: Oh, yeah, we'll have them in hysterics with that bit! Six minutes in a checkout line! Ooh, somebody stop me, I'm laughing!
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force: In “Shirt Herpes”, Carl has tricked Shake into wearing a cool t-shirt that gives him odd dreams, and the shirt won’t come off him. He's eventually told through the aforementioned dreams that the shirt will eventually place him into a coma, where his mind will be forced to experience him being raped by a monstrous octopus. And the only way to take it off is to trick someone dumber than him into wearing it (which, given this is Shake we're talking about, is easier said than done). When Frylock examines Shake’s shirt, he finds out that the shirt is very parasitic and that the threads are merging with his skin, and growing towards his brain, so if they cut off the shirt, Shake will die.
  Shake: So, what exactly are you saying?
  Frylock: I think I already said it exactly. Cut the shirt off, you die.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • At the start of Book 2, the Gaang meet an Earth Kingdom general who thinks that the Avatar State will let them win the war faster than having Aang go through the process of learning the four different types of bending. Roku eventually explains to Aang why this isn't a good idea; due to how it works, if Aang were to be killed mid-Avatar State, not only would he die, but the Avatar's cycle of reincarnation would be broken, ensuring that there would never be a new Avatar again.
  • After the original plan of invading the Fire Nation on the Day of the Black Sun (a solar eclipse that strips firebenders of their powers) fails, and with Aang and his team having started to believe that there's no longer any urgency in defeating Firelord Ozai before the arrival of Sozin's Comet (a comet that drastically boosts the power of Firebending) due to the Fire Nation having technically already won the war since they had taken Ba Sing Se, Aang's new plan is to wait it out rather than fight Ozai at the peak of his power. Zuko then reveals to him Ozai's ultimate plan: to use the Comet's power to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground so as to ensure no future uprisings, thus putting Aang back on his original deadline.
    • When Aang brings up Katara's supply of spirit water to heal him if the fight with Ozai goes south, Katara reveals that she already used it all reviving Aang after Azula blasted him at the end of Book 2.
  • After Aang disappears on the eve of his coming battle with the Fire Lord and the Gaang is unable to find him, they decide to seek out Iroh, who is the only other person they think could realistically stand a chance against Ozai during Sozin's Comet (Iroh is a firebender himself and thus would be equally empowered by the comet). When they do find him, he declines, not only because he's planning on leading the Order of the White Lotus in liberating Ba Sing Se, but also because if Iroh was the one to defeat Ozai (and Iroh emphasizes that he's not sure if he even could beat Ozai), history would just see one brother killing another for power. For the war to end peacefully, it must be the Avatar, as representative of all of the Four Nations, who defeats the Fire Lord.
    • Before this, they try using Bounty Hunter June and her shirshu (a creature that can track any scent) to find Aang, only for the beast to get confused, implying that wherever Aang is, it's beyond even it's ability to track.
• Back at the Barnyard:
  • In "Hypno-A-Go-Go", Otis accidentally gets hypnotized while watching a boxing movie, with a coach instructing a boxer "When you hear the bell, destroy Farmer!^note the name of his opponent", resulting in Otis trying to kill the farmer everytime he hears a bell ring. The other animals read Otis's hypnotism kit for a cure, only to be told that only the person who hypnotized him can undo it, so unless the character's actor had another movie in which he said "Don't destroy farmer", that's not an option. Upon reading that Otis would only snap out of it on his own once he succeeded, the other animals use a dummy of the farmer to make the hypnotized Otis think he destroyed him, thus ending the command.
  • In "The Chronicles of Barnia", after Snotty stumbles upon the animals engaged in LARPing, they save face by claiming that he's stumbled upon a magical world, which he then proceeds to 'conquer' and rule like a petty tyrant. Everyone suggests just throwing him out, but Otis points out that he'll just come back to make more trouble, necessitating a slightly longer scheme that ends with the 'magic outhouse' Snotty thought brought him to 'Barnia' being destroyed.
• The Batman (2004): The episode "Seconds" focuses on Francis Grey, a man who just got out of prison following a 17-year sentence for the theft of a watch and the (accidental) destruction of an entire city block during his getaway. While in prison, he developed the ability to turn back time, using this ability to create a chemical weapon and kill everyone in Gotham as payback for his time being taken away from him. One might wonder why Francis doesn't use his powers to go back to the moment before he stole the watch and either not steal it or do it in such a way that he'll avoid being caught. He explains that he attempted to go back and undo his crime, but he can only rewind time up to twenty seconds. He succeeds in killing a large chunk of Gotham's populace, including Batman, Robin, Batgirl, and his own son. The grief from his son's death gives Francis enough strength to go back 17 years to the moment before he stole the watch. He chooses not to steal it this time.
• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • In the episode "What is Reality?" Commissioner Gordon ends up trapped in a virtual reality program by the Riddler, where he is forced to experience high G-forces. Batman attempts to free Gordon by merely unplugging the machine, but the Riddler reveals that doing so will result in Gordon experiencing a rather sudden and fatal stop, forcing Batman to enter the program.
  • In "Joker's Millions", although Joker could admit that he was pranked by rival mob boss King Barlowe posthumously, who willed him funny money, this would effectively destroy the clown's criminal cred with Gotham's Rogues Gallery for good and subject him to public mockery for the rest of his life for foolishly accepting a supposed fortune without verifying it beforehand. On the other hand, not paying the IRS means Joker would be jailed in a more secure prison over Arkham Asylum as he can't claim insanity on tax evasion charges. Barlowe also knew that Joker would spend the real cash on frivolous items and have nothing to pay the IRS.
    • In the same episode, Joker's goons throw some schemes to raise the cash needed to pay the IRS, only for Joker to point out that it would just attract undue attention from Batman and "send his keister back to Arkham".
• Big City Greens:
  • In “Desserted”, Cricket takes his family out to eat at Crispy’s, that’s until they later find out that Cricket is only paying for this meal by having them take on the “Crispy’s Sundae Challenge”, where they must eat a giant ice cream sundae to get their meals for free. Bill has enough of this, and tries to pay the food himself, until he finds out that Cricket swapped all of their money with “Cricket Bucks” in case they would back out.
    • As the family struggles to finish, Cricket tries to get them out of the problem, by asking their waitress, Gina, if she can cut them some slack so they don't have to eat it all, but Gina tells Cricket that he and his family must eat the entire sundae, and gives him the rule book, quoting it.
