Dirty Old Man - Television Tropes & Idioms

Mike: My grandkids may never come to visit, but I've got the company of lots of nicely-bodied women, so I'm happy in my own way.
Linda: These days, that's called "sexual harassment", Mike.
— Mother 3

Just what he sounds like - a older male character, usually unattractive in some way, who takes more than a passive delight in young women. Sometimes he limits himself to just talking dirty and propositioning cute girls, but sometimes he takes matters into his own hands, literally. He's not Casanova, nor is he necessarily trying to be - but he certainly won't complain if things work out that way for him.

The "old" part of his description is mostly relative to the girls he accosts — a creepy thirty-something teacher eyeing his junior high school students is no less a Dirty Old Man than a geezer in his sixties pinching the bottoms of housewives in the supermarket, though it's worth bearing out that a younger Dirty Old Man's behavior is going to be seen as a good deal less harmless than that of his hoary-headed counterparts. Probably because a Dirty Old Man is supposedly less likely to chase his victims, or force worse things upon them. (This is unfortunately not the truth in real life. There are as many child molesters aged 70 as there are aged 35.)

When played for comedy he is either a disgusting pervert who gets beaten up by the girls he assaults, or a delightful rogue whom the girls tolerate. When played seriously, he's usually some variety of sexual predator.

In Britain, these characters are typically seen wearing brown mackintosh coats, which allow concealment of a certain activity, leading to them being referred to as "the dirty mac brigade".

For an anime variant which is somewhat less repulsive, see Lovable Sex Maniac.

Dirty Old Women are not usually so frowned upon.

Examples

Anime and Manga

Rei's grandfather in the original uncensored Sailor Moon anime. (In the manga, he wasn't.)
Happôsai in Ranma ½, mostly of the Panty Thief variety.
- And the groping, voyeuristic, sexually harassing variety. His perversion also gives him his power. He is the paradigm of dirty old men in anime.
  - In fact, he was so perverted that he actually chased away a ghost because he wouldn't stop harassing her.
Kimura-sensei in Azumanga Daioh, who freely admits that the main reason he became a teacher is "Because I like high school girls, that's why!"
Master Roshi / Kamesennin in Dragonball. Old Kaioshin is another, to the extent that Goku ropes him in by promising to let him fondle Bulma.
Jiraiya in Naruto.
Shunsui in Bleach.
Tenchi's father Noboyuki is a walking example of this trope, even hitting on Ryoko while under the impression that she's Tenchi's fiancée. In the OVAs, Tenchi's grandfather Katshuhito has elements of this as well. Although the two are distantly related, one can't exactly say it runs in the family (Tenchi missed out on it altogether).
Headmaster Osmond from Zero No Tsukaima, who enjoys using his mouse Familiar to look up his secretary's skirt.
Soujirou Izumi from Lucky Star. When asked if he was a Lolicon, he protests the label, saying, "I like normal girls as well, so I am also a Lolicon".
Albert Chamomile of Mahou Sensei Negima, who, being a short-lived ermine, is an old man despite being younger than the ten year old main character, let alone the 14-year-old girls. Also, is a dirty old man despite being an ermine. Both he and author's notes refer to him as a dirty old man several times.
- Jack Rakan ~~also seems to fall into this on occasion~~ is this. He greeted Asuna by poking her chest, and a recent manga chapter has him literally stealing the panties off one of his opponents.
  - Another recent manga chapter takes this to new heights, with Chamo and Rakan actually defeating their hidden opponents by following the scent the above-mentioned pair of panties, and then defeating said opponents by repeatedly flipping up their skirts up until they conceded defeat. It later turns out that Jack actually has specific techniques for stealing panties and then blowing the skirts up, which he does to four enemies at once. These are the only techniques that he doesn't just make up on the spot. There's a good reason that he's in picture at Panty Thief.
Professor Cat in Princess Tutu is a more chaste version of this trope. He doesn't appear to have any intentions of doing anything sexual to his students...but he threatens to force them to marry him if they slack off in their practice. He seems particularly intent on the main heroine, who is somewhere in the 12-14 range.
Generally averted in One Piece, in that most of the old men the crew meets are not dirty at all and generally deserving of respect. Later subverted in the form of Brook, a post-mortem dirty old man at (technically) age 88.
- Although it's heavily implied that the said post-mortem dirty old man behaves the way he does because of the decades and decades of isolation that probably made him forget how to interact with women normally.
Daisensei (AKA Guru Lou) in Kyatto Ninden Teyandee (AKA Samurai Pizza Cats). His lecherous attitude was toned down in the SPC version.
Master of Chinese Kenpo, Ma Kensei from Kenichi The Mightiest Disciple, is a shameless pervert. Among other things, he was introduced trying to secretly take dirty pictures of Shigure and deftly dodging the shuriken she threw in response.
The Elder from Chrono Crusade.
Ninin Ga Shinobuden gives us Onsokumaru, a Dirty Old Floating Yellow Ball thing.
Ol' Sugoroku Mutou in Yu-Gi-Oh. At least, in the original version, anyway.
Uncled Grandfather from Perfect Hair Forever is a parody of this trope.
Grandpa Rome of Axis Powers Hetalia talks a bit like this in this strip.
Amesho in Free Collars Kingdom. But don't call him 'old'.
This guy (he comes in about 4 minutes in) from the Beauty and the Beach episode of Pokemon. Look how he leers at Misty. The man must like his Lolicon.
Dr McLaren from episode 7 of the Bubblegum Crisis OVA comes to Japan partly to work on a new Boomer design and partly to meet 'geisha girls' and hookers. This became a big part of a plot to kidnap him.

