Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas / Western Animation

---

• In one episode of American Dragon: Jake Long, Trixie and Spud disguise as a dragon to scare off a bunch of mountain trolls. It initially works, but Trixie makes the mistake of badmouthing the trolls' mother, pressing their Berserk Button.
• Subverted in The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius with the Junk Man during his debut episode. He happens to see a picture of his mom – basically him with lady clothes – and fawns over it for a moment:
  Junk Man: Oh, mother... I could never put a price on you. (tosses the photo) So I just took the highest offer!
• Inverted to humorous effect in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. Robotnik has a mother, but she's bats-in-the-belfry insane and he hates her! He's absolutely terrified of her as well, since she's even worse than he is.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Female version: Princess Azula, otherwise a prominent Evil Overlord, completely loses it in the Grand Finale, hallucinating a vision of her Missing Mom. Her latent Mommy issues are exposed, leading to one HELL of a Villainous Breakdown.
  • And by the same token, her brother Zuko, when he's evil. However, the flashbacks show that Zuko was very devoted to their mother, Princess Ursa, who doted on him. The finale gives us a scene of Zuko asking his father, in prison, a question to which we still don't know the answer: "Where is my mother?"^note We eventually got an answer in the comic book "The Search"
  • The series also has an aversion. Yon Rha is not very fond of his abusive hag of a mother, at one point suggesting that another character kill his mother so as to Pay Evil unto Evil. He is very obviously excited by this prospect.
• The Batman
  • As arrogant, greedy, and ruthless as he is, The Penguin is implied to have a soft spot for his mom, as he recalls with some fondness that she always said he looked good.
  • While enacting his evil plan in his debut episode, Killer Croc nostalgically quotes advice his father once gave him, implying the two were close.
• On Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Superman is temporarily affected by Red Kryptonite, leading to some very serious instances of Superdickery. Though perfectly willing to let Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen fall to their deaths, he goes into a Tranquil Fury when Batman asks "What would Ma Kent think?"
• In the Ben 10 episode "Last Laugh", Ben faced the villain Zombozo's three henchmen, the Circus Freak Trio, one of which was named Acid Breath, a deformed man who was able to spit caustic acid and exhale acidic vapor. There was this dialogue between him and Ben:
  Ben: Didn't your mom ever tell you not to spit?
  Acid Breath: Who do ya think taught me in the first place?
• Big Hero 6: The Series: Despite being prone to "cut corners" and be a bit of a load, Alistair Krei seems to genuinely love his mother, even if she's never seen on screen. In the episode "Big Hero 7", High Voltage's bickering simply reminds him to call her, and in "Hiro the Villain", it's revealed that he wears a cow costume every Mother's Day, probably for his own mother specifically.
• In Biker Mice from Mars, Lawrence Limburger's dim-witted goon Greasepit would occasionally speak fondly of his mother.
• Bojack Horseman: Diane's brothers dearly love their Ma, and she smothers them—a stark contrast to how she herself treats Diane.
• Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars! gave us Bruiser, the Betelgeusian Berserker Baboon. Space Marine by trade, One-Man Army by inclination, broke enemy resistance across entire planets by yelling at people on TV on two separate occasions and unrepentant Mama's Boy. However, there is a darker tone to all this, since it's heavily implied that his mother is all the family Bruiser has left (his father is never shown, and his brother is outright stated to have fallen in the line of duty).
• Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: Emperor Zurg is the Evil Overlord of his own galactic empire, which is so powerful that the idea of Star Command launching a full assault is met with skepticism from Buzz. However, Zurg has some very fond memories of his Nana Zurg, who was plenty evil as well and always told him sound advice in order to get the work done. He also seemed to have loved his mother, considering his dream about her.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers:
  • Downplayed with Wheeler. Even before he joined the team, it would have been a stretch to call him a bad guy; he's just a somewhat reluctant, sometimes jerk-ish hero compared to the others. However, he loves Gaia as deeply as his more environmentally sensitive counterparts. One of the fastest ways to make the already Hot-Blooded Wheeler target you is to hurt her, as various eco-villains can attest. He's also fond of his actual mother, hugging her during the one episode in which she appears.
  • In "The Conqueror", the corrupted Planeteers go more along the lines of Smug Super Well Intentioned Extremists than outright evil, but they're still very fond of Gaia, their Team Mom. When Linka sees her standing in front of the missile base, looking mortal, she stops Wheeler from using his gauntlet to destroy the place. Wheeler, in turn, reacts in horror that he could have killed Gaia. Despite their belief that Zarm is a good guy, they're willing to listen to her, and quickly move to help when Zarm upsets part of the silo on her.