    • Then while looking at the rule book, Cricket finds out that if the sundae is contaminated, they’ll have to throw it away. So once he gets a fly in his sundae, Gina immediately sends the sundae away, but it turns out that the loophole has another loophole in the tiny fine print stating that if the sundae is contaminated, they will get a new one and the contest will begin again from the beginning.
  • In “Flimflammed”, When Gloria found out that Cricket scammed her of $200 she immediately tussles with him so he can give back her money, but Cricket confesses that he already spent it on a wedding cake.
    Gloria: You spent all of my money... on a wedding cake?
    Cricket: It's just the biggest cake I could buy. I don't care if it's for a wedding.
    Gloria: Then what are those?
    (She points at the Cricket figurines on the cake.)
    Cricket: Well, excuse me if I wanted to feel special on my big day.
• Bob's Burgers:
  • In "The Kids Rob a Train", while the kids were looking for a way to get out of the Juice Caboose, Louise gets the idea to use the overhead hatch. Instead of being an easy route outside, the sun has made the metal roof so hot that it can't be touched, so the kids have to find another way out.
  • "Glued, Where's My Bob?": Bob gets superglued to the restaurant toilet due to a misfired prank — on the same day he's scheduled for an interview with Coasters Magazine, no less. A couple of times, characters suggest he simply detach the seat from the toilet, but this isn't feasible because Felix Fischoeder's redesign of their bathroom gave them a seatless toilet.
  • "Long Time Listener, First Time Bob": When Clem Clements hijacks his old radio station so he can do whatever he wants on the radio again, with the Belchers (minus Linda) caught in the middle, the manager of the radio station asks Patrick, the radio engineer, to shut them down. Patrick admits he does have a button to shut them down, but he also points out they can just enter his booth to press the button again to resume what they're doing since there's nothing stopping them from doing it since he's outnumbered.
• Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars!: In the episode "Kreation Konspiracy", the heroes make contact with the scientists who originally made KOMPLEX, hoping to learn about some weakness or shutdown code that could turn the tide of the war. Unfortunately, the scientists simply say that if there were such an easy solution, they would have used it before KOMPLEX exiled them into space.
• Code Lyoko:
  • Each season gives a reason why the kids don't do the simple method of shutting down the Supercomputer, and by extension, XANA.
    • Season 1: Aelita, a friendly AI, is trapped in Lyoko, and the kids (especially Jeremie, who has a crush on her) want to virtualize her into the real world before shutting XANA down.
    • Season 2: XANA infects Aelita with a virus that ensures that if XANA is shut down, Aelita dies.
    • Season 3: XANA has escaped into the wider internet, meaning that sutting down the Supercomputer is not only pointles, but given that Lyoko is the team's main means of fighting XANA, detrimental.
  • Throughout the first season, one of the heroes' greatest assets was the ability to Return to the Past after every XANA attack. However, there are two major limitations that keep it from being a Story-Breaker Power.
    • As far back as the first episode, it's been mentioned that if XANA is able to kill someone, then not even a Return to the Past could bring them back.
    • In the season 2 episode "A Great Day", it's discovered that every time Return to the Past is activated, it makes the Supercomputer, and by extension XANA, more powerful. Following this revelation, the heroes vow to use the Return to the Past as a last resort going forward.
  • In the episode "A Fine Mess", a glitch in the virtualization program causes Odd and Yumi to devirtualize in each other's bodies. When Odd suggests that the two of them simply virtualize back to Lyoko and devirtualize again, Jeremie counters that for all they know, the glitch'd just make the situation worse, such as making them come back with no body.
• Dan Vs.: In "George Washington", after being shanghaied by Dan into helping him blow up George Washington's house, Elise asks Chris if they could just take Dan to a random house and say it's Mount Vernon. Chris explains that Dan's mind is such a bizarre patchwork of random trivia (for example, he knows who carved Mt. Rushmore^note Gutzon Borglum, but has no idea where it is^note South Dakota; Dan had guessed Ecuador), that it'd be a crapshoot on whether or not he'd see through the deception.
• Danny Phantom: In "Bitter Reunions", Jazz wonders why Vlad, an ultra-rich Packers fan, doesn't just buy the team instead of a massive amount of memorabilia. An annoyed Vlad explains that they're owned by the city of Green Bay, who refuse to sell.
• Darkwing Duck: In the pilot "Darkly Dawns the Duck", when Taurus Bulba wants Hammerhead and his cohorts to steal the ramrod while it's being moved by train, Hammerhead and the others are a little nervous about robbing a moving train and wonder why they couldn't just wait until it stopped before stealing the ramrod. Bulba replies with this:
  Taurus Bulba: (Jovially) Oh! You mean when the army takes control of the weapon (turning angry and snorting) with its tanks and jeeps, and hundreds of guards!
• Devil May Cry (2025): The White Rabbit seeks the pieces to a key that will open a barrier protecting the human realm from the demon realm to create Hell on Earth. When the human task force DARKCOM gets one of the pieces, a soldier suggests destroying it. But the scientist Dr. Fisher explains that the pieces are collectively actively maintaining the barrier, so destroying one would only do the White Rabbit's job for him.
• Dragons: Riders of Berk: Hookfang develops a rivalry with a Titan-Wing Monstrous Nightmare over a female, leading to the two dragons going head-to-head. All of the riders know Hookfang is physically outmatched, so Astrid suggests ganging up on the Titan-Wing. Hiccup clarifies that until it's apparent that the Titan-Wing is not the dominant male of the Monstrous Nightmares in the area, he'll just keep coming back, and thus Hookfang and Snotlout have to figure out how to defeat him on their own.
• In the second episode of Dragon Tales, "To Kingdom Come", Ord's selfishness results in himself and his friends trapped forever in the titular Kingdom Come. Since there is nothing but sky above them, Wheezie comments they just can fly out of there and they try to, but soon find themselves blocked by solid clouds surrounding the castle, making them to crash on the floor. To which Monsieur Marmadune reminds them that he already told them they cannot leave from Kingdom Come.
