We Want Our Jerk Back - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Do something, Joel! This aggressive niceness is making me feel really uncomfortable!"

- Crow T. Robot, Mystery Science Theater 3000

A common Sit Com plot where the total ass learns his lesson, turns sweet and benevolent – and becomes absolutely intolerable, making the other characters yearn for the original personality. Eventually the character in question will revert to normal, and the reaction will either be relief, or realization that he really is worse in his obnoxious form.

A subset of Flowers For Algernon. This becomes worse if the cast caused this change intentionally, because Pygmalion Snap Back means the Jerk Ass returns to his jerky nature and has an ax to grind.

This can also refer to a situation where the Jerk Ass is replaced, much to the relief of the other characters... at first. It turns out that the replacement is either much worse, or is so nice that nobody can stand them. Luckily, the regular Jerk Ass will be reinstated, but nobody will ever mention this again.

Examples:

This happened to Bender on Futurama when he found religion in "Hell Is Other Robots"—and to a lesser extent, Farnsworth, when Bender bent his spine so he continually faced upwards.
Likewise, Jerry Seinfeld on Seinfeld, when his girlfriend wanted him to be more in touch with his emotions.
It happened to Peter Griffin (Family Guy) about a dozen times, e.g. when he stopped being a couch potato, when he stopped being a chauvinist, when he tried to learn how to act sophisticated (though in that one, he just became a very different kind of jerk), etc. It would seem that Lois has never heard the expression Be Careful What You Wish For. Of course, given that when he has an excuse to act like more of a jackass he does (such as in "Petarded", when he finds out people will excuse him anything after he's diagnosed as mentally incompetent).
- Another episode showed that after becoming physically fit and generally pretty, he turned into an ever bigger jerk.
- It also happens to Stewie in the episode "Stewie B. Goode", when a near-death experience and a vision of hell scares him into being 'nice'. Brian eventually snaps him out of it.
Hey Arnold!, "Big Bob's Crisis", with Big Bob Pataki.
Duck Dodgers when he got run through the "purifier" machine. (It took a day or two.)
- Not to mention the episode that he quits the Protectorate for a glamorous job in the family restaurant sector.
Wings: Roy undergoes de-jerkification with help from Joe but is back to normal by the end of the episode thanks to being partnered with Lowell during a game of Trivial Pursuit.
Malcolm In The Middle had Reese become gentle and kind, but when Malcolm starts getting bullied after losing his brother's protection, he decided he would rather have the ass.
- Inversion: Malcolm himself had an episode where he bit his tongue and resisted the urge to insult everyone for being idiotic, but everyone liked this new persona, and he often got his way. Unfortunately, Malcolm developed an ulcer in only a few weeks due to his gross superiority complex and his inability to express it.
Partial subversion in M*A*S*H: Hawkeye stops drinking and becomes precisely the sort of self-righteous busybody he's fought throughout the series (as opposed to the self-righteous cynic that he usually is), until the others practically beg him to get back off the wagon. However, this is clearly noted to be a result of his withdrawal and once he gets through that phase at the end of the episode, he returns to his regular self except that he drinks much less for the rest of the series.
- Another M*A*S*H episode uses a variant of the second version: Hawkeye temporarily swaps places with his counterpart from the 8063rd and Charles Winchester is at first delighted, but the substitute (played by George "Goober" Lindsey) proves to be so irritating that Winchester ends up helping B.J. get him booted out and Hawkeye brought back.
Video game example: in Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II, the player can acquire an item called "HK Protocol Pacifist Package", which can turn the ruthless, sadistic and bloodlusting assassin droid HK-47 into an unbearably polite pacifist. The player character then hastily removes the package, much to the droid's gratitude.
- HK himself is an example, being partly disassembled and stored in a compartment on the Ebon Hawk at the beginning of the game. It's possible to not even get HK into your party, you have to do some work to get replacement parts for him, and then choose to repair him.
A week of being unable to talk taught Homer to listen in The Simpsons, after which he found the joys of a polite, sedate existence. Marge was so used to his shenanigans, however, that weeks of dormancy drove her insane.