Comics

Belgian comic Violine, about a 10 year old girl who can read people's minds by staring into their eyes, has an encounter with one of these that appears to be played partially straight and partially for dark humor. Violine escapes from her school where she was accused of being a witch, and finds a random man driving by who offers her a ride. The man takes her away from the direction she told him she lived, however, and she gets suspicious. Staring into his eyes to read his mind, Violine sees an image of herself bound and gagged and looking up with pleading eyes while lying on a pillow. Angered and scared, she attempts to escape and crash his car.

Films

Patches O'Houlihan from Dodgeball
Patches: I got a couple'a hookers in my room, queerbag.
A good movie example is Burgess Meredith's character from Grumpy Old Men.
Kurt Russell's character "Stuntman Mike" in Grindhouse: Death Proof.
Judge Turpin of Sweeney Todd is an evil example of a Dirty Old Man played very seriously. Not only does he rape the title character's wife at a masked ball after having her husband "transported for life", but he also has a Hikaru Genji Plan for Sweeney's daughter Johanna, which doesn't work because Johanna hates him and has eyes for young sailor Anthony Hope.
- And in the film at least, he hits on Anthony as well.
Judge Claude Frollo from The Hunchback Of Notre Dame is another villainous Dirty Old Man with a serious lust for the romantic lead, Esmerelda, who he tries to have burned at the stake when she rejects his advances.
Uncle Willy in The Philadelphia Story, who pinches all the young ladies (including his niece).
The Avengers. Sir August's (Sean Connery) lascivious gloating over a captured Emma Peel (Uma Thurman). Dude, you're 40 years older than her.
Reverse Lampshaded in 'A Hard Days Night' where the first comment about Paul's grandfather was "Very Clean Old Man". It was a Running Gag through the film that everyone kept commenting how Clean he was. This doubles as Actor Allusion as he was played by the same actor who portrayed Steptoe (See below).
In The Spy Who Loved Me, Karl Stromberg (Curt Jurgens) takes mild advantage of a helpless Anya (Barbara Bach) while she's strapped to a couch. When the movie was released in 1977 Jurgens was 62 and Ms. Bach was 30.

Literature

Wizards on the Discworld are supposed to be celibate, but this doesn't stop much of the faculty of Unseen University from ogling beautiful young women when they think they can get away with it (for example, when peeking on the activities of Bibulous, God of Wine, in Hogfather, they suddenly get a whole lot more interested when they learn he's surrounded by naked maidens). Windle Poons as seen in Moving Pictures is probably the worst of the lot, despite being about a hundred and thirty and wheelchair-bound. At least he was until Making Money where a wizard's ghost ends up helping only because he was promised that he would be taken to a place where women "show off their...ankles?"
- Another Discworld example is Cohen the Barbarian and his Silver Horde. They're too old to go around ravishing maidens, though, so they have to make do with leering at them instead.
- Nanny Ogg may be the only dirty old woman this troper has ever seen.
It's debatable how much Count Olaf is focused on this, but in his ploy to marry Violet to get at her fortune, he certainly points out her looks more than once (and plans to be kind and let her live). His later girlfriend, Esme Squalor, is young enough to have once been his student. Who knows about Kit, though.
The main character of El espejo de Lida sal by Miguel Ángel Asturias asks for romantic advice to a blind old man that fits squarely on this trope, being that he gropes her a couple of times.
In Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, the titular Trickster God Anansi is not only this, but uses his last strength to expose a young woman's breasts.
Walder Frey in A Song Of Ice And Fire. He's over ninety and on his eighth wife and has children, grandchildren and in at least one instance, great grand children who are older than she is, or the last one at least of comparable age. Neither age nor marriage stops him from leering at just about any woman to cross his path.
Humbert Humbert in Lolita.