• In the Earthworm Jim episode "Bring Me The Head of Earthworm Jim", Psy-Crow suggests that Professor Monkey-For-A-Head, the inventor of Jim's Super Suit, simply build a second suit. The Professor replies that while he can make the Suit, he can't replicate the Suit's power source, which was literally Forged by the Gods;
  Professor MFAH: Well, I could, but the Suit's power comes from the Battery of the Gods, and I only had one. I tried to get another, and the gods turned me into a bread-maker! [...] But the point is, without one of those Batteries, any suit I build would be, you know....pretty weak.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy:
  • "Dawn of the Eds": After Ed bemoans the fact that a new sci-fi movie is rated Adults-Only, Edd tries to cheer him up by pointing out that it'll be out on TV in a year. Ed counters that, thanks to network censorship, it'll have "all the good parts cut out".
  • "Flea-Bitten Ed": After Ed swells up from rabbit allergies, Eddy suggests they poke a hole to deflate him, only for Edd to voice concerns about causing Ed to explode.
• This is quite common in The Fairly OddParents!, where the simple solution is often forbidden by Da Rules.
  • In "Christmas Every Day!", after Timmy sees the consequences of wishing for Christmas Every Day, he immediately tries to undo the wish only to learn that he can't; every year on Christmas Eve, the fairies of the world lend most of their magic to Santa so he can do his job, and retrieve it the morning after Christmas. Now that it's Christmas 24/7, they're all powerless to do anything. Timmy eventually comes up with the idea to wish to Santa to undo everything.
  • In "Nectar of the Odds", Timmy is determined to get his hands on tickets to see Crash Nebula on Ice, but it's sold out, and the only tickets he can find are scalped ones that cost $1,500. Wanda explains that he can't just wish for tickets because that would involve stealing them from someone who already has them and he can't just wish for $1,500 to buy the scalped tickets because that's counterfeiting. He's forced to earn the money by selling lemonade.
  • The plot of "Abra-Catastrophe!" revolves around Timmy losing his Fairy-versary Muffin, which is capable of granting any wish — even ones that defy Da Rules — to whoever takes a bite out of it. At one point, Cosmo asks why Timmy doesn't just wish for the Muffin back. Timmy congratulates him on the great idea, only for Wanda to reveal they can't, as the muffin's magic is more powerful than theirs. Turns out Cosmo knew this; he just wanted to know why Timmy hadn't tried the obvious solution yet.
  • The episode "Parent Hoods" has Timmy's parents being arrested after they are mistaken for a similar-looking criminal duo. When Timmy tries wishing his parents free, Wanda informs him that it won't work due to them being so entwined in the US Legal System that it could take years to get them out of jail, even if magic is used. Because of this, Timmy decides to get the real culprits caught to prove his parents' innocence.
  • In "Odd, Odd West", when Timmy tries to wish for the deed to the wild west town that's about to be torn down, Wanda explains that they need to actually know where the deed is first.
    Wanda: We're fairies, not psychics.
  • In "Five Days of FLARG", when Mark, who had gone into Self-Imposed Exile to escape from his crazy fiancee Mandie, is depressed that he's missing the titular Yugopotamian celebration, Timmy asks him why he doesn't just go home for the holidays. The broadcast they're watching which shows said celebration then reveals that Mandie is still waiting for Mark to return... in an Ax-Crazy manner.
  • "Back to the Norm" has Mr. Crocker and Norm the Genie teaming up to try and defeat Timmy and capture his fairies. When all of Crocker's overly-elaborate death traps backfire on him, Norm suggests that it would be easier to just do something like sending Timmy to Mars where he will suffocate from lack of oxygen. Crocker shoots down the idea because he believes that the only way to successfully capture Cosmo and Wanda is if Timmy is destroyed on Earth, much to Norm's frustration. Norm eventually grows tired enough of Crocker's idiocy that he decides to leave him and go grant wishes for Timmy instead, one of them being his Mars idea, with Crocker being the one sent there instead.
  • "Timmy's 2D House of Horror":
    • After one of Timmy's wishes destroys Vicky's house, she and her family move in with the Turners and drive him crazy. Timmy's first instinct is to wish for Vicky's house to be repaired, only for Mr. Turner (whom, along with his wife, have grown obssessively enamored with having Vicky's parents over all the time to hang out) to proceed to destroy it so that Vicky's parents continue to have an excuse to stay (Vicky's parents turn a blind eye to this in the hope the Turners can act as witnesses to Vicky's abuses).
    • When seeing everyone watching a 3D movie, he then hits on the idea to scare them away by wishing for their 3D glasses to show them horrifying images, and to not be removable until they leave^note To give an idea of how scary these are, they turn the Turners eating french bread and meatball subs into monsters eating eyeballs and a Frenchman's arm. While this scares the parents, Vicky herself is unfazed, and since her parents are still more scared of her than what they're seeing, they refuse to flee. Fortunately, Timmy is able to shift gears by wishing for Vicky's glasses to show things which scare her specifically.
• Family Guy:
  • Played for Drama in “And Then There Were Fewer”, when the mansion guests witness Stephanie being shot dead, they immediately try to leave, but are suddenly stopped when the thunderstorm knocks over a tree and blocks their only exit. Worse yet, due to the storm, no one has any cell service to call for help, and the landline phone is out of service.
    • Derek manages to pick up some bars from his phone, so he tries to reach up the balcony to signal the police. Unfortunately, the murderer catches him, and pushes him off the balcony.
    • Once Lois finds out about Diane Simons being the killer, Diane explains to her how this trope bedeviled her original murder plan. Originally the plan would’ve been simpler; James Woods gets shot in his chair (rigged to cause a gun to go off), Diane takes the hidden gun, and puts it in Tom’s luggage to frame him. But she didn’t expect for Stephanie to sit in said rigged chair, thus ruining her plan. After murdering James Woods during the black-out, when she was alone from the others, Diane went back to Woods’ corpse, and tried to take out the knife, but just then, Priscilla woke up from fainting and caught her in the act, so Diane had to kill her. Then, Diane tried to hide the knife within Tom’s suitcase, but unfortunately Muriel spotted her, so to avoid any witnesses, Diane had to stab her in the back. But just as Muriel was stabbed, she made a frightful shriek. Diane couldn’t leave the knife on her person, as everyone was coming in, so in a quick attempt, she wiped the knife handle with a cloth, to avoid the analysis of any fingerprints. But just then, Derek calls out that he can signal for help, and Diane couldn’t allow him to call the police, as she needed more time to pull off her plan to frame Tom, so she had to kill him as well, and once she made some final adjustments, she was able to carry out the rest of her plan.