• Celebrity Deathmatch: The fight "Nick Diamond vs. Zatar the Alien" was kicked off when Peter Mayhew attempted to do a Chewbacca noise. Zatar misinterprets this as an insult in the language of his home planet and screams "Nobody talks about my mother that way!" and quickly kills Mayhew and Mark Hamill.
• A subversion is the one-shot villain Black John Licorice Codename: Kids Next Door, who would "do anything for candy, even steal it from his mom."
• In an episode of Darkwing Duck, the villain-vanquishing vigilante is trying to improve his public image, and as a result is not allowed to use his gas gun or karate skills to take down some criminal thugs. He resorts to threatening to tell their mothers, which turns out to be an incredibly effective tactic.
• DuckTales (1987):
  • Ma Beagle is loved by her criminal boys. When they overheard Fenton threatening to abandon his mother (It Makes Sense in Context) during "My Mother The Psychic" they were absolutely disgusted.
  • The Beagle Boys exploit this when forced to entertain the pirates that capture them along with the ducks. The Beagle Boys launched into the Barbershop standard "I Want a Girl (like the Girl who Married Dear Old Dad)", which caused all the pirates to burst into tears.
  • Defied in one episode; after Launchpad is accidentally stowed away on a space probe that lands on Mars, the tyrannical ruler of the planet, Emperor Ping the Pitiless (an obvious parody of Ming the Merciless) has him arrested and thrown in prison. While there, he meets an old woman who claims she was arrested for jaywalking. This makes Launchpad angry, and he says he'd bet Ping would "throw his own mother in the slammer". To which the old woman replies, "I am his mother."
• Evil Con Carne:
  • Hector is terrified of disappointing his elderly mother. All these years he's been telling her he's a dental hygienist as opposed to an international arch-criminal. In truth, she knew, she just didn't say anything and she accepts it because it makes him happy. And partially because she knows that he'd never actually succeed in taking over the world and is only a danger to himself, much to his annoyance.
  • Averted with Skarr, who hates his mother.
• Family Guy: Inverted by Stewie Griffin. His mother Lois is his worst enemy, although she doesn't see it that way. It's pretty hard to take a 1-year-old seriously. Ironically, this trope is played straight with him in an earlier episode where he sings a song about how much he misses her since she spends too much time campaigning against his father for school president. Even getting an 'aww' from the audience before he blasts them.
• Fillmore!: In "A Dark Score, Evened", one of the rare times where school bully Rochelle says anything nice or touching is when she fondly talks about how her mother gave her her Signature Headgear bandanna when she was six to keep her bangs from getting in her face.
• Futurama:
  • Mom, of Mom's Friendly Robot Company. All robots love her, so much that it's sickening — and we do mean all of them, from the animated gift cards to the Destructor, a Robotic armor-tank whose very use in battle has been ruled a war crime, and including the Gender-Bender robot who wears a pink tutu.
  • The closest Bender has to a "mother" is the industrial robot who built him. Still, he gets kind of choked up when he gets an X-Mas card from "her" in one episode.
• Gargoyles
  • Inverted with the human-hating villain Demona's love for her daughter Angela being one of her few redeeming qualities.
  • Played straight with David Xanatos. Word of God states that the death of his mother was not only the cause of his fear of death, but one of the reasons his relationship with his father is currently strained. While not enough to change his behavior, his father Petros is still something of a downplayed Morality Pet, since Petros is one of the few people whose opinion actually kind of matters to him.
• Gary the Rat goes well out of its way to avert this. Gary is often seen talking on the phone with his mother, who will be suffering some important malady, and all he'll do is make a crass remark about how much worse her situation will get, or that he can't wait for her to die, or what-have-you.
• In G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, it was revealed that Gung-Ho, a US Marine who is a large man that is known for being an expert bare-knuckle brawler and knife fighter is a total Mama's Boy.
• Coach Cadaver from Gravedale High is a jerk who picks on Max Schneider for being the only human at the titular school, but is shown to care for his mother in "Frankenjockey", where he is trying to call her on the phone and yells at Schneider while calling him "human slime", resulting in Cadaver's mother hanging up under the assumption that her son was calling her "human slime" and Cadaver angry at Schneider for ruining his phone call to his mother.
• Played for Laughs in Gravity Falls, where in the episode “Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons”, Probabilitor the Annoying shows appreciation for his own mother.
