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Lisa Simpson from The Simpsons is clearly a Creator's Pet.
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Not unless this
forum topic agrees, actually.
Do you guys think that Donatello from the 2012 reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would count as a Creator's Pet? The series focuses on him the most out of all the other characters, even to the point of undermining other characters like April or Casey. He also seems to get the most development out of all of them, the series gives allowances for his actions more often than not, and the creators seem to keep shoehorning his love triangle with April and Casey into the show.
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He's a main character, so that kinda disqualifies him off the bat. Even if he gets some focus, as a main character that sorta disqualifies him.
There's no shilling, and there's no Scrappy-dom.
If you assume that "gets a lot of screentime = loved by the writers" you've got 1.5/4 criteria.
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From the main page description: The Creator's Pet is a combination of being:
- Hated by fans (The Scrappy)
- Loved (or worshipped) by the writers
- Put into big scenes for no reason (Character Focus)
- Talked up by the other characters (Character Shilling)
Pinkie Pie isn't a Scrappy, isn't worshipped by the writers (from what I have gathered watching the show), and doesn't suffer Character Focus (since she's one of the Mane Six) or Character Shilling.
That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.
For posterity, the entries I cut in the recent cleanup. Do NOT re-add these right away - please take them to the official Cleanup thread.
- Many fans of Tiny Toon Adventures think Elmyra is one of the most annoying animated characters ever created. Too bad the executives at Warner Bros loved her, and kept trying to get her her own show. Eventually, they had her co-star in a Pinky and the Brain spinoff, Pinky Elmyra And The Brain, which earned her the wrath of more angry fans. It's even Lampshaded by the theme song: "It's what the network wants, why bother to complain?" Even the writers hated her.
- Making this even more bewildering is the fact that Elmyra's entire joke as a character is that she's unbearably obnoxious.
- Dulcy the Dragon in Sonic The Hedgehog (the "SatAM" version). Apart from just being there in season two without a proper introduction, getting a bigger part than most of the other freedom fighters, the writers try and squeeze her into as many scenes as possible, thus reducing Bunnie and Rotor to minor characters, and she gets the whole 'magic powers in a techno environment' deal (though that aspect was first established by the evil wizard Lazzar). There's also the questionable logic of Princess Sally trusting her safety (not to mention the safety of any other passengers) to riding a dragon who can't land without crashing, and falls asleep during flight.
- Princess Sally herself also qualifies to a varied amount of the fanbase, due to her overwhelming utility in most missions (it was arguably her that rendered Rotor redundant due to her increased tech skills) and sometimes exaggerated use as a foil and Romantic Interest for Sonic that rendered other characters needless extras (eg. Tails who in other portrayals was often Sonic's closest friend and ally). In the second season, aside from Dulcy and Antoine as comic relief, the show was near entirely revolved around Sonic and Sally's chemistry. Granted there is a lot more positive reception of Sally than Dulcy at times but she has rubbed off a lot of fans the wrong way. Sally and Dulcy were both stated to be favorites of Ben Hurst, who wrote the majority of Season Two.
- Sally's much more of an obvious Creator's Pet in the comics. Read the first few pages of this, and try to NOT feel the Mary Sue vibes.
- Sally's much more of an obvious Creator's Pet in the comics. Read the first few pages of this
- Princess Sally herself also qualifies to a varied amount of the fanbase, due to her overwhelming utility in most missions (it was arguably her that rendered Rotor redundant due to her increased tech skills) and sometimes exaggerated use as a foil and Romantic Interest for Sonic that rendered other characters needless extras (eg. Tails who in other portrayals was often Sonic's closest friend and ally). In the second season, aside from Dulcy and Antoine as comic relief, the show was near entirely revolved around Sonic and Sally's chemistry. Granted there is a lot more positive reception of Sally than Dulcy at times but she has rubbed off a lot of fans the wrong way. Sally and Dulcy were both stated to be favorites of Ben Hurst, who wrote the majority of Season Two.
- The Venture Brothers: Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick have stated that they will be intentionally invoking this trope by giving the widely-despised Murderous Moppets more screentime in the next season to spite the fans who hate them. Considering they're writing a Sadist Show, this could potentially redeem them as entertaining characters.
- Dr. Girlfriend gave the Moppets a bit of a Take That, Scrappy! dismissal in the season four episode "Pinstripes Versus Poltergeists", mentioning that she found them increasingly annoying. The Monarch was extremely aroused by this display of hate...