  • “Screams of Silence: The Story of Brenda Q.” During a conversation on how much of a abusive monster Quagmire’s sister Brenda's boyfriend Jeff is to the point of mercilessly beating the shit out of her for the smallest things, Peter asks Joe, who is a cop, why he can’t just arrest him, Joe then explains he is legally unable to do so unless Brenda herself files a formal complaint against Jeff to the police.^note  Even though Jeff was literally beating up Brenda right in front of Joe himself and everyone else around them, thus making them witnesses with enough evidence. Therefore in reality, Joe would not only have to arrest him, he would legally be required to.
  • Parodied in the Three Shorts episode "Three Kings": in the short that parodies Stand by Me, the group discusses early on that they should just take a bus to go to where the body is located, but then one of them points out that Cleveland is African-American.
  • In "I Dream of Jesus", after Brian and Stewie destroy Peter's "Surfin' Bird" vinyl, he tries to purchase a new one, only for every store he looks in to say that a dog and a baby bought every copy they have.
• Futurama:
  • In "A Big Piece of Garbage", a massive ball of 20th-century garbage is headed toward Earth. Leela suggests the most obvious solution, shooting a missile at it, only to be told that the ball is so gooey that any missiles fired at it would just go straight through.
  • In "When Aliens Attack", the Omicronians threaten the Earth because Fry accidentally disrupted the broadcast of the final episode of Single Female Lawyer back in 1999, which reaches the Omicronians 1,000 years later on their planet. Bender suggests simply finding a copy of the final episode for them, but no results come up on the computer, as Professor Farnsworth says that all the videotapes from that era were destroyed in 2443 during the second coming of Jesus.
  • In "Parasites Lost", when Fry contracts worms, the rest of the crew need to go inside his body using remote miniature robotic versions of themselves. Bender asks the Professor why he doesn't just shrink them, to which the Professor responds that it would require very tiny atoms, which apparently are very expensive. They also can't let Fry know what they are doing, as anything Fry knows the worms know; this would give them the chance to defend themselves, so Leela needs to keep Fry occupied.
• In "Momma's Gotta Hustle" from The Ghost and Molly McGee, Sharon needs to get a job to support the family and get the family van fixed. The family make a bunch of crazy suggestions as they go past a "HELP WANTED" sign at a diner, which Scratch sees, proceeding to hail himself a hero and tell Sharon to go cook. It doesn't go very well for him.
  Sharon: (voice gradually turns demonic) I have worked in my parents' restaurant growing up and that was enough kitchen work for a lifetime. NEVER SAY "GO COOK" AGAIN!
• In the Gravity Falls episode "Fight Fighters", Dipper is drawn into a battle against Rumble McSkirmish, a video game character he inadvertently summoned to the real world. Soos tries to help Dipper by fiddling with Rumble's health bar, but the HUD just flickers intangibly, doing absolutely nothing to his health.
  Soos: It was worth a shot.
• The Great North: In "For Whom The Smell Tolls pt. 2", one of the hazards threatening the trapped students is a pair of pizzly bears. Mrs. Tuntley offers to just shoot them, only for Dr. French to explain that the pizzlies are an endangered species, and they can't kill them unless they're actively attacking someone.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: One episode has our heroes trapped in an Elaborate Underground Base infested with mutated chicken monsters. When Mandy asks if Grim can do anything, Grim simply states that man-made monsters are "way outside my jurisdiction".
• In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2021) episode "Eternia 2000", the Masters of the Universe learn that a piece of the Sigil of Hssss is on a train perpetually moving in a giant circle at 200 mph. When He-Man starts to slow the train down, Duncan discovers that the entire train is rigged to explode if it does. King Stratos suggests letting the train explode to destroy the sigil piece and invoke No MacGuffin, No Winner. He-Man shoots the idea down because they don't know who or what is operating the train, and he won't risk killing innocent people.
• Invincible (2021): In "I Gotta Get Some Air", after the most recent Flaxan invasion ends with Robot and Monster Girl stranded on the other side, Bulletproof asks if they can open a portal to the Flaxan homeworld, only for Cecil to explain that they've been trying to figure that out since the first invasion.
• Jackie Chan Adventures:
  • A repeated statement by Uncle is that "magic must defeat magic!" and, sure enough, whenever a magic-empowered enemy appears (which is like 99.9% of the major enemies) they are completely immune to everything but magical attacks (or martial arts, or magically-empowered martial arts) and by the middle part of the series Captain Black and his subordinates don't even bother to do more than tell Team Chan where to go and arrest any defeated human goons the chaos leaves behind.
  • It also turns out that magic as powerful as the Chinese Zodiac-based one within the Talismans cannot be destroyed, just transferred from one recipient to another, which means that Jackie's attempt to get rid of them in the third season just leads to another worldwide scavenger hunt, only this time for magically-empowered animals instead of talismans.
  • In "The Mask of El Toro Fuerte", one of the new guys accompanying the Dark Hand enforcers suggests that they wait for Jackie to retrieve the talisman on his own and then relieve him of the talisman once he emerges. Finn points out that they don't know what the talisman can do, meaning Jackie could bust out of the temple fifty-feet tall and with laser-eyes; the new guy freaks out at the notion of laser eyes (ironically, laser-eyes is exactly the power of the pig talisman, which would appear later). But then, it turns out the talisman isn't even in the temple, as somebody took it some time ago.
• Johnny Test:
  • The episode "Johnny Escape from Bling-Bling Island" has Bling-Bling breaking into the lab and stealing a shoe from every pair belonging to Susan the night before she and Mary are to attend a dinner party involving Gil with the girls instructing Johnny and Dukey to get them back. When Johnny suggests that they could instead just buy more down at the shoe store, Susan frantically tells him that she can't because most of her collection is imported and that it would take weeks to order new ones in.
    Johnny: Okay, I think I'm gonna go now, because you guys are both nuts!
    Susan: Johnny, there are a lot of things boys will never understand about girls, and one of them is their love of shoes. I barely understand it!
  • The episode "No Homework for Johnny" has Susan and Mary building Johnny a robot designed to help him with his schoolwork, only for Johnny to inadvertently use it to steal things from all over town due to the robot having no concept of money or ownership. During the family's discussion of how to fix things and get out of trouble with the law, Lila suggests that the easiest way would be to destroy the robot so that the thefts can't be traced back to them, only for the girls to inform her that doing so would be a bad idea because the lithium oxide batteries powering it would contaminate the air and kill them all if they were ever to be taken apart. Instead, they opt to secretly return everything that was stolen and give the robot to one of their neighbors as a gift.
