Shilling the Wesley/Sandbox

This page holds the examples list from Shilling The Wesley, pending a merge into the various Creator's Pet subpages. The main article has been redirected.

Anime and Manga

 * Shirayuki Berii, a fan unfavorite from the Tokyo Mew Mew a la mode manga, is liked by all of the other characters immediately. Of course, that's one of the reasons she's hated so much...
 * To some extent, the marketing of the Gundam franchise outside of Japan could be viewed this way. After Gundam Wing proved to be a runaway success overseas in 2000, Bandai and Sunrise decided to follow it up with the original. While Japan had had the show for two decades by that point and it was a cultural icon on par with the original Star Trek, in the United States and beyond it was viewed as...well, a goofy anime from the 1970s. Despite its doing poorly in the ratings and in merchandise sales, Bandai continued to push the Universal Century shows, which likewise went over like a lead balloon. The general feeling among the fandom is that had Bandai stuck with the Alternate Universe shows (which better match the general feel of Wing), the franchise would have at the very least lasted longer.
 * Constantly done with Paul in Pokémon, who acts like a jerk to everyone and abuses his Pokemon in order to make them stronger, outright abandoning the ones who he finds to be a waste of time, and yet he's constantly called a "great trainer", who just clashes with Ash because of "different methods", rather than because, well, he's a jerk. When Ash beats him with one of his abandoned Pokemon he's actually seen apologizing and promising to be good from now on... or at least that's where the story looked like it was heading. What happened instead was Paul pulled a few slight signs of kindness completely out of nowhere with no development at all and then shrugs off his loss to Ash the way he does in his only other two losses of the series. They still acted like he somehow redeemed himself, despite not really changing that much.
 * This has arguably happened with Touma, the main character of Nanoha Force. His characterization was fairly bland in the first few chapters, up until it was revealed that he was the adopted little brother of Subaru, a far more popular character. While it's shown how they met, it doesn't quite show how they became so close, and the two don't even interact for a long while. It's basically just to say 'hey, Subaru likes him!' to the reader. It gets more obvious later on, when it's shown that other characters like Nanoha know and like him too, which happened entirely off-screen.

Comic Books

 * Happened with Kyle Rayner when he replaced Hal Jordan as Green Lantern. Having folks like Martian Manhunter and Superman (not to mention Batman and Sandman) say what a terrific guy you are, completely unsolicited, led to much eye-rolling even amongst fans of the character, who felt that such shilling validated many complaints that haters of the character had. Luckily, Rayner managed to survive the shilling and was officially rescued from the scrappy pile.
 * It's been widely joked that Kyle got shilled specifically because DC were pissed off that fans (rightfully) saw how The Death of Superman and Azrael becoming Batman were temporary plotlines. DC were deadset that Kyle would stick, hence the shilling. However, Grant Morrison refused to give Kyle the same treatment in JLA. Yes, most of the team respected him, but he had to work to really be seen as something more than a rookie. And The Flash was open about his initial dislike of Kyle and it took a good amount of character development for them to become friends. As a result, Kyle Rayner grew his own crop of decidedly enthusiastic and loyal fans...
 * To whom, because of their loyalty (plus the fact that it was they and not the Hal Jordan fans, who had been the title's target audience and primary purchasers for over a decade, DC had to abruptly begin shilling Hal Jordan when the decision was made to bring the character back from the dead in order to resume his place as a Green Lantern. Out of nowhere, Hal Jordan, who had in years just before his return, been spoken of primarily as a tragic case of power going to one's head and how nobody liked him anyway, was suddenly the paragon of heroics and perfect moral fibre. The Kyle Rayner fans reacted in precisely the same way as the Hal Jordan fans did, a decade earlier.
 * Recent Transformers comics have had this happen for writer Shane McCarthy's pet character Drift. Drift debuts on a ship alongside heavyweights like Kup, Hot Rod, and Springer, and Kup lets everyone know that Drift deserves to be in such company because he's that awesome. Several God Mode Sue moments only further made fans hate him, culminating in his Wangst-filled Spotlight issue, which IDW hoped would change detractors’ opinions about the character. It did – now they long for when he was just a God Mode Sue, not a Wangsty God Mode Sue.
 * A few Spider-Man examples:
 * Kaine, from Spider-Man's Clone Saga. If you need to know more about him, go read #7 (appropriately titled "Marvel Tries to Convince You Kaine Is an Awesome Badass") of Topless Robot's 13 Dumbest Spider-man Stories... Just from the Clone Saga.
 * In ASM, we have Carlie Cooper, who has practically every single male character interested in her, is touted as being a "great character" by all the writers on the book despite the fact that we never really see any such qualities in the stories, is promoted as being the "perfect girl" for Peter by characters like Aunt May, Harry Osborn, notorious Clingy Jealous Girl Black Cat, and even Mary-Jane Watson (formerly Parker) herself, and has lived such a tough life that even Peter Parker couldn't possibly begin to understand, to which Peter (whose life thus far can be summed up as “people around me keep dying”) even agrees. This said, does it surprise you that Carlie is named after Joe Quesada's daughter, the guy who spearheaded the whole "Make Spider-Man single again" storyline? But more surprising is that other writers are getting in on the act.


