Examples of
Odd Friendship in Western Animation.The following have their own pages:
Examples:
- Adventure Time:
- Kid Hero Finn with Marceline, a thousand-year-old teenage-looking vampire queen.
- The volatile Flame Princess and dimwitted Cinnamon Bun. She likes him because he's completely open and honest, when she's spent her entire life surrounded by liars and manipulators. She even brings Cinnamon Bun with her when she stages a coup of the Fire Kingdom. Finn, whom Flame Princess dumped after he tricked her into an all-out brawl with the Ice King, briefly believes their newfound friendship to actually be them dating before she points out the obvious Squick of such a relationship.
- Lumpy Space Princess (a bratty Valley Girl) is friends with the bookish and soft-spoken Turtle Princess and the punk-rock chick Marceline. She gets along with both of them quite well.
- In "Play Date", the crazy Ice King and the effeminate Abracadaniel strike up a good friendship. Though "Friends Forever" implies that their friendship shattered offscreen, as evidenced by ABD being trapped in a block of ice unable to do anything but blink.
- Despite being a cat and a goldfish, Gumball and Darwin of The Amazing World of Gumball aren't just best friends but also brothers. Making it odder is that Darwin used to be Gumball's pet goldfish before gaining limbs and intelligence like most things in Elmore. Their personalities are actually quite similar though, so it makes a little more sense. When asked where he got the idea of a cat and goldfish duo, the show's creator replied that if a cat can be a dog's sidekick he figured a fish would be a cat's sidekick.
- Arcane: Caitlyn is everything Vi is supposed to hate and the two could not be more different in terms of personality or circumstances, but they develop a strong bond with a undercurrent of romantic tension.
- Arthur
- Down to earth sporty girl Francine and rich girly-girl Muffy in are an example of this.
- One episode had Reformed Bully Binky Barnes make friends with D.W.'s friend from preschool, Emily. At first, Binky needed the money to get tickets for a wrestling match, so he took a babysitting job where he introduced Emily to wrestling and she took an interest in it. However, she also became somewhat aggressive so Binky used the money he earned to buy tickets (for Emily and himself) to a skating show instead.
- A good chunk of Atomic Puppet's comedy is derived from the unusual friendship between the eponymous partnership — an egotistical talking sock puppet who used to be the world's greatest superhero and a 12-year-old kid who happens to said superhero's biggest fanboy.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- Mai and Ty Lee. They have polar opposite personalities, and you'd never pair them up as best friends, but that's what they are. Ty Lee is very glompy with Mai, and Mai usually returns the embrace.
- Appa and Momo, a ten-ton sky bison and a five-pound flying lemur the size of one of his toes, share a very close bond. Maybe it helps that they're some of the last survivors of the Air Nomad culture.
- Toph and Iroh. The blind earthbending tomboy and the brother of the Fire Lord. Doubles as Intergenerational Friendship.
- The sequel series The Legend of Korra has (or had, given that one half of the friendship has passed by the time the series starts) Toph's perpetually, existentially grouchy daughter Lin, and the kind, generous and free-spirited Avatar Aang. According to Aang's son Tenzin, Lin and Aang got on famously but given that it's all but stated she's a Heroic Bastard, this was probably more of a Parental Substitute kind of friendship.
- Though "friendship" is probably far too strong, Beavis And Butthead has Daria and the titular duo. She's pretty much the only person, let alone woman, who actually seems to at least tolerate the two and has been willing to help them out on several occasions, while Beavis and Butthead have admitted on at least one occasion that they think she's cool. Notably, when the whole school believes the duo have died, she's the only person aside from Van Driessen to admit, albeit very callously, that it's sad that they've died. The fact that the two of them have never hit on her, unlike anything else that's female with a heartbeat, seems to imply they think of her more as a person and less as just some chick.
- Big Mouth: Season 3 has one between the Black and Nerdy Nice Girl Missy and Jerk with a Heart of Gold Dirty Kid Jay. When Jay finds out Missy is writing erotic slash fanfiction, he gets into her stories and the two become friends when they co-write her fanfic. Missy ends up being the first person to whom Jay comes out as bi.
- Big City Greens: Cricket, a cheerful, adventurous, and mischievous country boy has two separate cases. The first is Remy, a rich, Black and Nerdy city boy; and the second is with Gloria, a world-weary but good-hearted coffee barista (who also counts as an Intergenerational Friendship).