  Probabilitor: Come on, this game is a lot of fun! I had my mom pack me a lunch. [ruffles through lunch bag] Ew, apple slices? I’ll eat you last...
• Green Eggs and Ham:
  • Sam-I-Am. He's a con-artist and a smuggler... and on a life-long journey be reunited with the mother who abandoned him as a child.
  • Inverted with Snerz, who refuses to forgive his mother for letting his pet Flemur run away when he was six years old and hasn't spoken to her since, save a scant prank call on Mother's Day.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: Sperg may be the toughest kid in school, but he's totally devoted to his mother (and even has a "MOM" Tattoo to show his love).
  • In "Chicken Ball Z," a humorous inversion of the usual language in this trope occurs as Sperg and Mandy prepare to square off in a karate tournament:
    Sperg: You got something to say to me, Squirt?
    Mandy: Your mother has a job and is a respected member of the community.
    Sperg: NO ONE TALKS ABOUT MY MOTHER THAT WAY!
  • In another episode, Sperg becomes furious where Billy calls his mother ugly and makes her cry (which also turns out to be quite ironic, incidentally).
• The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat: The Cat in the Hat discovers that the Grinch's mother is his soft spot, and exploits this by singing a song about her. The Grinch is so emotionally moved by this that he breaks down in tears.
• Double gender-swap in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002) where Evil-Lynn is a case of "even bad girls love their daddies". She's very hesitant to help Skeletor steal the Ram-Stone from its protector the Faceless One, claiming she doubts she can defeat him. The true reason is, the Faceless One is her dad who she still has feelings for, despite the fact that he clearly shows disappointment in her working for Skeletor. This plotline is important later when she double-crosses Skeletor and finds herself over her head; her father is the only one who can provide help (or rather, find someone who can).
• Jackie Chan Adventures: Implied with Tohru and his mother. Sure, she wasn't even mentioned before his Heel–Face Turn but the fact that he kept his criminal life a secret from her even then shows the Don't Tell Mama aspect of the trope.
• Johnny Bravo loves and cares for his mama; in fact, it's one of his few redeeming qualities. He's not so much a bad person so much as he's an obnoxious, vain Casanova Wannabe who is so clueless it can warp the laws of time and space, but he loves his mom.
  • This extends to de facto mothers as well. While lost in an Australian wildlife sanctuary, Johnny is temporarily adopted by a female kangaroo (who he names "Kanga-Momma"). This leads to one of his few bouts of competence when a poacher named Boomerang Jack threatens her, leading to Johnny beating the crap out of him.
    Johnny: You just made a big mistake, Frenchie! No one threatens Johnny's momma!!
• In Justice League Unlimited, Supergirl clone Galatea shows a bit of affection for her "father" Professor Hamilton before she goes on her mission against the Justice League in "Panic In The Sky".
• Kaeloo: Mr. Cat, despite being an Ax-Crazy psychopath and a jerkass, clearly loves his mother. Unfortunately, he wound up developing an Oedipus Complex towards her.
• Kim Possible:
  • Dr. Drakken. Despite being out to rule the world and loudly bragging about his supervillain status to anyone who will listen, he still hasn't managed to "come out" to his mom about being a maniacal power-mad villain. She thinks he has his own radio show — his real name is Drew Lipsky, and it's implied she mistakes him for Dr. Drew Pinsky.
  • Professor Dementor has a soft spot for his mother.
• The Legend of Korra: When Noatak AKA Amon rebels against his father, he leaves and tells his brother Tarrlok to come with him. The latter doesn't want to leave his mom despite his father's cruelty.
• In a Flashback episode of The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, there was this exchange between three demons as they discuss their Evil Plan when one of them produces a very powerful magical scepter:
  First small demon: Uh... Where'd you get the scepter?
  Big Demon: Swiped it from my mum when she fell asleep watching the telly.
  Second small demon: You stole from your mother??
  Big demon: Yeah, and we'd best do this and get it back before she wakes up for tea, or she'll have a fit!
  Second small demon: You stole from your mother??
  Big demon: HEY! I am evil, you know!
  First small demon: I should say so...
• Spoofed in the Looney Tunes short "Deduce, You Say", in which the little old flower seller Dorlock Holmes [Daffy] harasses turns out to be the hulking Shropshire Slasher's beloved mother. After the ensuing melee dies down, they head off down the street:
  Slasher: I told the nice gen'lman I'd give meself up now, mother.
  Mother: You always was a good boy, Slasher.