 * In recent stories, the shilling has been taken up to eleven. In Spider-Island, Carlie is the only person on the entire island of Manhattan using her abilities for the welfare of others (or so we are told). Spider-Man- the main character mind you- actually has to be talked into using his powers to help others after he was told to sit on the sidelines by his teammates to avoid confusion by using Carlie as an example. And who is using Carlie as a paragon of how to use their newfound powers? None other than Mary Jane, Peter's ex-girlfriend/ wife, once again shilling the greatness that is Carlie. Carlie is also the only person to deduce that the Jackal is the one behind the events of Spider-Island, despite the fact that he is, you know, dead and all and no real way to know that he is alive other than she's just that good. And when she goes into battle with Peter, he barely shows her up, not because he is more experienced or knows how to use his powers better then she does (which he is) but because he has taken kung fu lessons recently and just decided to bust them out. It looks like Carlie is turning into a giant spider alongside the rest of New York City for the rest of the arc. Which is good, because if she didn't, the way things were going it'd be likely that Carlie would have just solved all the problems in Spider-Island all by herself.
 * Ironically subverted when.
 * Even the creators try to shill Carlie every chance they get, with the book's editor claiming that she is the "sanest member of the cast." This is the same character that thought that the appropriate reaction to having her boyfriend break a date with her was to follow him to his work, get flat out drunk when she found out he wasn't there, then decide to get a tattoo of the Green Goblin i.e the man who killed one of his girlfriends to "show him up." She got a tattoo of Spidey instead, but still her behavior is far removed from being the "sanest member of the cast."
 * In Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog, Ian Flynn's Iron Dominion Arc reintroduced Monkey Khan, a (not-so-liked) old character. Throughout the arc, Monkey Khan and leading lady Sally Acorn begin to date (much to Sonic's disappointment and much of the fanbase). When asked by fans why he thought they'd make a good couple, one of the reasons Flynn stated is that the relationship would help Khan become a more sympathetic character. And for many fans, Sally herself falls into this category, having seven different characters fall for her and being shilled by both Ken Penders and Ian Flynn.
 * Invoked in The Flash comics for Barry Allen after his recent return to life. Writer Geoff Johns acknowledged that people who haven't read any story with Barry in it before (basically anyone who started reading comics after the Crisis, which is to say, anyone under 30), will see him as a Replacement Scrappy for Wally, so his first priority in the Flash: Rebirth miniseries was to sell Barry to newer readers. The first issue of Rebirth is mostly scenes of every single major superhero in the DCU talking about how awesome Barry is, save for Kid Flash, who refuses to accept him because he's not the one he grew up with, essentially making him their Straw Fan.
 * DC arguably did it with the third Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes, when he and Booster Gold travel back in time to save the life of Jaime's predecessor, Ted Kord, and Kord says he's honored for Jaime to carry the mantle. A lot of fans have still refused to accept Jaime for reasons similar to those who disliked Kyle Rayner years before.

Fanfic

 * A common tactic with new fanfic writers is to have their OC / Mary Sue talked up by their favourite characters about how talented, beautiful, kind, etc. the character is without actually showing it. Even if the OC has not become a Sue yet, this is usually the starting point for them to become one.
 * This is a common tactic of the Harmonians (Harry/Hermione shippers) in the ''Harry Potter fanfic community. Hermione will be described as not only smart (a trait established in Canon), but will suddenly be dazzlingly beautiful, graceful, and practically perfect in every way, so as to convince the reader that Harry should have been with her all along.
 * Ronan of Naruto Veangance Revelaitons takes this to unprecedented levels. He frequently gets talked up as a powerful ninja, a great lover, the best king ever and an extremely talented musician. This not only comes from his allies, but also, his enemies, as Naruto, who is jealous of him, frequently says that Ronan is better than he is and initially tries to flee from Ronan during their final showdown because of this.

