History Main / TheFamilyForTheWholeFamily

What do you do when you need some big, tough guys to menace the heroes, but don't want to risk having them actually, you know, ''hurt'' anybody? You call in The Family for the Whole Family. They're not the scary, competent, [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident make-it-look-like-an-accident]] mobsters seen in [[TheMafia Mafia]] movies; they're the {{harmless|Villain}}, {{ineffectual|SympatheticVillain}}, and very, ''very'' [[StupidCrooks stupid mobsters]] that are a staple of family-oriented comedies. No matter how many of them are in their group, you can be sure of two things: there will only be one shared gun among them (if they thought to pack any weapons at all), and they'll always forget that there's a trigger on it when they want to threaten someone, rarely having any Plan B in case [[PushyGunTotingVillain pointing it really hard at them]] doesn't work.

Despite the name, this brand of goon doesn't necessarily have to be a member of TheMafia. They can be from any group who is normally considered [[VillainByDefault dangerous by definition]] (i.e. gangsters, thieves, spies, hitmen, {{Yakuza}}, escaped criminals, et al), but when appearing in the context of a PG-rated film becomes highly susceptible to messy booby traps, {{banana peel}}s, and precocious youngsters who [[IKnowKarate know karate]].

In TheNineties, it was popular to add these characters to DomCom movies to pad the script with villains for a ''Film/HomeAlone''-inspired climax. (Creator/JohnHughes, who wrote the script for ''Home Alone'' and a few of the other examples on this page, ''loved'' this trope.) Just to drive home the point of them being totally superfluous to the point of the movie, they are totally absent from most trailers and summaries of the film -- only existing for some B-plot slapstick gags to add an extra 20 minutes on to what would otherwise be only one hour of screentime.
Obviously a subtrope of IneffectualSympatheticVillain.

* Barry the Chopper from ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' was a violent SerialKiller in life and never lost any of his former urges, but almost all of his screen time has him being comically pushed around by Mustang and his crew with little pushback. This is especially notable when compared to his portrayal in [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003 the first anime]], where he was played as a dead straight killer with no comedic quirks.

* Barry the Chopper from ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' was a violent SerialKiller in life and never lost any of his former urges but almost all of his screen time has him being comically pushed around by Mustang and his crew with little pushback. This is especially notable when compared to his portrayal in [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003 the first anime]] where he was played as a dead straight killer with no comedic quirks.

In TheNineties, it was popular to add these characters to DomCom movies to pad the script with villains for a ''Film/HomeAlone''-inspired climax. (Creator/JohnHughes, who wrote the script for ''Home Alone'' and a few of the other examples on this page, ''loved'' this trope.) Just to drive home the point of them being totally superfluous to the point of the movie, they are totally absent from most trailers and summaries of the film - only existing for some B-plot slapstick gags to add an extra 20 minutes on to what would otherwise be only 1 hour of screentime.

-->You know what happens when a 5-year-old performs a flying kick against a grown man? The kid falls on his barely- out-of-diapers ass. Why does this happen? Physics. It's the law and everyone knows you can't fight the law, especially if you weigh 30 pounds and stand 3-feet-tall.

* ''Series/{{Psych}}'' gave us some pretty pathetic mobsters in the pivotal episode "Deez Nups." For starters, they have their clocks easily cleaned by a slightly overweight woman - though, granted, it's a slightly overweight woman who is [[IKnowKarate well-versed in]] [[IKnowKungFu Muay Thai boxing]]. Then they actually fall for the lame [[PaperThinDisguise "put-a-hood-over-the-hostage's-head-to-conceal-that-he's-a-decoy"]] trick, ''despite attempting the same ploy themselves''. They finally seem to have [[TookALevelInBadass Taken A Level In Badass]] when they [[WeddingSmashers crash a wedding and open fire on everyone]]...but no, as they are foiled hilariously when it becomes obvious that [[EveryoneIsArmed half the guests at the wedding are cops, and they open fire in return]].

* The sharks in ''WesternAnimation/SharkTale''.