- Captain Planet and the Planeteers: Ma-Ti is a peaceful, eternally friendly Nature Hero. Wheeler is a slightly jerk-ish and very snarky city slicker. The two are also some of the farthest apart in age, with 12-year-old Ma-Ti being the youngest Planeteer and 17-year-old Wheeler being almost an adult. They're even opposite in terms of group dynamics, with Ma-Ti being the darling of the team and Wheeler tending towards being The Friend Nobody Likes. The two are still pretty close, often hanging out and goofing off together.
- Edward and the unintelligent Chip and Skip from Camp Lazlo.
- In Code Lyoko, Jeremie's only relationship that doesn't fall under this is his crush on Aelita. Ulrich (and to a lesser extent, Yumi) qualifies for Lovable Jock and Odd is a Book Dumb goofball. However it's clear that Jeremie would put his life on the line for any or all of them (and in the original series finale, was petrified at the idea of them abandoning him) and they're willing to do the same for him.
- Sam and Tucker from Danny Phantom. One is a meat loving technogeek and the other is a vegetarian Perky Goth, yet they have been best friends with Danny since they were kids.
- DuckTales (1987):
- Launchpad is kooky, laid-back, and willing to work for almost nothing; Scrooge is serious to the point of sternness, hot-tempered, and obsessed with money. The situation is even stranger given that Launchpad is Scrooge's employee and young enough to be his son. Despite all of this, they help and protect each other and Scrooge has more than once called Launchpad his friend.
- A villain/hero example occurs in "The Good Muddahs"; the Beagle Babes bond with Webby after kidnapping her, eventually calling off the ransom because they wanted her to stay. As much as they consider themselves hardened criminals, they easily return the toys they stole for Webby after accidentally upsetting her when she learns how they were acquired, and are rather distraught at the idea of being a bad influence on her.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy has the titular trio, a group of three kids with very differing personalities. Ed is a Cloud Cuckoolander Pigpen who's as strong as a forklift and half as smart, Edd is an obsessive-compulsive Gadgeteer Genius Neat Freak and Eddy is a loud-mouthed, narcisstic Con Man. One would think their personalities wouldn't mesh at all, but they are True Companions.
- Stewie and Brian Griffin in Family Guy. Pretty much self evident.
- Futurama:
- From Garfield and Friends/U.S. Acres, we have The Prankster Jerk with a Heart of Gold Roy Rooster and Lovable Coward Wade Duck. Even when Roy scares him, and they argue sometimes, they became closer friends later on in the seasons.
- The Ghost and Molly McGee is about the budding friendship between a cynical and mischievous ghost named Scratch and an optimistic and helpful middle-school girl named Molly McGee, after Scratch accidentally binds himself to Molly with a curse.
- God and Satan in God, the Devil and Bob take this trope up to eleven. The offbeat interpretations of the characters help — God is an aging hippie, the Devil is Ambiguously Gay and Affably Evil. Borders on Friendly Enemy, though they're never quite vitriolic enough to make the leap.
- Harvey Beaks stars Harvey, a sweet-natured, quiet bird, and twin orphans Fee and Foo, two wild troublemakers. They are the best of friends.
- Invader Zim has the relationship between the titular Villain Protagonist and his robotic sidekick. Zim's a megalomaniacal, egotistical world conqueror while GIR's a ditzy, cheerful Cloudcuckoolander, but they seem to get along fine for the most part, Zim's annoyance at GIR's antics notwithstanding.
- Jimmy Neutron, an adorable and dorky boy genius is best friends with Carl Wheezer, Sheen Estevez, Nick Dean, Cindy Vortex, Libby Folfax and Brittany Tenelli.
- Most of the Justice League, but in particular the core seven, and in particular of those seven Green Lantern and Flash.
- And a villainous example breaks out temporarily between Lex Luthor and Brainiac near the end of Season 4. In spite of the fact that Luthor is suspicious of everything alien (and has personal reasons for disliking Brainiac to boot) and Brainiac is uninterested in organic life forms, they are both intrigued by how much they can offer each other.
- Straight Man Henry and bossy June on KaBlam!.
- Kaeloo:
- There's kind, friendly, cheerful, enthusiastic Kaeloo and rude, sarcastic, lazy jerkass Mr. Cat.