Literature

 * This is, more or less, the only way that the two main characters in the Left Behind series ever interact with non-main characters. It's either Buck and Rayford are thinking about how special they are and what a privilege it is for the rest of their unnamed co-workers and friends to associate with them, or it's said unnamed co-workers and friends gushing about them. This can be seen as the authors ignoring the Show, Don't Tell method of storytelling, merely telling us how earnest, passionate, and sincere their characters are rather than actually showing any of these qualities.
 * S.D. Perry turned Rebecca Chambers into her Creator's Pet in her Resident Evil novelizations. The most obvious example is in RE: Caliban Cove, where one of two things would happen in the plot: A) Rebecca would be doing everything, or B) Rebecca was elsewhere, and the characters being written about at the time would go on about how wonderful she was.
 * It started from the very first novelization, in fact, with Chris remarking numerous times about how much smarter and more capable Rebecca is than him. The weirdest part is that Perry extrapolated this extreme Mary Sue depiction not from the competent and sympathetic Rebecca of the 2002 remake, but from the annoying and cheerfully oblivious Rebecca of the 1996 original. Perhaps Becky was turned into a super-genius in the books because Perry thought someone needed a doctorate to be a field medic.
 * Those who dislike Ginny Weasley in Harry Potter tend to either ship Harry with someone else, or were repelled by what they thought was an all too quick shilling from book 6 onwards. Ginny went from being a Shrinking Violet to an all too perfect embodiment of Harry's soulmate. A bad combination of J.K trying to push the character as one all the readers should absolutely adore, an unfortunate case of Show, Don't Tell, and the sudden change of personality turned a lot of readers against her, no matter how many times she saved a Quidditch match, or used her Bat-Bogey Hex. Then there's the unfortunate way every character who came into contact with her started to coo over her qualities, including Slytherins and Death Eaters...

