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alt title(s): Sickeningly Sweet
Bibble and Dizzle from Barbie Fairytopia: Magic of the Rainbow have been deemed hazardous to your health
"I'm so sweet I cause diabetes."
— Meade Slaughter, Clint McColloch's Nevada
"Aww! It's all so cute! It makes me wanna hurl."
This is an audience reaction to works that are superficially attempting to be cute —using all the tropes of cuteness, like there's some kind of checklist— and Go Horribly Right. ' Saccharine ' is the watchword. Viewers react to this with anything ranging from mild exasperation to violent revulsion (more symptoms below), but, as with many things, Your Mileage May Vary.
Keep in mind that extremely over-the-top cuteness is not necessarily a bad thing. With proper usage, it may result in an enjoyable series wherein the cuteness is there as, essentially, an afterthought. It's when it consumes the entire series that it becomes a problem.
Troper General's Warning: This product may contain high levels of The Cutie, Moe Moe, pink, princesses, hearts, puppies, kittens, Strawberries, fuzzy little sidekicks, heartfelt lessons, Littlest Cancer Patients, Dead Little Sisters, Ill Girls, Love Stories, lovey dovey couples, Sugar Bowls and other known causes of TV Diabetes.
Symptoms include (but are not limited to): Narm, Glurge, Losing Willing Suspension Of Disbelief, vomiting, Jumping The Shark, coma, death and lettuce.
Please consult a dietitian to find a safe and healthy diet of Romance and feel-good TV; remember that even low sugar programs can be bad for your health if consumed en masse or binged. Be advised that Sickeningly Sweet TV shows and other media which exceed 1,000° Kawaiiko may cause the viewer severe health reactions due to contracting TV Diabetes.
Use caution when mixing with Gorn as Grotesque Cuteness may result. Repeated consumption of this product may result in becoming a Glurge Addict.
Examples:
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- Hanamaru Kindergarten is basically Kodomo No Jikan with the creepy replaced with cute.
- The two sisters Kyou and Asu in Binbou Shimai Monogatari are really just endearing enough to pull off their saccharine sweet interaction, depending on how much sweetness you can take in.
- The level of saccharine is mostly offset by the appearance of the Echigoya sisters. Thank goodness for them!
- Binchou-tan is so cute it hurts.
- And of course Excel Saga with the Puchus, which are more like parodies of this trope, given the fact that when they are initially presented as being kinda evil, and become considerably less cute when hit...
- Full Metal Alchemist: The interactions between Hughes and Elysia (or just Hughes showing off the family pictures) is this in spades, and they even have an Image Song duet together.
- Hidamari SkHNNNNNNNNNGGGGG
- A Little Snow Fairy Sugar... the epitome of overly-cutesy Moe Moe if there ever was one.
- Aqua, a minor villain from MAR, was so sickenly adorable that she was killed by one of her own allies.
- Intentionally evoked for parody reasons throughout the Pretty Sammy series. Sammy's "Pretty Space" turns the area around her into a diabetic coma inducing place saturated by the color pink and with hearts floating everywhere. This gets commented on by the other characters a few times.
- Strawberry Panic, to such levels that people tend to dismiss this show as Stealth Parody.
- In Lucky Star, Konata's little cousin Yutaka qualifies. From the first moment you see her, she rots your teeth—and as soon as you think it can't get any worse, just wait till you see her interaction with Iwasaki's dog in the OVA.
- The main character from Because I'm The Goddess.
- Potemayo, on the surface. Then you get to the Brokeback Mountain references, crossdressing and toilet humour (and Ho Yay) and you begin to wonder just what the hell you're watching.
- Bottle Fairy. Blargh.
- Hamtaro.
- Jewel Pet
. The intro speaks for itself.
- Chiyo-chan + penguin suit. Or simply Chiyo-chan, period (that song she sings in Episode 1!).
- The scene with Marco the kitty is caramalized sugar dipped in a cup of sugar with glaze and powdered sugar on top. Poor Sakaki-san.
- The cross dressing toddler form of Italy, Chibitalia, from Axis Powers Hetalia.
- Also, episode 22. Enough said.
- Don't forget Romano, he pratically embodies all the tropes about Tsundere cuteness~
- The entire Hirasawa family from K-On!, with the parents Sickeningly Sweethearts and the sisters in a practically similar relationship (minus the Les Yay... maybe), your teeth will have rot before Mugi offers any cake.
- Then there are the lyrics Mio wrote, if the reactions of the other club members are any indication.
- The entirety, and especially the opening sequence
of Chi's Sweet Home.
- Kimi Ni Todoke centers around teenagers who are kind and understand one another. -Gasp-!