- Then there's Stumpy and Quack Quack. The former is an idiot who sucks at everything and is extremely unlucky, and the latter is a genius (at least academics-wise) who is talented at everything.
- The season 5 antagonist, Game Rule, is a personification of the concept of rules and takes games very seriously as a result. Despite this, out of all the characters, she ends up becoming closest to Mr. Cat, who is lazy, laidback, and rebellious.
- King of the Hill:
- Egotistical, mousy Peggy Hill and beautiful, seductive Nancy Hicks Gribble.
- The core four friends include the severely buttoned-down, straight-laced family man Hank, unhinged but ineffectual and sweet-tempered conspiracy nut Dale, desperate, divorced, bumbling Butt-Monkey Bill, and suave serial philanderer Boomhauer. Helps that they all went to High School together, but the fact that their friendship endured as they evolved into very, very different people speaks to this trope.
- Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Benson's best friend is Dave, a large talking insect. Additionally, Benson and Wolf are friends despite being polar opposites.
- The Lion Guard:
- The main group consists of a lion cub, a honey badger, a cheetah, a hippo and an egret.
- Kion, (the lion mentioned above), becomes friends with a hyena in the first episode once she shows him she's not villainous like the ones they regularly deal with. The rest of the lion guard soon follows.
- Mild case between Keisha and Phoebe in The Magic School Bus, given that Keisha is very outgoing and performance driven while Phoebe goes into panic mode at the idea of being on-stage.
- The entire class actually counts for this since if you put their basic personalities on paper, they should not get along ever at best and outright hate each other at worst but instead they're a devoted group that care deeply about each other.
- In Masters of the Universe: Revelation, and doubling as a Villainous Friendship, is Evil-Lyn and Beast Man. Aside from their mutual servitude to Skeletor, they have about as little in common as is possible with Lyn being an attractive and elegant Dark Action Girl and Evil Witch, and Beast Man being a hulking orc-like brute who commands armies of monsters. He shows concern for her, running to her side and wanting to help her up after she's been strangled by Skeletor, and even goes to her later to make sure she's okay. She on the other hand is more than willing to confide in him, clearly takes what he says to heart, and even compliments him on his ability to lead armies. Even his suggestion that she betray Skeletor and take command herself, while enraging her, elicits nothing more than her coldly telling him they're both going to forget he said that and to get out of her sight.
- Megas XLR:
- Though it takes a bit for her to warm up to them, Kiva, a professional warrior from the future, who's been hardened by years of fighting for her planets survival against The Glorft, eventually strikes a genuine friendship with the other two protagonists; Coop, a lazy, unemployed, and overweight slob, and video game and car enthusiast, and pilot of the titular mech, and Jamie, Coops good for nothing snarky best friend.
- After an initially rocky start, note They first met after the latter, mistook the former for villains. the main trio eventually form one with the more straight laced and traditional Voltron esque team of mech pilots, The S-Force.
- In Miraculous Ladybug, it seems like every secondary character is involved with one. For example, we have sweet girly-girl Rose with stoic Goth Juleka, Dumb Jock Kim with Black and Nerdy Max, etc.
- As mentioned in the page quote, Walter "Wally" Ford and Kevin Hill from Mission Hill. Wally is an elderly gay man in a long-term relationship with his partner of many years, Gus, and Kevin is a young, straight, socially-awkward virgin who pushes away thoughts of relationships in hopes of getting into a good college. Wally is a projectionist at the local theatre, and one week, while they're running X-Rated films, Covert Pervert Kevin sneaks in, only to discover what they're showing isn't porn, but rather, Midnight Cowboy. Their friendship seems to turn Kevin into a major film buff.
- From My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, one wouldn't expect most of the main cast to have anything to do with the other. Indeed, prior to the beginning of the series, most of them didn't seem more than vaguely aware of the others. Still, a few stick out.
- Rainbow Dash can't get enough of daredevil stunts and thrills, while Fluttershy is afraid of heights, crowds, and loud noises, among other things. They've known each other since they were foals, hang out all the time, and Rainbow Dash once broke into Fluttershy's cottage just so they could go get cider together.
- Applejack is a down-to-earth farm worker that loves competing in rodeos. Rarity is a dressmaker that dreams of getting into high society. Indeed, at first, they seemed to absolutely hate each other — but after a great deal of Character Development, it's clear how much they care.