• Double-subverted with Nathan Explosion from Metalocalypse. He's the brutal frontman and lead singer of Dethklok, thinks caring for others is not brutal, and openly expresses his hatred of his parents. At first it seems like he hates them because they're Abusive Parents much like the other families of Dethklok are shown to be, but it's actually not true — Oscar and Rose Explosion genuinely love their son even though they have flaws like being a little too motherly, and most of the things he says about them is actually out of embarrassment and awkwardness. In "Fatherklok", he openly states that he loves Oscar while a flashback montage shows them participating in some father-son activities like fishing, bumper car-riding, and Scrabble.
  "I f*pinch harmonic*ing love my dad. My dad's f*pinch harmonic*ing awesome."
• In Moral Orel, Clay Puppington is shown to have loved his late mother. He actually has a bit of an Oedipus complex regarding her.
• In ¡Mucha Lucha!, Ricochet was able to make a three-headed troll guarding a bridge upset by insulting his mother.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Gender-flipped in the episode "Family Appreciation Day," wherein obnoxious brat Diamond Tiara seems to at least be enough of a Daddy's Girl to be genuinely interested in her dad's speech about how his business succeeded, even while said speech left the rest of the class asleep.
  • On the flip side, it's later revealed in "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" that Diamond Tiara has a very strained relationship with her mother.
  • This is evidently a very effective technique for Fluttershy to use against dragons.
  • It is revealed in "Frenemies" that Lord Tirek talks to his grandma (who he refers to as "Gram-Gram") in his sleep. When Cozy Glow mockingly mentions this while the two are arguing, Tirek immediately becomes defensive, telling her to leave "Gram-Gram" out of this.
• In Peter Pan & the Pirates, Captain Hook keeps a portrait of his sainted mother in his cabin, and, in "Hook the Faithful Son," is tricked into believing his mother wished for him to be a pilot, not a pirate.
• Averted on Phineas and Ferb during the L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. Pageant of Evil. The first event was upsetting a Mom Bot. When Lawrence is nice to her, the announcer proclaims in shock, "He's serving her tea! Without irony!" Doofenshmirtz wins the event with a single sentence: "I'm getting married again."
• From the Planet Sheen episode "Is This Cute?":
  Emperor: He once fed an entire village...
  Sheen: Oh, that's nice!
  Emperor: To his mother.
  Sheen: That's... less nice, but at least he cares about his mama!
• The Simpsons:
  • Averted with the Springfield Mafia in "Moe Baby Blues":
    Louie: Oh, that's so funny, I could whack my own mother now.
    Fat Tony: (Discards the orange peel he used to entertain Louie a moment ago) I'm glad you brought that up.
    Louie: (Shocked) Kill my mother?! (Sadly) But she makes such good pasta sauce.
    Johnny Tightlips: It comes from a can.
    Louie: She's a corpse.
  • In the episode "Sweets and Sour Marge", the day planner of an evil CEO consists of nothing but "Evil Deeds", except for an hour break for "Lunch with Mom".
  • Bart Simpson is proud to be America's Bad Boy, but he really does love his mom Marge. Examples:
    • In the RPG Episode where he was a Dark Lord and, despite her being incredibly annoying and ruining his image as The Dreaded, he protected his mother's character from goblins and revived her.
    • Then there's the real world where he's willing to defend Marge from an Ultimate Martial Artist.
    • In "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire," Bart asks his parents for a tattoo for Christmas and Marge said no. Later, Bart gets a tattoo with "MOTHER" written on a heart, hoping it would flatter her. (It didn't, logically.)
    • In "Hurricane Neddy", after Ned Flanders, of all people, lashes out at Marge, Bart immediately jumps to his mom's defense: "Hey, back off, man!"
    • He also knows when his antics go too far when they upset her. Case in point: In "Marge Be Not Proud", when Marge found out Bart had shoplifted a video game, she pulled a Disappointed in You, and he spent the rest of the episode in Must Make Amends mode.
    • "Fears of a Clown" shows that Bart will stop a prank if Marge is in danger of becoming a victim.
  • A variant: in "I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," the criminal Dwight's problems seem to stem largely from being abandoned by his mother as a child. He latches onto Marge as a Parental Substitute after she shows him some compassion during a hostage situation and becomes hurt when Marge doesn't want to visit him in prison.
  • Averted with Mr. Burns. He never forgave his mother after her affair with President Taft. On the other hand, he does get very angry with Homer later in the same episode for impersonating her, and at Smithers for putting him up to it.