- A double example from a different episode, "Home Away from Homer": Flanders moves to ultra-nice Humbleton, PA, and a Jerk Ass jock moves into Flanders's old house, next to the Simpsons. Both Ned and Homer realize how good they had it before and everything goes back to normal.
  - This also occurs at least twice with Principal Skinner, of the "gets replaced by a worse replacement" variety.
Slightly inverted in an issue of Fleetway's Sonic the Comic. Everyone on Mobius refers to Tails as 'The nice but boring one.' So he went to see a hypnotist to make him 'Cooler'. As a result he becomes an even bigger Jerk Ass than Sonic, even willing to let a balloonist fall to his doom while he had his fur worked on, and hung out with woman. Sonic had the hypnotist snap Tails out of it, just after he picked a bar fight.
Subverted on That 70s Show, when Red had a dream about his own (empty) funeral. He decided to be kinder and socialize more, but then, after having another dream where his funeral was crowded with annoying people, he went back to his old ways.
- In one of the final episodes of the show, Hyde, following a marijuana induced freak out, cleans himself up, stops doing drugs, exercises, eats healthy, and becomes generally insufferable to all of his friends. Cue a hilarious inversion of your standard drug intervention at the end where they convince him to resume smoking pot.
Also subverted on Friends, when Chandler makes a New Year's Resolution not to be sarcastic. His personality really doesn't change, but he finds that he has to snarkily comment on his friends' various foibles.
Played mostly straight in Daria: in "Quinn the Brain", when Quinn happens more or less by accident to get a reputation as 'a brain' (while still remaining popular), Daria realizes that this is impinging on her self-image. She proceeds to do a turn-about on Quinn by dressing fashionably and pretending to go out on a date with The Three Js, causing Quinn to ditch the beret and black sweater and go back to the Fashion Club.
- Later in the series, it's established that Quinn really is intelligent and she finally lets go of her fear of embracing it. By that point, Daria has gotten over enough of her own personal issues to actually be supportive of her.
On Red Dwarf, "Queeg", Holly is replaced by the super-strict emergency backup computer Queeg, leaving the regular cast to beg for good ol' Holly to come back. It turns out that Holly was Queeg, teaching them An Aesop.
- Partially subverted when Rimmer leaves Red Dwarf to become Ace in Series 7, Lister starts missing him and has to be reminded by of Rimmer's smeggery by Kryten by creating an interactive carnival ride based around Rimmer's psyche and diary entries, resulting in Lister stating, "I never want to see or hear from that scum-sucking, weasley, lying smeghead for as long as I live."
The Tick is locked up, leaving a lunatic to defend The City in his place. The villains are glad to be rid of their nemesis at first, but quickly realize that the new Tick is much worse. Chairface Chippendale organizes the villains saying, "we've got to rescue the Blue Tick, who is also mad, but in a much more goal-oriented way."
On the Dick Van Dyke Show, when Buddy gets himself fired, Rob and Sally get an actor to replace him, instructing the actor to be ten times worse than Buddy in his abuse to Mel (Rob and Sally are seeking specifically to invoke this trope), causing Mel to scream, "GET ME BUDDY!"
In an episode of Ranma 1/2, Ranma gets hit on the head, thinks he's really a girl, and disavows fighting. Later Akane says, "Change back. I don't care if you are rude and insensitive and inconsiderate. I know I complain all the time, but sweet and innocent just isn't you."
In the Invader Zim episode "GIR Goes Crazy And Stuff", the erratic, unreliable and defective robot GIR is locked into "duty mode", making him much more useful, but he gets downgraded back to GIR when his newfound intelligence leads him to conclude Zim is a threat to the mission and try to eliminate him.
The BBC Radio Panel Game I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue did a Christmas Carol parody in which the Deadpan Snarker chairman learnt to be happy and enthusiastic. The panelists instantly realised the show just didn't work any more, and played his least-favourite game to get him back to normal.
In Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, during a Hot Springs Episode, the springs detoxify the mentally unbalanced class into normal, well-adjusted people. Itoshiki demands the class be returned to their disturbed selves...which they do become by the end of the episode.
- Don't forget the end when the students throw Itoshiki in the hot springs... and he DISSOLVES. Apparently he was made of pure toxins. He's back in the next episode with no explanation, of course.