- Nanatsuiro Drops is so cute, that just watching 5 seconds of the opening will make your teeth fall out and your eyes pop of SO. MUCH. CUTENESS. Gah
- Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni. You know, before all the killing.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha was like this before the plot showed up five or so episodes in. Pretty much every scene in the first season where Nanoha interacts with her family will make you want to puke.
Art
Comics
- Deadpool Hangs A Lampshade on this when reminiscing about his ex-wife: "...all this 'I love you snookie pie' and 'you too honey lips face head mush mush'...go into diabetic shock just walking by the place."
- Miss Martian of the DC Universe, which is especially interesting considering she's a White Martian.
- Which leads to fans thinking she's cuter in her true form.
- Mary Marvel.
- Lampshaded in Mark Waid's Empire with the line "I need insulin listening to you!"
- Hilariously subverted in the Batman/Judge Dredd crossover, where Scarecrow sprays Judge Death with his nightmare toxin, causing Judge Death to panic wildly over the sight of adorable ponies and cutesy little animals.
Commercials
- The aggressively adorable kids in the Welch's Grape Juice commercials.
- The aggressively adorable kids in the Bandaid commercials, especially the little black girl.
- That little white boy is frighteningly ugly, so it evens out.
- Played with to the point of parody in the late 2009-early 2010 radio ads for the New York Lottery's "Sweet Million" game, which feature intentionally tooth-rotting things like kittens that meow "I love you" and puppies that croon barbershop harmonies for little old ladies.
Fan Fiction
- This trope is invoked in the fanfic "Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness," when Hannah tells Neville that her Aunt has some sickeningly cute collectible china witch figurines. Apparently, "It's like trying to eat half of Honeydukes in one sitting. You can feel your teeth start to rot the second you cross the front door."
- The first three minutes
of Enchanted was a parody of things that taste like diabetes.
- The first half of the musical and film Mamma Mia! is ridiculously cheerful. It is a musical based on ABBA songs, after all.
- High School Musical Note that it is still so popular — right up there with Hannah Montana— it's spawned two sequels and the franchise still doesn't look dead.
- It's a kids' movie. Kids are immune to this trope. Remember Barney?
- During the film The Day After Tomorrow, the rescue of the Littlest Cancer Patient.
- Some of Don Bluth's later films, especially A Troll In Central Park exhibit such cuteness in their characters that it is undoubtedly unhealthy to watch.
- Isn't Darla
◊ from Cats Don't Dance just the cutest thing? Subverted when she's being ◊ evil.
- In the MSTing of the movie "Santa Claus," Tom Servo (accurately) refers to Lupita, the main child character, as "aggressively cute."
"Lupita, no!"
- Annie; "You're never fully dressed without a smile!" [UGH!]
- Parodied in the opening scenes of the film A Series Of Unfortunate Events about "The Littlest Elf".
- In the opening scene of Pulp Fiction, this is combined with some serious Mood Whiplash.
Honey Bunny: I love you, Pumpkin.
Pumpkin: I love you, Honey Bunny.
*Pumpkin climbs on top of the restaurant table*
Pumpkin: Okay, everybody be cool, this is a robbery!
Honey Bunny: Any of you fucking pricks move, and I'll execute every motherfucking last one of ya!'''
*roll opening credits*
- Parodied and lampshaded in The Naked Gun: 33 1/3 - The Final Insult, when Frank and his wife are in a marriage counseling session, they devolve into baby-talking pet names, at which point the therapist states "Mr. and Mrs. Drebin, please - I'm a diabetic."
- August Rush. And how.
Music
- The song "Honey," sung by Bobby Goldsboro. It got a lot of votes in Dave Barry's Worst Song Ever poll because, as one person put it, "Bobby never caught on that he could have drilled a hole in himself and poured the sap out."
- Disney pop. Even the break-up songs are cute and bouncy.
- Almost any song by IOSYS that has gotten an animation, several of them listed here.
- Once you understand what the lyrics mean in English, Bouken Desho Desho
, opening theme of an anime that needs no introduction, easily falls into this. Thank goodness for the despair treatment .
- Then there's Hare Hare Yukai... Ear Worm, anyone?
- And even happier than the above, this.
- Not sure about Bouken Desho Desho, but just remember that Hare Hare Yukai is being sung by Haruhi, not her voice actress...
- Kidz Bop. Small children cover songs never, uh, intended for their demographic.
- "Fireflies" by Owl City... excruciatingly so.
- What makes matters worse is that it's also excruciatingly catchy.
- "Butterfly Kisses,"
, by Bob Carlisle, is highly pukeworthy.
- A recently-released Vocaloid, Yuki Kaai, has managed to somehow be even more adorable than her sisters. Case
in point .
- My honey bunch, sugarpwums, pumpy-umpy-umpkin. You'we my sweety-pie. You'we my cuppy-cake gumdwops, snoogums-boogums. You'we the apple of my eye... :3
Toys
- The Jinxlets of the webcomic Starslip Crisis. The Jinxlets get nourishment through SNUGGLING.