  • The episode "Johnny vs. Smash Badger 3" sees Johnny get a new video game, only to get stuck on the last level. Johnny's first idea is to look online for walkthroughs and guides, only for the search to come up with nothing, with Dukey noting that because the game is so new, no one's had a chance to finish it, let alone post anything about it.
• Jonny Quest:
  • The episode "Treasure of the Temple" sees a gang of crooked treasure hunters try to scare the Quests away from a Mayan temple. When one of the bad guys suggests they just kill the Quests, their leader says he's worried about the authorities coming to investigate if they fail to check in.
  • In "Terror Island", after Dr. Quest is kidnapped, Hadji's first instinct is to call the police, only for Race to reveal that the kidnappers left a note specifically forbidding the police, under pain of Dr. Quest's death.
• Justice League:
  • In the Pilot Movie, after hearing how the Martian Manhunter defeated the Imperium with a powerful nerve gas before, the Flash asks him why he doesn't do it again. J'onn explains that the gas can only be made from a rare Martian plant, and the only sample he brought with him was destroyed by the Imperium when they captured him.
    Flash: Uh, what's Plan B?
  • In the episode "Wild Cards", while Batman warning the TV executive that he sold airtime to the Joker is enough to get him to have his station cut the broadcast, it doesn't prevent Joker from carrying out his scheme since he had the forethought to buy time in more than one network.
  • The episode "Hereafter'' gives us two:
    • When Superman finds out that Vandal Savage has a time machine, he asks the latter why he never used it to stop his past self from destroying the world. Vandal explains that he can't travel to a point in the past when he existed, and given that he's an immortal who's been around since the Stone Age, it's pretty much useless to him. Fortunately, since Superman was flung to the future during that time, he's able to go.
    • When they discover that the only power source that'll keep the time machine active long enough is a zero-point energy generator that was stolen by some roach-men, Superman asks Vandal if he can make a new one. Vandal reveals that he's already working on one. It'll be ready in 50 years.
• Kim Possible:
  • "Bonding":
    • When Dr. Dementor's invention leaves Kim and Ron stuck to their respective Sitcom Arch-Nemesis, Kim's first instinct is to go to her brain surgeon mother and rocket scientist father to see if they can think of a solution. Unfortunately, this proves to be a bit outside their wheelhouse.
      Dr. Mrs. Possible: Sorry, dear. We deal in science.
      Dr. Mr. Possible: Not mad science.
    • When Kim and Bonnie are scaling a cliff towards Dr. Dementor's secret lair, the latter wonders why they don't use a jetpack to make the trip faster. Kim explains that it wouldn't handle their combined weight.
• Krapopolis: In "National Lampoon's The Odyssey!", after Shlub gets the family lost at sea, Tyrannis asks Deliria to use her powers to guide the boat to Shlub's mother's home. Deliria attempts to do it, but when she sees that she has no idea where they're at, she starts panicking because without any landmarks to indicate their location, she has no idea where to guide the boat to.
  Deliria: I could fly across the ocean for weeks and still be nowhere, and then how would I get back to you? I would never find my way back! I'd be lost! I am lost! We're all lost! We're lost!
• The Last Kids on Earth: When the kids learn that Thrull is secretly working for Rezzoch (the Eldritch Abomination the kickstarted the Monsterpocalypse), and that the beastiary he had them fill out is the key to their summoning, they begin brainstorming ideas. Quint wants to gather the other monsters and gang up on Thrull, but June points out that they have no idea if any of them are on his side. They then try to destroy the beastiary, only to find that it's Made of Indestructium.
• The Loud House:
  • "Fool’s Paradise", the siblings have a meeting debating on how to survive the upcoming April Fools' Day from Luan. Luna suggests that they post bad reviews of Fanny's Prank Emporium, and force them out of business, thereby eliminating Luan's supplier, they eliminate the problem. But Lincoln explains that they're too late for that, as Luan got her prank supplies shipped to an offshore warehouse months ago.
    Lincoln: (The other sisters look at him speechless) She told me that to scare me. It totally worked.
  • "Scales Of Justice" sees Lana protesting a construction project that threatens a lake that's home to the Fishermans, a mated pair of fish she's looking after. A Running Gag in the episode is that people would question why the Fishermans can't just call a lawyer to defend their home, which Lana has to inform them that they're actual fish and can't operate a phone. A construction worker asks why she doesn't just move them; Lana explains that they just spawned, and she's worried about harming the eggs.
• Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: “Goofy’s Goofbot”, in the episode, Goofy presents the crew his very own robot clone, but after a mishap, he accidentally presses all of his buttons, causing the robot to go haywire, along with busting one of the robot’s buttons. So in order to fix him, they needed to replace the busted button with a new spring, and unfortunately they can’t call in Toodles for help, because they used up all their mouska-tools.
• The Mighty Nein; The Bright Queen of the Kryn Dynasty sends an ultimatum to the king of the Dwendalian Empire, accusing Dwendalian agents of stealing the Luxon Beacon, a valuable religious artifact of the Kryn, and telling him to either return the Beacon or face war. When one of King Dwendal's advisors asks why they don't just tell the Queen they don't have the Beacon (which, as far as he's aware, is true), Trent Ikithon shoots him down by saying it's a Pretext for War whether the Empire has the Beacon or not, and they should prepare for a conflict regardless.
• Miraculous Ladybug: In Season 5, Hawk Moth gets ahold of all the Miraculous in Marinette's possession except Ladybug and Cat and becomes Monarch. The Snake Miraculous gives a Time Rewind Mechanic, allowing the user to rewind time back to the point the power was first activated. This gives them effectively infinite chances to defeat the heroes. However, it's revealed in "Intuition" that he had been using it, but Ladybug's Lucky Charm is too adaptable and Cat Noir always manages to give Ladybug the chance to use it. His Cataclysm wound also keeps getting worse during the loops, meaning that he can't spend forever resetting time.