- Even before that, the Weslification of the Moppets paid off when they tried to threaten The Monarch due to orders from Dr. Mrs. The Monarch to keep him from leaving. It was very satisfying for him to remind them that, no matter how many henchmen they have crapping their pants, they have no business trying to intimidate a guy who picks fights with the likes of Phantom Limb and Brock Freakin' Samson as a form of entertainment.
- What's really strange is that Doc Hammer hated the Moppets too, because he kept forgetting to write them into scripts. He only vowed to keep using the characters when he found out people hated them.
- Herbert the elderly gay pedophile from Family Guy. He's a one-joke character (we get it, he wants to have sex with little boys) and is openly hated by much of the fanbase, yet he still gets to appear in a lot of episodes, and sometimes even get a really long musical number.
- He also has one of the most annoying voices ever conceived on television.
- Herbert even appears regularly in The Cleveland Show. It's specially bad when such a bad character appears in not one but two shows.
- He only really showed any depth outside of his one joke in just one episode, "German Guy", in which he's revealed to be a WWII veteran and genuinely wanted to protect Chris from a former Nazi. Afterwards though, he's returned to being pointless.
- This reached it's theoretical apex in the Star Wars parody movie, when he played the Obi-Wan to Chris' Luke Skywalker. You know you have a Creator's Pet on your hands when an ancient joke that's been done to death in the show results in (what should have been) a one-joke character becoming not only one of the most important people to the Star Wars universe, but one of the three or four characters to appear, in some capacity, in all six Star Wars movies.
- Owen from the Total Drama series has become an increasingly blatant example, with a lot of focus put on him, his fart humor, and Annoying Laugh throughout all three seasons. He wound up winning the first season despite having won few challenges and being up against the very competent and fan favourite Gwen. In Total Drama Action, he was conveniently brought back onto the show after being eliminated halfway through, to the joy of all the other "good" characters, and even after that he is in the third season and made it to the merge, getting an unhealthy amount of focus before. On the whole, fans have not been pleased.
- Some fans felt he was better in the third season, where he was given an Odd Friendship with Ensemble Dark Horse Noah; the latter is a major Deadpan Snarker, so they made good foils for each other. He also got an Alas, Poor Scrappy moment when Izzy broke up with him.
- Cheese and Goo from Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends ended up becoming this for much of the older fans. They both eventually faded into the background however.
- In Japan, however, Lisa is quite popular among viewers, so much that the show was re-marketed to make Lisa appear as the main character, rather than Homer or Bart. Instead, the Simpsons males are seen as Creator's Pets there, particularly Bart, who flies against the Japanese virtues of working hard and fitting in. Because of this, Bart is considered somewhat of a villain who always wins.
- To dust off a very old example, there's Pudgy, Betty Boop's pet dog. In the later episodes, after the Hays Code cracked down on Betty's sexual nature, there was an increasing focus on Pudgy, and audiences were treated to heartwarming episodes all about Pudgy chasing his tail or something. Even Pluto was funnier than Pudgy ever was.
- But Pluto was a Creator's Pet, too. Mickey Mouse may not have been the funniest Disney star, but he's still unmatched as a star of funny adventure cartoons—which makes it disconcerting that from about 1934, numerous "Mickey" shorts shunt him aside to give Pluto the spotlight. The most amazing thing is that from 1937, Pluto had his own series, yet he was still allowed to dominate Mickey's, too. It's gotten better nowadays, with Pluto and Mickey being kept more separate in their adventures (y'know, since there's more of an effort to give Mickey adventures these days?)
- In King Of The Hill we have Elroy, a.k.a. "Lucky". Lucky is a stereotypically ugly, middle-aged hill-billy with a drolling monotonous voice and no high-school education. His main source of income is filing lawsuits (regardless of their justification), as he practically refuses to get a job. He started off as a one shot character, but returns a season later, only this time he's become a regular character after Luanne falls in love with him. And he's still a homely, unemployed hillbilly who ends up living with the Hill family. There are times when the show hangs lampshades on his obnoxiousness, but, in general, the main cast just puts up with him (and the audience is expected to as well, since he ends up marrying Luanne).
- Mr. Krabs of SpongeBob SquarePants, despite arguably being an Ensemble Dark Horse early in the show's run, is slowly grating on fans of the show, due to his Flanderization into an even bigger jerk than his "evil" rival Plankton.
- It helps if you just imagine his behavior as an actor allusion, as his voice actor (Clancy Brown)'s most famous role was as The Kurgan, meaning the rivalry between the two restaurants becomes an analogue to the fight between the Kurgan and Macleod. In other words, the hatred may be justified.
