Downwards Funnel

One thing happens which eventually leads to another thing happening and eventually it all goes down in a Downwards Funnel.

Not *all* Downwards Funnels are *bad*, though...

Anime examples have their own page, and so do videogame examples and US History (the latter was originally a Super Evil subpage, but had to became a subpage to this trope (and somewhat rewritten) due to the fact that it's been proven time and time again that it's not a good idea to call real-life people Super Evil).

## Examples

* Nickelodeon's Doug. The Nick series only lasted 52 episodes. And then the Disney buyout happened. And then Jinkins' then-new series aired on Playhouse Disney. And then Jinkins left Disney since they went against his (and the crew's) wishes.
* The Crucible is this trope in context. Basically, Betty Parris starts accusing people of witchcraft, which leads to the Proctors being accused of witchcraft, which eventually led to the accused being excommunicated (witchcraft was a big no-no in the Christian community) and eventually executed.
	+ And to top it off, the play's *author* was accused of being a Communist not long after the play was first performed. He was eventually acquitted, but still, that's one way to bring the downwards funnel full-circle.
* Cartoon Network:
	+ High Noon Toons had its creators drink on the job countless times. And then they set a prop on fire. Which eventually lead to them being fired from the show. Which lead to its cancellation.
	+ CN cancelled the first two DC Nation shows. Then they brought in Teen Titans Go!. Which led to DC Nation getting pulled. Which resulted in the show being reran countless times a day. Which led to its last non-Toonami anime at the time moving to *Disney XD*.
	+ Destroying all time portals, not watching a samurai fight three goat-monsters, *and* leaving him to die? Seems Aku made a big mistake, because Jack hasn't even aged. This led to his downfall and Ashi getting erased.
* There used to be a public domain DVD distributor called Digiview. What happened? It was discovered they were making DVDs of *Animal Farm (1954)*, which ended up getting them sued for copyright infringement. Naturally, they closed not long after.
* The COVID-19 pandemic started a chain reaction of events (at least one of which can't be discussed on this wiki), including stock market crashes, stay-at-home orders, travel restrictions, mass closings (in an era where closings of retail stores were already sky-high thanks to online shopping), and the entire anime industry stopping work. (That said, some anime, such as *BNA: Brand New Animal*, were completed before they had any chance of being delayed.)
* How bad can a bad future be? The *My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic* episode "The Cutie Re-Mark" answers that question as Twilight shows Starlight Glimmer a future that is basically *Life After People* applied to Equestria. (And for the record, this also means villains such as Discord and Nightmare Moon don't make it, either, nor do any of the natural landscape.)
* Newton's First Law of Motion: "An object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion will stay in motion, unless acted on by a external force". In one episode of *The Magic School Bus*, the external force is thrown out, at least inside a page of a book, resulting in the characters experiencing a world without friction. It's not pretty; objects in motion in a world without friction would *always* stay in motion. The show makes it *very* clear there's a reason why friction exists, and in a way that doesn't result in raising more questions that science *cannot* solve.
* *Any* experiment involving liquid nitrogen, as most prominently shown in *Bill Nye the Science Guy* and in many of Taras Kul's videos. (That said, there's a reason Taras operates the "CrazyRussianHacker" YouTube channel...)
* Qubo was the last American children's brand on broadcast TV that wasn't PBS Kids or Litton-related. Unfortunately, it got put on the chopping block in 2021 after the Ion-E.W. Scripps merger.
* If a show is wiped, junked, or otherwise destroyed by any means, it'd take a full remake to get viewers to experience it again, unless a remake is explicitly forbidden; if it is, then fans are completely out of luck.
* In 2021, Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House were set to merge. In fact, this would have partially reduced the amount some manga and books play Cartoon Network Isn't Teletoon straight. Then came a lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice. They argued it would drastically reduce innovation in literature- of course, the fact some authors were against the deal as well only added fuel to this. Towards the end of 2022, a federal judge sided with the Department of Justice (and, by extension, the various authors against the deal) and blocked the acquisition. The best part? Under normal circumstances, it takes a *lot* to get a judge to block a merger deal in the United States; there would need to be concrete proof that a merger would only make customer experience worse if it were finalized.

TBA.