• Mixels, in “Wrong Colors”, Shuff and Volectro are being chased by a stampede of Nixels. So they needed to get a cubit and mix out of this mess. Unfortunately, Shuff got his cubit mixed up with one of Zaptor’s hamlogna sandwiches. Volectro however does have a cubit, but it was the wrong colors, so they won’t be compatible.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Magical Mystery Cure" when Spike proposes they use the Memory Spell to make their friends realize they swapped each others cutie marks and jobs, Twilight states it won't work as "It's not their memories, Spike. It's their true selves that have been altered!", and that Zecora's Cutie Pox cure for fake cutie marks won't work either. How exactly it's different isn't explained, but it could mean that even if they're reminded of what they did in the past, they'd just automatically pivot back to what their Cutie Marks tell them, and said Cutie Marks aren't fake but legitimate ones swapped so there's nothing for the cure to work on.
• Ninjago: Dragons Rising: In season 3, it turns out the Forbidden Five are hunting the Prism Blades, one of which the ninja have in their possession. Kai suggests they just smash it then and there, and even tries to do so, since they know it's possible after Lloyd broke one the previous season. Kai's efforts fail, and everyone figures the previous shattering was a one-off they can't replicate.
• This comes up during the discussion to stop the Day of Unity in The Owl House episode "Clouds on the Horizon". After learning that the Draining Spell requires all nine coven heads present to function, Lilith thinks that they could just hide one of them until after the eclipse that powers it has passed. However, she's quickly informed that Belos made sure to get substitutes for all nine of them after the events of "Eda's Requiem" just in case they end up incapacitated or attempt to rebel again, meaning that they'll have to go with the far more dangerous plan of sneaking Eda onto the platform where the spell is performed so her curse can corrupt it.
• Outside In: Yorick initially tries to turn the sphere inside out with the "simple solution" of pushing the sphere's two halves right through each other, but this turns out to violate the rule of not making any creases in the sphere, causing the sphere to turn to dust.
• In Ozzy & Drix there have been a few times where the best option to get rid of the Virus of the Week is to have Hector simply vomit them out. While there is a button to trigger this reflex, in both cases pushing it is never that simple. In "The Globfather", when Sal Monella and his gang attempt to give Hector food poisoning, Drix and Maria are blocked from getting the vomit button pressed by an intern who makes them fill out a ton of paperwork that would take too long. Meaning they have to get Hector to vomit the hard way via the aptly-named "Barfy Bungie" carnival ride, which he is afraid of. In "Triumph of the Supplements" the vomit button is much more conveniently accessible in cases of emergency, just as the Lead Gang start tearing the stomach and nerves apart. Ozzy goes for the button to try and flush them out, only to find they've destroyed it.
• The Penguins of Madagascar:
  • Parodied in the episode "Popcorn Panic", where Zookeeper Alice greatly enforces the "do not feed the animals" rule (much to the zoo animals' chagrin as it means that they won't be able to get popcorn anymore). To solve the problem, Julien suggests that they simply get rid of Alice, only for Skipper to shoot it down on the belief that more Alices will just take her place (forty-two more to be exact, according to Kowalski).
  • In "High Moltage", the Penguins want to leave the Zoo to catch the premiere of the new Commodore Danger movie, only to discover that the zoo has installed a new security system that shocks animals that try to leave. When several of their plans to escape fail, Kowalski points out that if worst comes to worst they could see the movie another day, only for Skipper to refuse, pointing out that the movie is so popular that unless they go today they'll almost certainly have everything spoiled, ruining the point of going.
  • "Our Man in Grrfurjiclestan" has the Penguins confronted with a brainwashed Burt Rockgut, whose brainwashing is activated with a finger snap. Kowalski realizes that they should be able to free him by snapping their fingers... except the Penguins are, well, penguins, so they don't have fingers to snap.
• In one episode of Pinky and the Brain, after catching a pair of field mice that turn out to be his parents, Brain decides he wants to communicate with them, and so hooks them up to devices that give them sentience. Unfortunately, they end up being irritating and grating (acting a bit like Brain) and end up driving him crazy. When Pinky asks him why he doesn't just unplug the speech devices, Brain mentions he had tried but his father caught him in the act and threatened to cut off his allowance.
• Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja: In "Dawn of the Driscol" Jerry Driscol attempts to complete his Doomsday Device following his accidental resurrection. In the final battle Viceroy desperately tries to find a way to shut it down before it destroys the world, Howards suggests simply cutting the power only for Viceroy to reveal that it's powered by an internal nuclear reactor meaning there is no way to do so.
• Regular Show: "The Best Burger In The World" sees Mordecai and Rigby stuck working while a food truck is selling the titular burger. Mordecai asks if any of the other employees can buy them a burger, only for Skips to explain that there's a strict 'one burger per customer' rule. And they only make these burgers once a century.
• Rick and Morty: In “Mort Dinner Rick Andre”, after Morty landed Rick’s ship in the ocean, he ends up violating an ancient treaty with Mr. Nimbus, thus forcing Rick to arrange a dinner to make amends with him. When Jerry finds this out, he asks what’s stopping him from just calling the police, but Mr. Nimbus warns him that he can control them, but Jerry calls the police anyway.
  Police Officers: [confronting] Freeze!
  Mr. Nimbus: [twerks] Fight.
  [The police suddenly fight each other]
  Mr. Nimbus: [twerks] F***.
  [The police start having a make-out session]
  Mr. Nimbus: [twerks] Flee.
  [The police drive away]
  Mr. Nimbus: [to Rick] Shall we, Richard?
  Jerry: Okay, but how did he-
  Rick: [frustrated] Jesus Christ Jerry, he controls the police!
• In the Rocket Power episode 'Outta My Pit!', the Rocket gang builds a driftwood pit on the beach and Jerkass Lars and his gang try to take it from them. When the two groups argue over who gets to keep it, Reggie suggests they just share it, which the boys all reject with a resounding "No!"
• Rugrats: In "Chuckie Gets Skunked", Didi and Stu offer Chaz various remedies to try and help Chuckie after he gets sprayed by a skunk, only for Chaz to reveal he's already tried them all.
  Didi: Try using tomato juice.
  Chaz: Tried it. The tub is totally stained and Chuckie still stinks.
  Stu: Actually, I heard it's better to use tomato paste.
  Chaz: Tried it. Totally gunked up the drain. No effect on Chuckie.
  Didi: Why not just use some good old soap and water?
  Chaz: Tried it. Six times. Chuckie's skin started to come off but the skunk smell was just as strong as ever.