  - He stayed at the bottom of the spring because he lost his robe when they threw him in. Last thing you see is him curled into a ball before the credits.
In volume 7 of The Wallflower, a strange woman gives Yuki a basket of mushrooms, which, once eaten, turns Sunako into a "lady". However, once they realize that she has absolutely none of the domestic kinds of skills that she had before (being able to clean, do laundry, cook, etc.), they quickly find a method to turn her back.
Taken to an extreme and partly subverted on The Drew Carey Show when Lewis has a religious experience and fancies himself a holy man. The thing is that he's as much of a Jerkass while devout as he is normally, and in fact goes moreso, to the point of decrying official religions not holy enough and declaring himself a new prophet. When confronted by his friends who he's been berating for their sinful ways, he shouts "If God doesn't like it, he can tell me so!" ...whereupon he's struck by lightning. "Could have been just coincidence!" The next two direct strikes convince him, though, to the point that he breaks down and says "Fine! Fine, I'll smoke, I'll drink, I'll masturbate! If someone will help me, I'll do all three at once!"
This is basically the entire plot of the Discworld short story "The Sea and the Little Fishes", where Granny Weatherwax gets even with her blowhard fellow witch Mrs. Earwig by being... nice. Unnervingly so.
In Order Of The Stick #58, Vaarsuvius magically increases Belkar's wisdom to enable him to use a healing spell scroll. With his increased wisdom, Belkar regrets his violent ways - until the wisdom increase is dispelled to bring back the old Heroic Sociopath, since they need him for a fight.
Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi uses this trope in the short "Bad Manager" in which the girls have their jerky manager Kaz loses a bet and wind up with a new manager who treats them quite well and provides them with all manner of luxury. In the end the discover Kaz, down on his luck and they decide to try and get him back because he's "family". Standard use of Snapback.
In the episode "Changing Gears" of the original Transformers cartoon, the Decepticons remove a critical component they need for their Weapon Of The Week from the Autobot Gears, changing him from his usual grumpy, complaining self into being a lot nicer. The other Autobots react negatively to this:
Ironhide: What did you do to Gears?! You made him... nice!
Mega Man Star Force: The "EM meteor" in two episodes of the anime makes Omega-Xis act overly polite and gentlemanly, as well as causing him to make some... odd comments initially. Naturally, this drives Geo insane, and makes it a lot harder to actually fight for various reasons... Though this is only part of the hilarity of the two episodes, as every other EM being is affected in different ways. Hilarity Ensues.
In Titus, Papa Titus decides to give up drinking. Sober, he realizes what a horrible father he's been and spends all his time crying, never leaving the house. He also ignores attractive women, causing them to think there's something wrong with them. The other characters goad him into starting to drink again, and he does, but then gets angry at the things they said and starts playing mindgames to get revenge.
In the South Park episode "Tsst!", Cartman is trained by the Dog Whisperer into a well-adjusted, polite, and friendly little boy. Of course, after being rejected by the dog whisperer, his mother then realizes that she can no longer treat her son like a "best friend," thus robbing her of her ONLY friend. A little bribery, however, reverts him back to normal.
Nenji of Nanaka 6/17 wrestles with this dilemma when his nagging anti-social childhood friend suffers amnesia that renders her with the personality of a six-year old who, tiresome as she is, is far more sweet and lovable than her adult self.
- It was the entire plot, really, and revolved around Nanaka's childhood wish to become an adult. What actually happened was that Nanaka became an "adult" by being a very responsible, if somewhat nagging and anal-retentive woman. When her childhood friend and love interest became so fed up that he broke off his relationship with her over it, she didn't exactly have Laser Guided Amnesia from the concussion, but mentally regressed in shock back to her childhood age so she could once again at least be friends with her old friend. Only in becoming a Manic Pixie Dream Girl who is completely dependent upon him did Nanaka make him realize how much he really needed her. If you want me to tell you what the moral of that story was... It's... umm... that in order to get the guy, a girl can't be sane, she needs serious mental issues and a jealous, clingy nature to win him over!