- Twilight Sparkle is an introverted scholar who literally had to be coerced into making friends to combat the threat of The Night That Never Ends. Pinkie Pie is a manic extrovert, whose inability to shut off or slow down poses the danger of turning off most ponies (most notably the quick-tempered Rainbow Dash, who now counts Pinkie as one of her closest friends).
- Later down the road we get Discord, the master of chaos and main antagonist from "The Return of Harmony", and timid Fluttershynote Their friendship being seeded in the episode "Keep Calm and Flutter On", where Discord is "reformed" by the Mane Six. This gets tackled head-on in the Season 7 episode "Discordant Harmony" where it's remarked by two separate ponies that their friendship is a little mismatched and causes Discord to become overly self-conscious about it.
- The Season 5 episode Slice of Life confirms the friendship of sophisticated classic-loving Octavia and techno-blasting Vinyl Scratch who live in a house that is quite literally split right down the middle, yet get along fine and can even successfully mesh their music together. Later on we get the overly-flamboyant massive serpent Steven Magnet who is friends with Crankey Doodle Donkey, and (according to Word of God at least) Matilda being good enough friends with a changeling to invite him to her wedding.
- As of season 2 of The Owl House, there's Lilith, the stuck-up former head enforcer of the Emperor's Coven and freshly turned good guy, and Hooty, the screechy voiced bird tube...thing that gives the Owl House its name. The two become odd but fast friends after Lilith falls from grace and has to hide out in her sister's place, and remain pen pals after Lilith moves back in with her parents.
- Phineas and Ferb:
- The oddly sympathetic bully Buford and Bollywood Nerd Baljeet, the usual target of his bullying. They even have a song where they describe themselves as "Frenemies".
- Depending on the episode, Isabella and Candace share this type of relationship.
- In later season, the high-strung Candace and the snarky goth Vanessa develop this friendship.
- Ready Jet Go!: Sean and Sydney are complete opposites: Sean is crazy about science facts and dreams of one day leading the first human mission to Mars, but is afraid of cramped spaces and likes everything to be his way. Sydney is obsessed with science fiction and dreams of one day being a great science-fiction author, and she is totally okay with being in space and with changes. They are also best friends with a little girl named Mindy, who knows nothing about science, yet is curious about everything. They all befriend Jet, who turns out to be a space alien, and completely changes all of the kids' lives.
- In Reboot, everyone Mike the TV crosses paths with is at best annoyed by him and at worst can't stand him. While people don't seem to hate him, he doesn't exactly have any real "friends" save for the only two characters who seem to not only like him but genuinely enjoy his antics: the viruses Hexadecimal and Daemon. Granted the former was under duress when Bob made him stay with Hex and the latter was under the effects of Daemon's infection, but regardless the friendship between a couple of Digital Gods and a sentient Plucky Comic Relief television is about as odd as it gets.
- Regular Show has several
- Benson is this to slackers Mordecai and Rigby. Benson starts the series as the duo's uptight boss, but later admits that he considers them and the other park workers to be his closest friends.
- Skips is also this to Mordecai and Rigby
- Rigby and Eileen to an extent. Rigby intially disliked Eileen but they quickly struck up a friendship. They later began dating, becoming the show's Beta Couple in contrast to Mordecai's relationship drama with Margaret and CJ.
- Rick and Morty: Genius misanthrope Rick Sanchez has one with his simple-minded son-in-law Jerry Smith. This is an interesting example because both parties despised each other in earlier seasons, but as they spent more time with each other starting from "The Whirly-Dirly Conspiracy", they came to mutual understandings, with Rick in particular giving many Pet the Dog moments to Jerry and being more willing to include him on his adventures.
- Samurai Jack: Jack and the Scotsman don't really hit it off at first, due to one being a Martial Pacifist and the other being a Proud Warrior Race Guy. But after a run in with some bounty hunters, the two become steadfast allies despite their different styles.
- Hordak does not like magic or fliers, but will happily throttle anyone who threatens his diminutive friend Imp. An interesting case, considering they're villains on She-Ra: Princess of Power.
- The reboot, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, sees Hordak forming a bond with Entrapta. The former is the Big Bad, an unapproachable, sullen warlord who hates Etheria and everything on it as a low-tech backwater, while the latter is an amoral Mad Scientist who's overly familiar with people and doesn't have a single malicious bone in her body. Entrapta is the first person Hordak is able to talk to as an intellectual equal and vice versa, after her invasive friendliness overcomes his barriers, and things just go up from there.