  • Whether Krusty counts as "bad" or not is subjective, but he does seem to have a soft spot for his mom. In "Krusty Gets Kanceled" when it is revealed that Luke Perry is his "worthless half-brother" whom he hates, Perry convinces him to let him have a part on his special "for mom's sake". (Of course, he's close to his formerly estranged father too, the entire plot of "Like Father, Like Clown" dealing with that.)
  • Continuity regarding Nelson's parents tends to vary, but he does tend to at least respect his mom. In one episode when Milhouse's parents divorce, Nelson actually sympathizes with him and is nearly brought to tears remembering his own mother's addiction. In a later episode, Nelson's dad picks him up and says he's taking him to Hooters, and Nelson is a little upset, saying, "Aw, I don't wanna bother mom at work!"
• Gargamel is clearly close to his identical mother in The Smurfs (1981).
• In Cosgrove Hall's adaptation of Soul Music, Anti-Villain Satchelmouth Lemon has an identical tattoo to Smee in Peter Pan, revealed in similar circumstances (although the song isn't specifically about mothers).
• South Park: At times, when it seems like Eric Cartman zigzags on this trope.
• In Season 5 of Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Spider-Man, in a bid to get Scorpion to release Aunt May from his grasp, calls the green-garbed crook a coward who would probably send his own mother to fight his battles. Now, this might not seem like much on its own, but it had been established as far back as Season 1 that Scorpion's Berserk Button is being insulted and called names, so one would think that Spidey calling him a coward would have been enough. However...
  Scorpion: That does it! ...Callin' me names is one thing, but nobody talks trash about my mother!
  • Which is a ridiculous reaction and shows his blind aggression since Spidey didn't even badmouth his mother but him. For him mentioning her was bad enough.
• Star Wars Rebels: Chopper is an antisocial astromech droid prone to Violence Really Is the Answer. But if you listen closely to his highly distorted speech, he addresses Team Mom Hera as "Mom," not "Master," and will do as she says, even when it means missing out on causing mayhem.
• Arktos, the Big Bad of Tabaluga, an Evil Overlord snowman. In a movie adaptation "Tabaluga and Leo", it was revealed that Arktos motivations for the conquest of Greenland were because his mother wanted to do it and he wants to do it all for her. He even sheds icy tears.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
  • In the 1987 version, Shredder was revealed to have a still-living mother on the show, whom he presumably loved but who really cramped his style. By the end of the episode, he teleports her out of the Technodrome and back to her retirement home, then laughs triumphantly and with great relief.
  • Bebop loves his mom too, even if she does scream and run away every time she sees him, as revealed by him when Rocksteady asked him why he never sees her lately when he expressed how he wished to see her again.
  • In the 2003 series, the horror-filled episode "Insane in the Membrane" focuses heavily on Baxter Stockman's loving memories of his dead mother.
• Total Drama: In Action, in the Medical Drama-based challenge, it's shown that Heather considers her mother as her best friend; in fact, when she thinks she's going to die along with the other contestants, she writes her last will and testament, leaving everything to her mom. Interestingly, it doesn't appear that the fondness is reciprocated, as in the first season's video messages from home, Heather's mother, along with her father, is shown celebrating when she's gone and selling off her stuff, though they try to hide it when they're on camera.
• T.U.F.F. Puppy:
  • The episode "Mom's Away" has Snaptrap come up with a plan to kidnap every mother in Petropolis and strand them on a deserted island under the reasoning that moms are annoying. Every other member of D.O.O.M. agrees except for Larry, who dissents that he loves his mother unconditionally. Unsurprisingly, this prompts Snaptrap to subject Larry to abuse like he usually does.
  • It is mentioned that Kitty's villainous twin sister Katty used her one phone call to call their mom on her birthday, which is one reason Mrs. Katwell views Katty more favorably.
• Ugly Americans:
  • Half-demon (Anti)AntiChrist Callie has a very close relationship with her human mother.
  • Also, Twayne Boneraper is full demon and killed all seven of his brothers, but he appears to have a close relationship with his mother Violet.
• In Xiaolin Showdown, there is Jack Spicer Evil Boy Genius, who wants to rule the world. He is also a huge mamma’s boy.
  Wuya: Why do you build these stupid machines? They're worthless.
  Jack Spicer: Mom said I need a hobby.
• Young Justice (2010): One of the New Gods poses as a thug's mother. When the rest of the New Gods + Superboy show up, he actually moves to protect her and tells her to get out until the New God in question drops the disguise.

---