- On the other hand his Jerkass behavior is not just limited to Plankton; he now mistreats or shows a severe Lack of Empathy to most of the other, usually less-deserving cast members as well, such as Spongebob and Pearl, who were originally his Morality Pets in earlier episodes.
- It helps if you just imagine his behavior as an actor allusion, as his voice actor (Clancy Brown)'s most famous role was as The Kurgan, meaning the rivalry between the two restaurants becomes an analogue to the fight between the Kurgan and Macleod. In other words, the hatred may be justified.
- Ahsoka Tano on The Clone Wars full stop in the first season. The second season started to rectify this ...only to risk fan wrath with the third season, which started off with several Ahsoka-centric episodes.
- Really, most characters introduced in the second movie and onward are Creator's Pets. Kimi joined the group of babies that had mostly stayed constant throughout the series, and practically took control of the group, taking over Tommy's role of taking them on adventures and being the leader. Fans never really warmed up to her, but she pretty much became the most prominent baby on the show.
- Actually, Kimi has a pretty sizable fanbase that her detractors like to ignore.
- Cubert from Futurama was actually created to be one of these, apparently in direct reference to the former Trope Namer, and he was originally intended to be a sort of The Ace character, except he would still be hated and mistreated by the other characters. Really only the last part became true.
- It helps that the writers were more in-tune than others in their profession. Originally Cubert was supposed to be the character who Lampshaded all the ludicrous aspects of the series, which he does in his debut episode. However, the writers realized how terribly annoying this was and transformed him into a standard Bratty Half-Pint TV Genius. And only used him in a couple of episodes there after.
- Plus, in his debut episode, the rest of the cast takes an instant dislike to him and manage to get in a few good insults.
- He is also downgraded from a genius to an insufferable brat who thinks he's smarter than he is. And still acts like a typical twelve year old.
- It helps that the writers were more in-tune than others in their profession. Originally Cubert was supposed to be the character who Lampshaded all the ludicrous aspects of the series, which he does in his debut episode. However, the writers realized how terribly annoying this was and transformed him into a standard Bratty Half-Pint TV Genius. And only used him in a couple of episodes there after.
- Many fans and, according to Derric Wyatt, several Cartoon Network executives, felt that Gwen and Kevin (and their forced romance) were the Creators Pets of Ben 10 Alien Force and Ben 10 Ultimate Alien, often sidelining Ben or constantly making him look bad in comparision to them. Because of this, they were both Put on a Bus for Ben 10 Omniverse.
- She-Hulk in the '96 The Incredible Hulk cartoon. No one really had a problem with her in Season 1, where she only appeared in two well-received episodes. Unfortunately, when the series was renewed for Season 2, Executive Meddling forced her on as a regular (with her name slapped onto the intro, no less) as part of their effort to make the series Lighter and Softer. Of course, her Ascended Extra status led to less screentime for others. (Rick Jones was outright dropped after the Season 2 premiere!) She-Hulk was also subjected to The Other Darrin, with Lisa Zane replaced by Cree Summer (the voice behind other Creator's Pets, Elmyra and Dulcy). All of this arguably could've been forgiven if not for her horrendous characterization. She consistently proclaimed how much she loved having Gamma power in front of Bruce Banner, ya know, the guy that wanted to cure his transformation. That was just one example of how obnoxious she could be. And let's not forget how she revealed the Hulk's identity to the world to clear Bruce of suspicion of attacking General Ross. (Considering there were no witnesses, any half-decent lawyer could've found some way - any way to get Bruce off the hook than that.)
- Randy Marsh from South Park is arguably becoming one of these. More plots are starting to revolve about him and/or utilize his Serious Business stance on trivial matters to the point where semi-main characters are now Out of Focus.
- Trey Parker has explicitly said in the commentaries that he loves the character of Jimmy, which is probably why he gets an episode about Once a Season. Subverted, as fans seem pretty neutral towards him.
- Reginald The Koala of American Dad!. He's annoying (he's basically written like somebody's bad fan character), very few fans tolerate him, and yet he got an entire Story Arc (in a show which tries its hardest to avoid these) where he tried to hook up with a very OOC Hayley.
- Some fans of Archer absolutely hate the characters of Cheryl and Pam. The two are constantly brought into episodes and situations where they don't belong and really serve no purpose other than to make jokes that Archer could have made on his own.