• Samurai Jack: Between seasons 4 and 5, Aku decided that if he couldn't kill Jack directly, he can just outlive the samurai with his immortality, especially since by that point, he'd destroyed literally every method of time travel in the world. Unfortunately, it turns out that the Time Travel spell that sent Jack into the future also made him just as un-aging as Aku, meaning the Master of Evil is now stuck in a perpetual stalemate with the only warrior who can kill him.
• Sidekick: In "Gone Gaga", Eric decides that he was wrong to use the love goggles after they prove to make Vana more obsessed with him than he wanted. Trevor points out that he could just remove the goggles, which Eric attempts. Not only are the goggles stuck to him, they blow up and cause everyone in the school to love him, not just Vana.
• The Simpsons: In the episode "Marge vs. the Monorail", when the titular monorail goes out of control, it is suggested to simply cut the power off, but the idea is shut down because the monorail is solar-powered.
  Train Technician, exasperated: "Solar powered!" When will people learn!
• Smiling Friends,
  • In “Who Violently Murdered Simon S. Salty?”, Pim and Charlie discover the murdered corpse of Salty. Pim immediately calls the police station. Unfortunately, the officer stops him, explaining that due to budget cuts, they have “a new force” in charge of murder investigations, and alerts them right away. Seconds later, Charlie gets a call from the boss, telling them of their new job to solve Salty’s murder, as their group is in charge of murders now.
  • In "Silly Samuel", the titular Samuel is a particularly wacky-looking cartoon character who wants to be taken seriously by others. Charlie states that the obvious solution would be plastic surgery. The group then go visit a plastic surgeon, who informs them that Samuel's physiology is such that any attempts at altering or covering it up would kill him.
• Sonic Boom:
  • "Cowbot": Eggman releases his new titular robot to destroy the island. Sonic and his friends are about to destroy it, but Eggman reveals that he also made Cowbot with "mootonium" (a pun-based radioactive compound), and if they destroy it, Cowbot will explode and vaporize everything and everyone in the area. So the heroes have to figure out a way to get rid of it in a delicate matter.
  • "Hedgehog Day": After Dr. Robotnik deduces what caused him to be trapped in a "Groundhog Day" Loop, he thinks that if he avoids the battle that caused it, the time loop will cease to exist. Cue the loop starting up again.
• South Park:
  • "Scott Tenorman Must Die" has Cartman tricked by the eponymous Scott Tenorman into buying Scott's pubic hair, thinking that this means Cartman is a man now. Upon finding out he's been duped, Cartman threatens to tell his mom if Scott doesn't give back the money. Scott isn't the least bit intimidated by this since, as Scott points out, Cartman would have to tell his mother that he paid for someone else's pubes. This leads Cartman to try and get his money back on his own.
  • "Over Logging: When Randy tells one of the Government employees at the refugee camp that he needs to use the internet because he hasn't jacked off in over two weeks (due to a nationwide internet outage preventing him from accessing internet porn), said employee tells him to just jack off without it. Randy says that it won't work because he is so addicted to internet porn that he can't get aroused without it.
  • "White People Renovating Houses" has Randy and the town's rednecks led by Darryl Weathers come into conflict when Randy's eponymous home renovation show keeps getting interrupted by the rednecks' protesting over losing their jobs with Confederate imagery and Randy worries about the damage they're doing to the show's brand. Darryl points out Randy could just remove "White People" from their show name. Randy then reveals he thought of that already, but he hasn't done it because literally every other name has been taken. He even lists some of them.
    Randy: All the other names were taken, your honor! Everyone's got a flipping show. [begins counting them off] Gay People Renovating Houses, Las Vegas People Renovating Houses, Texas People Flipping Houses, Little People Flipping Big Houses. Everything else was taken! And dammit, [pounds his fist on the podium] we built our show into something! We're trying to help people, and it's impossible with these guys waving a Confederate flag every chance they get!
  • "Unfulfilled" has an Amazon fulfillment center employee named Josh Carter getting trapped inside a small cardboard box due to a workplace accident. When an interviewer asks why he doesn't attempt to get out of the box, Josh explains that doing so would kill him because his organs are so severely compacted they'd spill out if the box was ever opened. This sadly happens anyway in the following episode when Jeff Bezos tricks a group of kids into opening Josh's box to kill him to keep him from interfering in Bezos's plans.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In "Dying for Pie", after Squidward accidentally feeds SpongeBob an exploding pie, his first thought is to call the hospital, only for Mr. Krabs, who claims to have seen this before (11 times to be exact), to tell him it won't do any good. Squidward calls anyway, only to be told the exact same thing.
  • "Pranks a Lot", SpongeBob and Patrick mess with a can of invisible spray, and made themselves invisible, so they take this chance to haunt Bikini Bottom while pretending to be ghosts. When they come to the Krusty Krab to haunt their last victim, Mr. Krabs, he’s immediately terrified and tries to escape.
    Mr. Krabs: I gotta get out of here!
    [He runs to the doors, but they don't open.]
    SpongeBob: You can't escape, Krabs, we've glued the doors shut!
    [The door is held closed with a long strip of glue.]
    Mr. Krabs: [off-screen] You'll never get me!
    [Mr. Krabs tries to break through the window, but instead of shattering, the window stretches like elastic and slingshots him backwards, and he crashes into a table]
    Patrick: Nice try, Krabs, but we replaced all the glass with rubber!
    [Mr. Krabs dives into the toilet, but gets stuck. He pulls himself out and sits on the floor, dazed]
    SpongeBob: Too late, Krabs, we've already clogged all the toilets! [The toilet is stuffed with toilet paper.]
  • In the episode "Growth Spout" Pearl's appetite has increased due to a growth spurt. Mr. Krabs is having trouble keeping her fed and she has eaten all of the food in their house, so he resorts to stealing food from others. Upon getting caught by SpongeBob and Squidward, SpongeBob reminds Mr. Krabs that he is a restaurant owner and could take Pearl to eat at the Krusty Krab. Mr. Krabs initially rebuffs the idea since he's worried Pearl will clean out his inventory. Fortunately, SpongeBob manages to cook a single Krabby Patty that was as filling as a million, which quells Pearl's appetite.
  • In "SpongeBob You're Fired", when Mr. Krabs wants to fire SpongeBob in order to save a nickel, SpongeBob offered to work without pay. Mr. Krabs says he couldn't let him do that as he'd lose his vendor's license due to violating labor laws^note though that kind of thing hasn't stopped him before.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks:
  • In "The Stars at Night", several of these are given out rapid fire in regards to taking out the out of control Texas-Class ships. Sneak attack? Can't exactly ambush an A.I.. Rendezvous with the Titan? They're on the far side of the system. Hit'em with a Logic Bomb? They've been designed against those.