Live Action TV
"Donna: Randy is perfect. That lady at the fair who did the caricatures? She refused to draw him cause she couldn't find a flaw."
 * All My Children does this all the time. The most horrific example was fan-favorite Bianca waxing poetic about Babe Carey, how everything she does is out of love, how she's really a good person, etc. This was after Babe stole Bianca's baby and passed her off as her own while letting Bianca think her daughter was dead.
 * Smallville does this all the time with respect to Lana Lang. The writers really seem to believe that if they have enough characters talk up Lana Lang, the audience will stop loathing her. They've never shown us why all the characters (even villains) seem to worship the ground she walks on. As a matter of fact, all we've really seen usually is her being dreadfully bitchy, deceitful, mean, and arrogant towards the other characters... and yet they all continue to treat her like royalty. Even Tess “has an unsolicited pithy remark for your grandmother” Mercer has practically confessed her undying love for Lana. It ranges from a group of vampire sorority girls declaring her “amazing” to Lex Luthor falling in love with her and implying that she’s more noble than Superman.
 * They've also inverted this by having Lana gush about Clark a couple of times during her last few appearances, perhaps in an attempt by the writers to make Lana likable again by giving her a little last minute humility. Too little too late. It MIGHT have had a chance of working if she hadn't gone and immediately gotten permanent superpowers.
 * How I Met Your Mother has begun to do this in season 5 with Don. He was introduced as "the guy Robin would inevitably marry," but his subsequent appearances paint him as annoying and flawed. However, once he started showing romantic interest in Robin, he met the group and suddenly Marshall does not stop gushing about him. We don't see their interactions, but Marshall opens by saying that he is "smart, handsome and funny." This is jarring because two episodes ago we were supposed to hate the guy.
 * In one particularly glaring example from a first-season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a Sufficiently Advanced Alien known as "The Traveler" stopped-in seemingly for the exclusive purpose of telling the crew how wonderful Wesley was. While Wesley hadn't quite become a Creator's Pet by that point, this eventually worked out for the best by setting up the bus which Wesley would eventually be bundled off on.
 * Another TNG example, "The Outrageous Okona", did nothing actually outrageous except taking advantage of his incredibly hyped reputation as a wild maverick man of action to get laid. Popular with the ladies, but not with the fans, who largely consider him a joke.
 * Dr. Pulaski, who replaced Dr. Crusher for one season, was an abrasive Dr. Jerk who argued with anyone on the ship and was loathed by the fans. This didn't stop Picard from frequently saying how Dr. Pulaski -- despite her bitchy, annoying exterior -- was really gentle and caring (not that we really saw any of it).
 * Second only to Wesley is Will Riker. Picard (who seems to be the official "You Will Like This Guy" mouth piece for the show) was constantly touting Riker's leadership abilities and the fact that he'd passed on several Captain's posts of his own to stay with the Enterprise. Other characters would hype Riker's skills at "Activity X" as the plot demanded. But even when he got a Day in The Limelight episode to show those skills, the fans' reaction was a hearty "So what's so special about that?" At least he grew a beard...
 * Kennedy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It seems that the more people hated her, the more screen time she was given. She got into Willow's pants, she became the boss of the other potential Slayers, and she became one of the most important players in the final battle.
 * Rose Tyler from Doctor Who is an example of a character who didn't even become a Creator's Pet until they started shilling her, which was after she'd already been written out. She was pretty popular throughout her run on the show, and the Doctor had a much closer relationship with her than with most other companions. She started suffering Hype Backlash when, after she left, the Doctor would not shut up about how great she was (in stark contrast to the literally dozens of previous companions who were more or less instantly forgotten), to the point that Martha, her immediate follow-up, left simply because the Doctor was too hung up on Rose to ever return her romantic interest.
 * Although Rose is hated by roughly half the fandom. The other half still loves her, and, coincidentally, accuses River Song of being a Creator's Pet.
 * Who's another interesting example, and her timeline is roughly backwards to the Doctor's. So while she was being shilled because we had to believe she was such a badass the Doctor didn't mind her using guns, among other things, the more we know about her, teh more (arguably) deserved she gets of the shilling, and the less she is shilled.
 * Marian's replacement Kate in the BBC's Robin Hood was shrill, callous, self-centered, and frankly, rather stupid. In fact, she was a textbook example of a Jerk Sue, particularly in the bitchy, self-important way she treated her fellow outlaws. The writers tried to compensate by having every other character gush about how wonderful she was: Robin called her "brave, compassionate and beautiful," Allan called her "a good fighter," Little John referred to her as "a treasure," and Much reverently whispered: "she's amazing!" She was never shown to be any of these things, and the audience was neither fooled nor impressed.
 * In a season six episode of House, Thirteen is told by the well-liked Wilson that she is "good" for House and Foreman (when in fact she's inspired Foreman to act like an idiot throughout the past two seasons and has done nothing to help House), and has shown the ability to help keep House "grounded" and his ego in check (there's no evidence of this, and he even began to lose his sanity and spent time at a mental hospital after her arrival). All this came in an episode where she was shoehorned in plenty of screen time even though none of it impacted anything else in the episode.
 * Especially glaring since many of the things Wilson said, like her being the only one who stands up to House and doesn't get sucked in to his vortex, is a lot more true of Taub, who had also left the team and who didn't get one second of screen-time in this episode.
 * Stargate SG-1:
 * Jonas Quinn recieved a fair amount of shilling, most blatantly in Forsaken,  when Jonas interrupts the rest of SG-1 saving the day to save the day himself with a plan he cooked up because the villains of the week had a ship which shared the same name as an Irish prison barge and he made the absurd leap of logic that they must therefore be the bad guys. The usually laconic O'Neill calls this "incredible" (which is right, for all the wrong reasons).
 * Mitchell, another Suspiciously Similar Substitute, also received about as much shilling as could be fit into his short time on the show. Why is an air-force pilot capable of beating a living suit of armor in a one-on-one sword-fight? Because the writers want you to think he's awesome.
 * Jennifer Keller from Stargate Atlantis, arguably the character with the largest anti-fans, gets this a lot. It certainly hasn't gotten better since the writers decided to pair her with McKay.
 * In the final season of That 70s Show, there's a big Shilling The Randy moment on the way back from the fair:

"Chuck: "Oh come on, it's a Jeri Taylor script. You know that even in an episode where Janeway's been going nuts, she's gonna have the strongest will there is, don't be silly.""
 * On the other hand, the shilling Randy got from Red in the same episode was Justified Trope: he praised Randy's strength... comparing it to Eric's, which is virtually non-existent.
 * ER did this for a while with Abby Lockhart, who was quite depressing and unlikable throughout much of her tenure on the show, yet was often adored and lauded by everyone.
 * Babylon 5 had a Lower Deck Episode in its last season, featuring a couple of maintenance workers who end up praising new character Captain Lochley and telling her that she was OK in their book. (Lochley in essence replaced the awesome Susan Ivanova, and suffered greatly by comparison.) This is made worse by the fact that the two "little guys" were openly Author Avatars.
 * Increasingly, Glee treats Will and Finn this way -- particularly, other characters stand around gushing about how talented, good-hearted, and attractive they both are.
 * Kurt was getting dangerously close to joining them in the back half of Season 1 and into Season 2. He's a popular enough character, but some fans were getting sick of him being a Karma Houdini and hearing about what a precious snowflake he was. The writers' solution? Remind the audience again and again, ever more insistently, of how great he was. It was taken Up to Eleven in Furt, where his father's wedding to Finn's mother consisted almost entirely of people (literally) singing his praises. It's gotten better since though.
 * On Everybody Loves Raymond, Debra is absolutely a Creator's Pet. The writers tried to shill her by attempting to make her a Sympathetic Sue at times (however, it didn't really work, as it failed to prevent many fans from noticing her Domestic Abuse against her husband). The show had many moments where Ray, despite being a perpetual victim of Debra's physical assaults and insults, declares that Debra is wonderful.
 * On Star Trek: Voyager, Jeri Taylor frequently shilled both Janeway (who was her borderline Self Insert) and Neelix. The worst example of this trope came in the non-Jeri Taylor season 7 story Friendship One where Janeway was held to be a better explorer than James Kirk by the Admiral of the Week.
 * Janeway was held to have made First Contact with more species than Kirk. Considering she has much better technology at her disposal than Kirk, and she happens to have the only Federation ship in the entire quadrant that is capable of contact with Earth, this is at least plausible. A better example would the episode when Janeway starts having delusions relating to her holodeck program. Despite her being the first one to start going nuts, she still is the one to save the day when everyone else starts getting hit with them too. To quote SF Debris:


 * In the sixth season of Bones, the writers' apparent love for the character of Hannah Burley results in constant reinforcement of her beauty, talent and intelligence, despite most viewers despising her for her lack of depth. Other popular characters in the show (including Angela) constantly refer to Hannah and Dr Brennan as being "friends", although the scenes depicting their "friendship" seem awkward at best.
 * Dead Ringers used this trope to parody the Star Wars re-releases. They re-enacted the confrontation between Vader and Obi-Wan but with badly dubbed in lines about how Jar-Jar was a top bloke and how everyone could agree on loving Jar-Jar.
 * Since the Tocantins season, the editors of Survivor often pick their favourites and cram them down our throats throughout the season. The problem is, they assume we'll like them too... but more often than not, we just hate them.
 * Russell Hantz is the show's biggest example. In Samoa, it might have been justified since, despite Russell being a Smug Snake, most other players were Too Dumb to Live and Russell's gameplay really was miles ahead of them. But then he returned next season for the Heroes vs. Villains reunion, where he still got the bulk of the screentime, his bragging really started to grate, and the other players were as experienced and competent as he was. Then came Redemption Island, which was blatantly set up to pit Russell against his H vs. V rival, Boston Rob. Thankfully, Russell's tribe had enough sense to dump him early, but...
 * Redemption Island was just shilling Rob. He's clearly a good player, but there were sixteen entirely new people that were left on the cutting room floor in favour of the editors making sure the enitre season at first revolved around Rob and Russell, and then Rob and Phillip, but especially Rob.
 * The Reunion Show was just this. Host Jeff Probst did not even so much as look at most of the cast and spent most of the show praising Rob. Unlike most other reunions where he talks to the first couple people voted out, Francesca and Kristina didn't even have so much of a reason to be there, since Jeff forgot they existed. This in spite of the fact that Kristina actually found a hidden immunity idol within the first three days, a Survivor record.

Newspaper Comics

 * This was one of the many complaints about Anthony from For Better or For Worse. Especially cited here in Shaenon Garrity's journal: "This nonstop chatter about Anthony's greatness may be the element that most turns readers against him. If he were just a dull, dorky loser, he'd annoy us. But he's a dull, dorky loser whom we're expected to hold in awe, and therefore we hate him." While Shaenon hates his moustache, the fact is that Anthony's lipwarmer, the one thing no one mentioned, was pretty much the only thing defining his personality. He was kind of just a moustache and when he shaved it off, there was literally nothing remotely interesting left about the guy.
 * Comical Canuck Kate Beaton parodies the whole Anthony storyline in one fell swoop here.
 * Lynn Johnston, the creator of the comic, shilled Anthony herself in this message to her readers.