- Vinci from Vinci And Arty; consult your physician before attempting to read this webcomic. Occasionally lampshaded as the 24 year old male raccoon gets confused for a 10 year old boy or girl.
- Chibi Miku-san
. Oh mother of god, the whole of you will be disintegrated at everyone's adorableness there.
- Heavily lampshaded in this
The Dragon Doctors. Oh, and then the author demanded someone put it on here. So I did.
- This
xkcd strip starts off appearing as a straight example, before diving into subversion so fast it'll set the air on fire.
- Lampshaded quite effectively by this
DMFA comic.
Web Original
- Used for laughs in Happy Tree Friends. Their misadventures often begin with them playing, doing something innocuous or disgustingly cute typical of animated animals. Of course, it ends badly.
- The Clannad ending is pretty cute on its own but multiply its cuteness by putting Moemon in it.
- Parodied in the 'Lost Notebook' episode of Stickman Exodus
, as the notebook is 'borrowed' by its owner's younger sister to doodle in. Thus surrounding the PTSD-suffering stick figures with fluffy, cutesy-talking friendly flowers, bees, teddy bears, and unicorns who join everyone's hands for the We're All Friends! song. Naturally, once her brother takes it back, things go very, very wrong...
- Cute Overload.
That is all.
- These puppies. GAZE UPON THE FUZZY
- Munchkin/scottish fold mix kitten
. Such lethal doses of cuteness could make your head explode.
- For fans of Torchwood and Doctor Who there's Torchwood Babies
.
- This
PETA website. Admittedly, though, the concept of a fish with cat ears and a Fu Manchu beard is a mite disturbing. And then we have the "Sea Kitten Stories" bit...
- Several Squiby user-created adoptable lines, including Foufs
. Just looking at the holiday-edition Foufs will give you a toothache.
- Awww... wook at Baby
◊ Doll ◊ (Batman The Animated Series). Of course, she's really a thirty-year-old insane woman who merely acts like a child.
- The Care Bears have a reputation for this (it's what "The Dummi Bears", a Show Within A Show on Rugrats, was inspired by) - and they are a group of pastel-colored teddy bears, but the extent of its Tastes Like Diabetes status is more a case of the Weird Al Effect.
- Actually, it's more likely that "The Dummi Bears" were inspired by the Disney show "Gummi Bears" which was equally diabetes-causing, even though the bears weren't pastel colours and wore clothes.
- Care Bears, in reality, only partially fits. Those who've watched the original 80s TV series and the first two movies will know that it's really Nightmare Fuel in disguise. The third movie is still a little dark, but from the fourth movie onwards, it falls right into the trope.
- That scene from the He-Man and She-Ra Christmas special. "Loooove and caaaariing..."
- Just about any scene from The Flintstones featuring Pebbles. Not only does sappy "nursery" music play whenever she comes crawling in but Fred, normally an amusing Ralph Kramden type, starts going all "Oh my little Pebbly-poo" whenever she's around.
- Lila, the "ever so" sickeningly sweet farm-girl from Hey Arnold, and Olga at times.
- Therefore, the episode where Lila becomes Olga's "little sister" as part of a program is absolutely rife with this stuff.
- The Fairly Odd Parents episode "So Totally Spaced Out", where little cutesy creatures that speak in Painful Rhyme known as "Giggle Pies" become a huge threat to the cuteness-hating, violence-loving inhabitants of the planet Yugopotamia.
- The 'Disney Universe' in Family Guy. That is, until the Jew shows up.
Stewie: Oh riiiight, this is a Disney universe...
- Foofy Wuggums, the little lost and frightened imaginary friend from the Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends TV movie Good Wilt Hunting, who is literally a pink teddy bear who speaks in Baby Talk. Hell, just look at his name...
- And it certainly helps that he's voiced by Tara Strong, the Ultimate Mistress of Cuteness.
- Are we really forgetting Berry from the episode Berry Scary? Frankie said it best:
"Ooh! Looks like there's a little sour under all that sweetness!"
- The Pastoral Symphony segment of Fantasia. Rosey-assed cupids, simpering centaurs, and candy-colored unicorns and pegasi bury the viewer under an avalanche of sugar.
- Jeremy in Phineas And Ferb. Really, noone is that nice. Especially that frikkin' song he and his band do.
- Parodied in Time Squad, where they portrayed Edgar Allan Poe of all people as this. It's only until the characters start criticizing his pink cake that he's Maddened Into Misanthropy and becomes the poet that history knows him for.
- Drew Monday is very much like this to Zak, when pretending to be his mother. She does later say:
"You do not know how nice it is to not have to pretend to care about you anymore."
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