Live Action TV

Albert Steptoe is one of the Ur Examples, and probably a candidate for Trope Namer into the bargain.
Benny Hill often played his characters this way, though reportedly he saw it more as childish playfulness than randy cheekery.
Artie Johnson's "Tyrone F. Horneigh" (pronounced "horn-eye" just for Getting Crap Past The Radar) from Rowan And Martins Laugh-In! is probably the archetypal example of the comedy version.
- Somewhat averted by his target being no spring chicken herself (Ruth Buzzi's Gladys Ormphby).
Young Mr. Grace from Are You Being Served, despite being practically unable to move unassisted, was a Dirty Old Man to the core. He once fired a secretary because his heart rate alarm didn't go off when she bent over in front of him.
Al in Quantum Leap spends a good amount of time admiring any young woman who walks past — except since they can't see him as he's in an imaging chamber forty-odd years in the future he's probably doing what most men (and plenty of women too, probably) would be doing in the circumstances.
Bob Kelso of Scrubs could also qualify for this trope.
Father Jack in Father Ted. Being a Catholic priest hasn't stopped him from maintaining a healthy love of the ladies. Although not as frequent as his shouting "Feck", "Drink" or "Arse", he quite often shouts "Girls", and he has been shown variously reading dirty magazines with such delight that he fails to notice his hair is on fire, judging a wet t-shirt contest (where his job seems to consist of staring and growling "more water") and, in a flashback, convincing a class of teenaged girls in a nunnery to take their tennis lessons topless... This is just the tip of the iceberg, too.
- How he doesn't end up being found out and thrown out of the Priesthood is beyond me!
  - Because virtually every priest on Father Ted is a Dirty Old Man. Bishop Brennan, for instance, has at least one illegitimate child.
  - He was found out. That's why he's on Craggy Island.
Roger Sterling. Just... Roger Sterling. Possibly unusual in that he gets away with it to a certain degree (he's rich and not that hard on the eyes, and it's 1960).
Roman Emperor Tiberius (a.k.a. The Old He-Goat) is portrayed as a truly filthy old bastard in I Claudius. It should be noted that this characterization was inherited from Tacitus and Suetonius, the two major Roman sources for the period.
For the dirty mac brigade version, we have a fair number of Monty Pythons Flying Circus appearances by a man in...well...a dirty mac.

Music

The Beatles' Mean Mister Mustard, who yells obscene things at the Queen and is described in the lyrics as "a dirty old man".
The Jethro Tull song "Aqualung" portrays two sides of one of these characters.
- And Pearl Jam's "tribute" to that song, "Evenflow".
KISS's "Christine Sixteen".
Serge Gainsbourg. See: "Lemon Incest" or the album Histoire de Melody Nelson.

Video Games

Father Salade in La Pucelle Tactics. Shortly into the game, it's found out that he suggested the two female leads' costumes, including a "micro-mini under your robe" for Alouette. He's found out when the two girls compare notes.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations has Victor Kudo. He has thing for maid outfits.
Doctor Wilbur Feels in Laura Bow : The Colonel's Bequest.
- I'll not be examined by Dr. Feels, thanks. Ew.
Vaati from Legend Of Zelda.
- Let's hope that he didn't pick that up from his teacher, because this would bring some unfortunate implications regarding the latters realationship to a certain little boy...
Kapp'n, the boat rower/driver from Animal Crossing, has a tendency to flirt with female characters, especially in his City Folk incarnation as a bus driver. He genuinely complements them frequently, however, so he comes off as more charming than creepy. Usually.
Tales Of Vesperia gives us Raven, which is understandable in that he travels with Judith. He's also one of the non-creepy examples of the trope, ignoring Teen Genius Rita and White Princess Estelle.
In Pokemon Firered/Leafgreen, there's this old dude peering into the windows of the Celadon Gym. This troper thinks Game Freak got a little too carried away with the sexual references.
Old Man: Heheh.... This GYM is great! It's full of women!
- Oh, he was there from the beginning.
One video from the Secret Theater in MGS3 portrays The End as such.