In the US The Office, Dwight is fired and replaced by Andy, who is just as annoying and doesn't even have Dwight's various eccentricities that made him so much fun to wind up. Jim: "I miss Dwight. Congratulations universe, you win." A bit of a twist as when Dwight returns Andy stays in the office, becoming a little more likable in the process.
Guy Gardner is pretty much the biggest jerk in the world in Justice League International. Until he gets clocked by Batman and got a bit of head-trauma, which resulted in a Guy who said things like "Gee, I don't want to let the guys down!" The JLI loathed Guy enough to not really wish him back to the lecherous, arrogant jerk he was, but nice!Guy kinda creeped out/annoyed most of them.
- They had quite a bit of fun with this: every time Guy Gardner hit his head he would switch. Once he was under a desk, hit his head, switched back, then not 5 seconds later, after he says that he never wants to go through that again, he hits his head again.
Subverted in an episode of House in which House tricks the other doctors into thinking he has syphilis, which can cause personality changes. The rest of the cast then tries to treat him with penicillin, thinking that the syphilis is what made him a DrJerk - as if the syphilis itself isn't enough of a reason. He, then, in order to mess around with them, pretends to be nicer, but also purposefully acts like a way more crappy doctor. Cue the chorus.
- Same thing happens when Foreman recovers from a near death experience and decides to spread sunshine around, since he's grateful to be just alive. House torments him (What's new?) to get him back to his familiar ways, because his doctor skills are not so useful when he's happy. (The moral of this show seems to be, 'If you're not miserable, then you're a bad doctor.') In the end, Foreman himself realises he can't go on being nice, and snaps back to normal.
An episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had this happen to resident Jerk Ass Raphael, when he accidentally blasted himself with a "Personality Alterator" ray, set to "Very Nice". His friends were happy at first, until they discovered that he was so nice he'd even help the criminals they were trying to capture. The episode's villain also used the ray to make the city's police and guards similarly docile and captures the Turtles with no effort. The Turtles finally get Raphael back to Jerk Ass by setting the ray to "Very Nasty" and getting him to shoot himself with it.
Night Court performed an extended version of this trope during most of its 8th season and the early part of its 9th season with a subplot where Leisure Suit Larry Dan Fielding became a virtuous do-gooder after being placed in charge of a charitable organization. Even after he left the charity job behind, Dan still remained nice, thoughtful and respectful to women... until he was slapped by a woman who had hoped to enjoy the pleasures of the old Dan. The slap awakened the long-repressed lecherous urges of the Old Dan who proceeded to give the woman what she wanted... and then some.
Similar to above, in Bloom County, Steve Dallas was a Leisure Suit Larry Jerkass Strawman conservative who, in the twilight of the series, had his brain reversed by aliens, turning him into a bleeding heart liberal feminist nice guy with a perm. In the series denouement, his longtime girlfriend dumped him, and in his despair he put his sunglasses back on, and instantly returned to the iconic Steve Dallas, and has remained so in all of the strip's spinoffs.
Used in How I Met Your Mother when Barney tries to sleep with Robin again: after Lily points out that nice guy Ted dated Robin for a year, Barney spent the whole dinner being nice and polite, even ignoring other women. Of course, this had the opposite effect, freaking Robin out and she spent half the dinner trying to get him 'act like Barney' again.
This troper once read a hilarious Slayers fanfic in which someone slipped Lina a potion that turned her into a perfect lady. Her friends thought it was hilarious... right up until they got into a fight.
- Similarly, in the first set of OV As, Lina and Naga are hit with an artifact that creates opposite-personality versions of them. Suffice to say, no one is pleased with the resulting clones...
Buffy The Vampire Slayer's Spike. Obviously... And, according to some, Angel as well (the public is still divided on that one).
One episode of Tiny Toons had Buster, Plucky and Hamton trying to fix Dizzy Devil by combining their personalities and putting them in him using a machine, it works, the new Dizzy is polite, intelligent and good natured, but it is revealed that the old Dizzy was very popular with girls and said girls are rather unhappy with the new Dizzy.
In an episode of The Penguins of Madagascar King Julian is led to believe that the eclipse is caused by him being a jerk to everyone so he decides to be nice but he becomes very annoying tryig to help everyone. An annoyed group of penguins and a made up "sign from the sky spirits" later he's back to normal.