- In The Simpsons, Principal Skinner and Bart Simpson—a rule-following Dean Bitterman Non-Giving-Up School Guy with a penchant for Incredibly Lame Fun and the single biggest troublemaker and self-confessed Delinquent at his school. "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song" shows that Skinner's position of authority over Bart is pretty much the only thing keeping them from having a perfectly happy Intergenerational Friendship, with the two of them willingly hanging out every afternoon after he's fired until Bart gets him his job back, and they have Friendly Enemy standing the rest of the time; neither goes easy on the other, but when Skinner is nearly fired again for an innocent romance with a coworker in "Grade School Confidential," it's Bart who convinced him to stand up for himself for the very first time, pointing out that he's spent his entire life under the thumb of other people.
- South Park: Eric Cartman is this with pretty much anyone he's friends with, most notably Kenny and Butters, whom are considered his "best friends." Whereas Kenny and Butters are Nice Guys (two of the nicest characters in the entire show, in fact), Cartman is a racist, manipulative Jerkass.
- SpongeBob is a neat freak and generally has a well-ordered life; Patrick…is not.
- Depending on the Writer in Spongebob's case; certain episodes portray him as a neurotic neat freak while in others he's shown to be just about as careless as Patrick.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Initially Tom was so jealous of Marco's friendship with Star, he outright tried to kill Marco multiple times, to get him out of the way of him and Star reconciling their relationship. However after entering anger management he chooses to make amends with Marco, who hesitantly agrees, and find they have many of the same interests, video games, movies and an obsession with the same Boy Band, and form a close friendship over time. To the point Tom openly admits to Marco being his Best Friend, and Marco pretty much viewing Tom, his as well, after Star.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: "The Disappeared" pairs Jar Jar Binks and Mace Windu on a mission to the planet Bardotta. Stoic and serious Mace initially looks askance at Jar Jar, knowing his reputation as The Fool and a Cloudcuckoolander, but once he realizes that Jar Jar is surprisingly competent both as a diplomat and on the battlefield not despite his quirks but because of them, the pair realize they actually work together really well and become true "bombad pallos".
- Star Wars Rebels: "The Honourable Ones" ends up establishing one between Garazeb Orrelios, rebel soldier and survivor of the Imperial massacre of his homeworld, and his (former) archenemy, ISB Agent Kallus, who participated in said massacre, after they're forced into an Enemy Mine situation. Hell, Zeb ends up accidentally triggering a Heel–Face Turn for Kallus.
- In Sym-Bionic Titan, nerdy Newton (Octus) ends up getting along quite well with the Dumb Jock nicknamed Meat.
- Idiot Hero Tak and Only Sane Man Jeera from Tak and the Power of Juju.
- The Tex Avery cartoon "What Price Fleadom" features a friendship between a dog and a flea that lives on him.
- Transformers: Animated:
- The large, uncoordinated Bulkhead and the stoic ninja Prowl.
- To say nothing of the gruff Ratchet and the idealistic Optimus. Course, Ratchet being friends with anybody just seems odd.
- Transformers: Prime:
- Ratchet is nearly as crotchety as his Animated counterpart, but his friendship with Optimus Prime goes back to long before the latter became a Prime. Ratchet also didn't care much for humans in the beginning, but managed to establish his own friendship with Raf (even though Bumblebee is Raf's nominal partner).
- Of the Autobot-human partnerships, Arcee and Jack seem the least likely to get along, and neither are thrilled with the pair-up at first.
- Agent Fowler and Bulkhead. Fowler didn't get along with any of Team Prime at first, and Bulkhead even called Fowler a jerk (and was willing to leave him in Decepticon hands, until Jack called him out), but the two could now be described as Vitriolic Best Buds — they'll still toss insults to each other, but the respect is there.
- Raf and Miko are polar opposites but get along surprisingly well; this is probably helped by Jack being a buffer between the two of them despite having this kind of relationship with Miko.
- Wishfart's main trio of friends consists of a reserved and non-traditional teenage leprechaun, a greedy and self-centered talking puffin, and a snarky and mischevous Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl.
- In W.I.T.C.H., Caleb is friends with Blunk.