Web Comics

The Inexplicable Adventures Of Bob has Mr. Dirtygeezer, a little old guy in a cowboy hat who buys naughty magazines at Bob's newsstand.
Dr. Schlock from Sluggy Freelance.
Eldon, better known as DOM even by his adventuring companions, from Planescape Survival Guide.

Web Original

Pete the Puppet: Pete, despite apparently being deeply conservative and looking down on young people sleeping around all the time, certainly has his more perverted moments. It's also implied in another episode that he used to go to some sort of bizarre sex show involving children when he was younger (in his twenties or thirties).
- And then there's the kissing booth incident.

Western Animation

Herbert, the elderly pedophile on Family Guy shows up from time to time just to say creepy stuff in his distinctive voice. Like the "Greased-up Deaf Guy", he was a one note gag character that was simply too offensively funny to not bring back. He'd never be funny if he wasn't so old and feeble.
- Another example, of course, is Quagmire, who is not only a Dirty Old Man but just a plain old pervert. In one episode, he finds a bound and gagged high school cheerleader in a bathroom stall, and proclaims, "Dear Diary: Jackpot!". In another, he crashes a high school party, and starts this exchange:
  Quagmire: Hey there sweetie, how old are you?
  Connie: Sixteen.
  Quagmire: Eighteen? You're first!
  Connie: Mom!
  Quagmire: I like where this is goin'!
- And again:
  Quagmire: Hey Meg, you eighteen yet?
  Megan: No.
  Quagmire: (walks past her) Hey Chris! How's it goin'?
Popeye's dad, Poopdeck Pappy, was constantly flirting with women. In a subversion, they often flirt back.
Iroh is usually well-behaved, but is not above a compliment or two for a pretty woman—or a not-so-pretty woman if he thinks it will get him preferential treatment. However, when June and Zuko are paralyzed by her Shirshu and June is thrown atop him, he doesn't move, even though Zuko points out the Shirshu didn't get him. He smiles, and June rolls her eyes.

Real Life

Benjamin Franklin, both in 1776 and Real Life.
Hugh Hefner. 'Nuff said
Roger Ebert seems like this in a number of his reviews, including the recent Zack and Miri.
"Poppa", the old guy in this Gaijin Smash post.
The Sex Pistols infamous live TV encounter with interviewer Bill Grundy. (In 1976 this was an unprecedented outburst for television).
Grundy: What about you girls behind? Are you worried or are you just enjoying yourself?
Steve Jones: He's like your dad innee this geezer? Or your granddad...
Siouxsie Sioux: Enjoying myself...
Grundy: Are you?
Sioux: Yeah.
Grundy: That's what I thought you were doing.
Sioux: I always wanted to meet you...
Grundy: Did you really? We'll meet afterwards, shall we?
Jones: You dirty sod. You dirty old man.
Grundy: Keep going chief, keep going. Go on, you've got another 5 seconds, say something outrageous.
Jones: You dirty bastard.
Grundy: Go on, again!
Jones: You dirty fucker.
Grundy: What a clever boy.
Jones: What a fucking rotter.
According to Suetonius and Tacitus, Emperor Tiberius of Rome. And yes, that's why he was written and acted that way in I Claudius. Whether he was that dirty or not is still a matter of discussion among Roman historians.
- Graves couldn't portray Tiberius as anywhere near as filthy as the historians did. If he had, his novel could not have been published in his time period. The histories could be published because they were supposedly factual and carried the stamp of antiquity. (The big thing that couldn't be mentioned? Oral rape of infants. Even in Ancient Rome, where raping a twelve-year-old slave of either sex was 100% A-OK for a freeborn male, that was beyond the pale even for the emperor.)
As a darker (and more recent) example, we have Josef Fritzl.
- Who may or may not skip right over this into Complete Monster.
Piers Anthony is a rare self-proclaimed Dirty Old Man.
This performance counts at least as creepy, and the author suspiciously resembles http://services.sled.sc.gov/sor/view.aspx?SRS=16493 ... this doesn't make the video any less funny, though.
Mikey Robbins, despite being middle aged, is a cheerful Dirty Old Man.
Many aging rockers resemble this as they reach middle age and beyond. Gene Simmons, approaching age 60, comes to mind.
Patrick Stewart, and proud he is of it!
- It counts less if you look, like, forty.
Frank Miller admits to this in the script of All-Star Batman and Robin.