Professional Wrestling

 * This becomes problematic when the commentators relentlessly talk up a wrestler who's not even in the current match, thus making it entirely clear that the wrestlers who are in the current match don't matter in the slightest and making it less likely that fans will actually care about them.
 * As a recent example of this, WWE endlessly touted the physical prowess of Sheamus, who had recently debuted and was touted as unstoppable. This when all he had really done was squash the same people as everyone else has and beat up Jamie Noble. He was promptly rushed a World Title in order to force the audience to believe how awesome he was despite miring in a sea of fan apathy, though toward the end of his title reign he began to get over as a more proper heel.
 * Similar to Sheamus, Smackdown's Drew McIntyre probably received even more hype (his "official" debut after several weeks of blindsiding R. Truth had Vince personally introduce him as a rising star). His ring ability is limited, yet he was pushed with an undefeated streak (which seemed to have more to do with blind luck than his skill), won the IC title off of John Morrison (generally considered a much better wrestler), and basically throws a fit whenever he loses. Bordering on parody now that the Smackdown general manager isn't allowed to punish Drew McIntyre because he's that important. When he improved as a wrestler, though, he's stopped getting television time. You can't win for losing.
 * Dusty Rhodes was the king of this during his JCP/WCW run. Nearly every promo on the show would refer to Dusty in some way. It got so bad that even the Badass Road Warriors (who liked nobody at that point) wanted to team with him! Of course, Dusty was one of WCW's head bookers.
 * Kevin Nash was an infamous example of this in WCW. During his run as booker (head writer) in 1998-1999, the shows were so heavily centred around him that WCW fans nicknamed him "Big Poochie" in honor of the Simpsons quote used at the top of this page.
 * Finally ... the Rock HAS COME BACK to where he began! Yep, Rocky started off in WWE as one of these, a bland babyface with the staff trying to say how great he is. Then he took time off for an injury, and according to The Other Wiki, checked the notes he took during speech communications classes from college. Result? Face Heel Turn, character development (as in getting a character), and Rescued From the Scrappy Heap.
 * Prior to his on-screen debut in TNA, Hulk Hogan got this treatment from the various TNA wrestlers (Face and Heel) talking about how awesome Hogan was.
 * Not only the wrestlers! Also prior to his on-screen debut, commentary could hardly go five minutes without mentioning him. Every show, every week, for the almost three month time period between his signing and his debut. It got very frustrating, very quickly.
 * Triple H. The Big Show inexplicably turned into a fanboy of his during the time leading up to Triple H's return after the Invasion angle, only to try to jump him when he returned along with others in a completely unironic fashion to get hit with The Pedigree. What?!
 * Unfortunately not limited to wrestlers, best summed up by Josh Mathews on the 4/21/2011 Super Stars broadcast. "All the things that happened this week in WWE and you still can't stop talking about Michael Cole!"

Tabletop Games

 * Some Warhammer 40000 fans claim this for several factions, such as the Necrons (originally touted as the single worst threat the galaxy faces) and the Tau (touted as the last bastion of idealism and hope); however, the best example of this is the Ultramarines. They are regarded as the single greatest Space Marine Chapter ever (something explicitly believed by one of the Space Marine Codex writers), the spiritual leaders of all Space Marines and the pinnacle of humanity, in glaring contrast to their truly pitiful record. Though definitely exaggerated, the 1D4chan article on the subject is a fairly accurate summary of both the praise they receive and their history of failures and glaring absences.
 * The same writer is responsible for the Grey Knights codex, featuring Canon God Mode Sue Kaldor Draigo. To quote the fans, he exists "because GW wouldn't let him bring Roboute Guilliman back".

