Two brothers, one sister

Is this a trope?

It applies to most of Seth Mac Farlane's shows (except American Dad, most of the time), Phineas And Ferb, and most other western animated comedy that has three siblings.

I'm not sure that a baby fully subverts the trope in Simpsons, and all of the important South Park kids are either single or lone sibling. (I suspect this is because of a Peanuts-like elementary school classmates setting.)

Bobs Burgers directly subverts this, but is fairly close to being three sisters anyway.

"Show us the Galaxy Warp."

Well, Stewie's sort of a sister.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

Gay male =/= female.

Three siblings is fairly common, but I'm not sure how it's a trope.

You also might want to go here. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/yk_activity.php

The only specific three siblings trope I know is A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family.

Well, Two Guys and a Girl is a trope, so it's more a sibling-specific variant of that.

Perhaps this is all related to Id Superego And Ego?

"Show us the Galaxy Warp."

Probably not terribly far off, there. That particular triad crops up in a LOT of fiction centered around three lead characters, or one lead with two close satellites (I actually wrote a paper on it, once).

It's interesting how seldom characters in fiction even HAVE siblings. Take a look over at the Archie comics characters. Except for Betty (whose older brother and sister are so seldom seen most people, even fans, don't even know they exist — though they are still in-continuity according to Archie Comics Word of God) all of the kids are only children.

Actually, Jughead has a little sister, Jellybean.

Cheryl Blossom has a twin brother, Jason, and since Jossie and the Pussycats happens in the same universe, you also could count Alexandra and Alexander Cabbot. And aren't Sabrina's two aunts also sisters to each other?

edited 12th Feb '13 6:45:12 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

Kenny has a rarely-seen older brother and younger sister.

edited 12th Feb '13 11:00:16 AM by redhed311

All true, but I did say "kids" so Sabrina's aunts don't really count (and doesn't she have an Uncle Ambrose who shows up occassionaly? Heavyset, mustachioed dude?) Even with the few exceptions (and Jughead's sister is a comparitively recent addition), the percentage of only children is far greater than in any naturally occuring population

edited 12th Feb '13 9:22:08 PM by Robbery

I think you guys are... how do I say it... discussing a People Sit On Chairs trope. I mean, its stupid.

edited 12th Feb '13 11:08:18 PM by PrettyCoco

And Stan has his older sister as well, who isn't terribly uncommon on the show at all.

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

Well, to be fair, this isn't any natural population. This is Riverdale, 50's idealist suburbia. But that's neither here nor there.

edited 13th Feb '13 5:57:20 AM by Ronnie

It's an easy formula: if you have two brothers, they tend to be shown as rivals. But if they have a sister, then they have a "common enemy" so they bond. Phineas And Ferb both uses and subverts this, in that the sister is their antagonist, but not only they do not care, they love her anyway!

edited 13th Feb '13 6:38:41 AM by Sijo

So is Johnny Test the logical subversion of Phineas And Ferb? In that the odd gendered sibling uses the gadgets of the "twins" all the fnording time, but that Johnny calls the gizmos cool, but Candace complains about them, even when she's using them?

"Show us the Galaxy Warp."

Funny, I always thought of Johnny Test as a subversion-inversion of Dexters Laboratory.

Unlike Candi Flynn, Dee Dee doesn't destroy everything Dexter builds.

"Show us the Galaxy Warp."

And neither does Candace...?

Another example of this is Kim and the tweebs on Kim Possible.

Never be normal.

The Warners kinda count as an exception. Yakko and Wakko were often dismissive of Dot's likes and aspirations, but they never saw her as an actual 'common enemy', perhaps because their respective interests never actually conflicted.

It's odd how three characters with such a demented outlook are perhaps some of the best examples of actual sibling cohesion and union in Western Animation.

Bump

I like this type of siblings in shows. Very cute and they tend to bond well.

I always wanted to have brothers :)

Supports cartoons being cartoony!

There's the main character from MKR, but this isn't explored much.

"Show us the Galaxy Warp."