- The latest season even ups the ante by making Pam apparently so incredible in bed that Archer smuggled her onboard a space station just as go-to pussy ...and Cheryl's just there to tagalong and be herself so even an Aliens-esque space episode comes off like just another day at the office.
Dulcy may still count, most fans admit not being fond of her, or apathetic to her at best. She breaks some mythos of the show a little, appears randomly and is tolerated and liked by everyone in-universe dispite being nearly as incompetent as Butt-Monkey Antoine. Her only break from the trope may be she isn't actually all that involved in the show (yeah Rotor and Bunnie appear less, but that seems more due to the below example) though she makes a token appearance in nearly episode and also has A Day in the Limelight. Ben Hurst (who wrote most of the episodes following her debut) also admited to being fond of her.
Sally Acorn is a borderline example, since she was Hurst's favorite, took up a ridiculous of spotlight and utilities from other characters and was starting to gain Canon Sue traits. However since she is more polarizing with fans and still has a plausible fandom, she may count more as just a Spotlight-Stealing Squad.
Mr Krabs may also be a more straight example. He takes up a lot of episodes nowadays and most of the time I hear from a Spongebob fan about him, it's usually about what an unbearable Jerkass he's become.
No offense to whoever added The Cutie Mark Crusaders from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, but I don't think they fit, and I believe the entry is just complaining about a character you do not like. Sure, they are not as absolutely adored as Fluttershy, but the fans DO tend to like the Crusaders. They do fit the "loved by writers" portion in the fact that Lauren Faust admitted to wanting to give them a spinoff, and they did get a decent chunk of episodes during season 2, but they are not shilled by the characters for no reason, nor do they have a large focus for no reason.
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Okay, I'm throwing the CMC entry on here for now. Give a reasonable defense for this entry, hitting all four points, and it can go back. And no, getting more episodes then the close-to-universally beloved character is not valid.
- The Cutie Mark Crusaders from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. While it wasn't bad in the first season, they slowly evolved into a Spotlight-Stealing Squad. How bad was it? Fluttershy had only two episodes of focus while they (including the solo episodes) had five.
I just want to know; could Homer Simpson from the Mike Scully era of The Simpsons count? If I may count the ways.
-His Jerkass behavior was blown out of proportion, turning from a selfish person who occasionally ignored his children and drank to a cartoonish Abusive Parent, a drunkard, a sociopath, if "A Tale Of Two Springfields" is to be believed, a freaking terrorist, and he got a new job every episode.
-The fandom turned against the character during this time.
-He was the focus of almost every plot during Scully's tenure, even more so after the complaints came in.
-He NEVER got punished for all of his destructive acts, which included the Aforementioned terrorism, manslaughter (he ducked for a Bobby pin as T-Shirts were flying toward him, and it hit Maude), damage to property, screwing the family out of life savings to invest in a failing animation company, etc.
I think that he was reigned in when Al Jean took over, toning down his jackassery and having the characters recognize his slips into Jerkass behavior, but I still think Homer qualifies for the Scully Era.
PrincessArien
In order to not start an edit war and to try and keep things in a civil manner rather than just editing it on my own or removing it completely I thought I'd bring this up in here. Does anyone else feel like this should either be removed or reworded? It feels a little clunky (I had to read the entry a couple times before it sounded a little less harsh) and feels like it could use just a bit more work in keeping it neutral. Does anyone else feel this entry for "Legend of Korra" could use a bit of work?
The "offending" entry: "Some fans are starting to consider Mako from The Legendof Korra this. An incredibly good looking young man who is so good at bending he's the only person to hit Amon and is even complimented for his skill. He has the beautiful daughter of the city's richest man as a girlfriend and the Avatar longing for him. Mako's emotional distance causes him to be incredibly rude to others but is never reprimanded for his behavior: he once threatened to end his friendship with Korra- accusing her of being jealous too- because she was essentially doing her job as the Avatar and it happened to conflict with him. Keep in mind that Korra got him to the championship when he had given up, found and saved Bolin, and offered him and Bolin a place to stay. He ignores Asami and blindly focuses on Korra to the point it starts hurting Asami all the while denying anything deeper between him and Korra. When he's confronted with the kiss he shared with Korra his first impulse is to blame his brother for telling Asami and try to avoid discussing his relationship troubles more. To top it off, the creators couldn't believe the overwhelming hate Mako received."
Whoever keeps on adding Starlight Glimmer should stop it. Thee's a discussion thread available if you think she fits. Stop starting edit wars.
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