Video Games

 * Garrosh Hellscream is probably one of the most despised characters in World of Warcraft, even after his character development. His personality suddenly pulls a total 180 from what we've seen in previous expansions with no first-hand reason shown to us for his changes, just so he could be in line with the overall personality of Saurfang. The Shattering extols him as a tactical genius and has his entire faction cheering for his "victory" in Northrend, when in-game the players that comprise said faction can't go two seconds without spitting on his presence. In Cataclysm, Garrosh was elevated to the position of Warchief of the Horde, replacing the well-loved Thrall. Some characters will refer to him with admiration, saying how he must be a great leader to be able to hold a group as diverse as the Horde together. This shilling is a case of two-fold irony, as the Horde is even more fractured under Garrosh than it was under Thrall due to Garrosh nearly alienating the Horde's other leaders (plus it's only because of in-universe shilling from Thrall that it's even holding together that well), and because he is nothing if not a Base Breaker in the fandom itself.
 * Garrosh's shilling almost seems to be a joke, as the shilling is either followed by, or immediately follows him completely fucking the Horde over simply by being a terrible leader, such as in Twilight Highlands, where he orders the already barely-functioning zeppelins to attack the Alliance navy instead of actually defending them from the fucking dragons in the area. When said fucking dragons appear and destroy their entire fleet, you, Garrosh and a few NPC's wash up, where not long after you have to convince somebody to join Garrosh by basically saying he's the best leader anyone could ask for.
 * There is also some speculation that the fact of Garrosh's elevated presence and importance in the game is itself an example of Shilling the new leader of the Alliance, Varian Wrynn, who is often considered a Creator's Pet in his own right. Characterized as being an ardent and passionate defender of his people, Wrynn's eagerness to go to war came across as being somewhat paranoid and vaguely racist, considering that Thrall kept expressing desires for peace. Garrosh's Hot-Blooded warmongering as leader of the Horde makes Wrynn's traits seem more reasonable in comparison.
 * Then again, the dislike toward Varian Wrynn seems to be at partially because World of Warcraft does a rather poor job of portraying his good qualities and his motives, and thus players who only know of Warcraft characters through WoW itself tend to see him as the baselessly paranoid and racist man mentioned above. Supplementary materials show that he has plenty of damn good reasons to distrust the Horde.

Web Original

 * Spoony has been uploading It Came From Beyond Midnight, a television show that was canceled from its late-late-late night spot prior to a single episode airing and after several had been filmed, for months now. Fans have been consistently lukewarm-to-actively-disliking of it almost since the beginning, especially since they believe it has somewhat displaced Spoony's actual content despite causing no delay to Spoony's schedule. Nowadays, you'll hardly see people complaining about the show, since comments on videos are now moderated, and ones that dislike the show aren't allowed to be posted.
 * Speaking of That Guy With The Glasses cast, Todd in the Shadows sees crowd chating "Posner!" in Mike Posner's Cooler Than Me as this. He even used clip of Itchie and Scratchie talking how awesome Poochie is to show what he thinks about it.

Western Animation
"Scratchy: Poochie is one outrageous dude.
 * Parodied in The Simpsons: Homer tried to get reviled character Poochie more screentime before he gained enough sense to try a Writer Revolt and get Poochie Rescued From the Scrappy Heap, with minimal success.

Itchy: He's totally in my face!"

"Bart: [To Jay Sherman] Hey man, I really love your show. I think all kids should watch it! [turns away, shudders] Ew. I suddenly feel so dirty."
 * Played straight in "A Star is Burns" -- sort of. Jay Sherman from The Critic makes a Crossover appearance and is shown to be a massively talented nice guy of whom Homer immediately becomes insanely jealous. The thing is that Sherman wasn't actually a Creator's Pet at all on his original show; in most aspects he was actually a very flawed and realistic character. This has led to speculation that Executive Meddling afflicted the episode, possibly in combination with a Writer Revolt (to the point that this is the only episode that Matt Groening took his name off of, although there are many far more deserving candidates). The next time he's seen, he's in an insane asylum, ranting about how everything stinks.
 * The episode throws in a lampshade / parody of this, which Al Jean states was to acknowledge what they were doing:


 * The Critic also invokes this trope when Jon Lovitz himself appears. He receives over-the-top, fourth-wall-breaking praise from Jay (who is of course voiced by Lovitz).
 * Owen on Total Drama Island. Most of his accomplishments are either a) based on dumb luck or b) somehow related to eating, yet in some episodes the other characters will praise him excessively. In the first episode of Total Drama Action, for example, he manages to avoid being caught by the monster simply because he's too fat to pick up, then eats a bunch of fake food because he wouldn't just stop and listen to Chris tell him it was fake. But by coincidence he happened to burp out the key they were supposed to find, and immediately the scene cuts to several other characters praising his success.