  • In "An Embarrassment of Dooplers", when Mariner and Boimler discover that they've been tricked into smuggling weapons, and are pulled over by station security, Boimler suggests they just come clean and explain the situation, only for Mariner to explain that station security is notoriously corrupt, and if they're caught, then they'll just lock them up and confiscate their stuff to sell on the black market.
  • In "First First Contact", a planetoid loaded with an EMP-like material explodes, creating a massive debris field while also taking out the Archimedes, setting it on a collision course for a nearby inhabited planet they were there to do First Contact with. The crew of the Cerritos need to figure out a way to stop that from happening, unfortunately, the Tractor Beam will just draw the EMP-esque material into contact with the ship, the material's properties will get drawn in instead of repelled by the deflector fields, and warping around the debris is apparently such a bad idea that everyone on the bridge simultaneously chews out the guy who suggested it (conveniently drowning out the specifics on why that is a bad idea).
• Street Sharks: In "Shark of Steel", when Dr. Piranoid sends the SharkBot to break Repteel out of prison, Slobster wonders why bother when the cops are just going to give him to Piranoid in the morning. Piranoid reminds him that it was with the promise of reprogramming Repteel with the personality of a bunny, which, if he wants to keep his Villain with Good Publicity status, he has to follow through on. This way, he gets to keep said good PR, retain Repteel's viability as a minion, and ruin the Street Sharks' image in one fell swoop.
• Stōked:
  • The episode "Reef and the Evil Totem" has Reef being cursed with extremely bad luck after taking an ancient totem from the grounds near the waterfall. When he finally accepts it to be true after much denial, he attempts to lift it by selling the totem to George. Kahuna however informs Reef that simply giving the totem away won't fix things and that he will remain cursed unless he returns it to its resting place, prompting Reef to do so as quickly as possible.
  • One episode sees Reef being accused of a series of thefts around the resort. After Reef and Johnny (the only person to believe that the former is innocent) check the security footage and realize a seagull is the real culprit, Reef is all for showing the footage to the others, only for Johnny to claim that it's too circumstantial, and they need more solid evidence, hence them tracking down the gull's nest.
• SWAT Kats: In "A Bright and Shiny Future", the SWAT Kats are transported to a Bad Future ruled by the Metallikats. Meeting up with the few remaining resistance members (made up of the supporting cast), the SWAT Kats suggest seizing control of the Central Robot Control Matrix, which is what the Metallikats use to control their robot followers. Commander Feral retorts the Enforcers already tried that, and he and his niece Felina were the only survivors (and the SWAT Kats' own future counterparts also perished during the battle). With no other options, they try anyway.
• Tangled: The Series: The minute Rapunzel's magic hair comes back, she and Cassandra try cutting it, since that worked the first time around. However, this time Rapunzel's hair is totally immune to being cut by anything.
• Thunderbirds Are Go: During the Cold Open of "Heist Society", when talking about the transportation of an newly discovered particle, Alan wonders why they don't just fly the thing. Brains explains that the particle is highly unstable, especially to magnet fields, and above a certain altitude, the Earth's EM-field is enough to set it off. As such, it's being transported below sea-level on a mag-lev train.
• Transformers:
  • The Transformers: During the "Rebirth" trilogy, the Decepticons gain possession of the key to the Plasma Energy Chamber, whose energies could wipe out entire planets. The Nebulans suggest that the Autobots simply destroy the key before the Decepticons can use it. Optimus Prime is against this, as Alpha Trion had informed him that the key needed to remain intact in order for a "miracle" to happen. The argument ultimately becomes moot, due to the key being used to activate the chamber not long after.
  • Transformers: Animated:
    • "Black Friday" opens with Bumblebee and Sari visiting Meltdown in the hope that, as Powell's ex-business partner, he'd have any information that could take Powell down. Unfortunately, Meltdown merely tells them that, even if Powell were involved in anything illegal, he'd be smart enought to not leave any evidence that'd incriminate him.
    • In "A Bridge Too Close, Part II", when Starscream and his clone army arrive at Megatron's mine headquarters and attacks him for his Space Bridge, Optimus Prime wants to help fight against them. Bumblebee asks why don't they let Starscream and his clones take down Megatron, Optimus points out they can't afford to have any Decepticons go through the Space Bridge to get to Cybertron.
  • Transformers: Prime: In "Regeneration", the Decepticons have all the Cyber Planet Keys and are poised to restore Cybertron. Ratchet proposes using the Forge of Solus Prime to create replacement keys to restore it first; Optimus explains even with the required power such artifacts are beyond their skill to copy. Bulkhead proposes just letting the Deceptions restore Cybertron for them as the Autobots share the same goal; Optimus explains they'd use the political power such would gain to vilify the Autobots and their allies, leaving their evildoing unopposed.
• Uncle Grandpa: In "Charlie Burgers", when the titular character of the episode, who is a talking dog, gets his ball stuck on Angryman Johnson's roof, Uncle Grandpa's solution to get his ball is to turn the world upside down and have it fall off the roof. When Gus asks why don't they just ask Giant Realistic Flying Tiger to fly up to the roof and get the ball, Uncle Grandpa said she's in the shower and you should never disturb a lady during bath time. After turning the world upside down and Charlie's ball ends up heading towards a black hole with Charlie following it, Gus asks why don't they just have the world turn back the way it was and have gravity pull Charlie back, Uncle Grandpa said gravity is just a theory and decides to call Giant Realistic Flying Tiger to help them because this is a real emergency.
• The Zeta Project: In the first episode of the show, Agent Bennett explains to his subordinates why they cannot just shoot the runaway Infiltration Unit Zeta (and as a matter of fact, he reads Agent West the riot act when he tries this with his back-up piece later in the same episode): 1) Zeta is an advanced assassination robot which should be impossible to hack, so they need to retrieve him intact so they can figure out who reprogrammed him; 2) As well, Zeta is an incredibly expensive piece of equipment and the government would really like to keep said investment as intact as possible; 3) Because he's an assassination robot, they really want to prevent Zeta from escalating and possibly injuring many innocent bystanders as collateral damage (same risk if they use heavy weaponry to try to take him down in any populated areas).