* Luigi Vendetta, the opera-singing juvenile {{Canad|aEh}}ian Mafia boss Kick sends to exact revenge on his brother Brad in ''WesternAnimation/KickButtowski''.

* Big Daddy's organization in ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents'' acts like your typical gangster family, with Big Daddy himself even voiced by Creator/TonySirico, but they work in garbage collection with mob-like tactics and some gangster work on the side.

* Big Daddy's organization in ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents'' acts like your typical gangster family, with Big Daddy himself even voiced by [[Series/TheSopranos Tony Sirocio]], but they work in garbage collection with mob-like tactics and some gangster work on the side.

[[caption-width-right:350:Jasper and Horace were ''this'' close to crossing the MoralEventHorizon. Then they got a little [[JustForPun hot under the collar]].]]

In the 1990s, it was popular to add these characters to DomCom movies to pad the script with villains for a ''Film/HomeAlone''-inspired climax. (Creator/JohnHughes, who wrote the script for ''Home Alone'' and a few of the other examples on this page, ''loved'' this trope.) Just to drive home the point of them being totally superfluous to the point of the movie, they are totally absent from most trailers and summaries of the film - only existing for some B-plot slapstick gags to add an extra 20 minutes on to what would otherwise be only 1 hour of screentime.

* Barry the Chopper from ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' was a violent SerialKiller in life and never lost any of his former urges but almost all of his screen time has him being comically pushed around by Mustang and his crew with little pushback. This is especially notable when compared to his portrayal in [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist the first anime]] where he was played as a dead straight killer with no comedic quirks.

-->-- '''Cicci''', ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang"

* ''Film/CorkyRomano'' plays this painfully straight. While the underlings certainly act tough (they're not), the Don swears to his son that he's never done anything serious like kidnapping or murder. [[FridgeLogic Then why is the FBI so desperate to get him?]]

* ''Film/CorkyRomano'': While the underlings certainly act tough (they're not), the Don swears to his son that he's never done anything serious like kidnapping or murder, though his lieutenant had told the FBI he did so they'd take him down and he could take over. However, he does run racketeering, illegal gambling and prostitution. That's all kept [[OffscreenVillainy offscreen]] though, which keeps them sympathetic.

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'': Surprisingly, Team Rocket is only on the border of this. Sure, the TerribleTrio are G-rated {{Harmless Villain}}s, but every once in a while you're reminded that they're the oddballs of a larger and much more dangerous syndicate. In fact, Jessie, James, and Meowth are very lucky to still have their job!

* The idiot burglars Harry and Marv from ''Film/HomeAlone'' are a classic example, though also somewhat of a {{deconstruction}}. Although they are incompetent enough to fall into Kevin's ill-conceived traps, the traps don't actually stop them, but instead just piss them off. Although they originally just wanted to loot the house of its valuables and weren't interested in hurting Kevin, their focus ends up shifting from robbing the house to getting revenge for all the pain that the kid has put them through. Eventually they ''do'' catch him, and he is only saved from their wrath by a neighbor coming up behind them and [[ShovelStrike knocking them out with a shovel]].
** ''Home Alone 2'' plays the above formula almost scene for scene with the only real variation being that the robbers start out seeking revenge on Kevin the moment they spot him before switching to trying to rob the toy store and Harry being armed with a gun that he has no qualms about using. Again, the only things that keep Kevin from getting shot are the fact that said gun is clogged with grease and a homeless woman Kevin befriended coming to his rescue.
** ''Home Alone 3'' asks for a lot more WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief, as its bumbling idiot villains aren't small-time cat burglars, but instead professional international espionage specialists... Who still get defeated by toy RC vehicles and plastic dart guns.

* The Mafia's appearances are mostly played for laughs on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', as is the Robot Mafia on ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''.
** ''The Simpsons'' mafia can be consider something of a subversion, as some of the stuff they do is ridiculous and played for laughs, and other stuff is actually violent or highly illegal (like making loans and beating people when they can't pay them, or rigging sports events) yet [[CrossesTheLineTwice it's also played for laughs]]. They ''are'' shown dumping a dead body (wrapped in a length of carpet) into a trash bin in a 1999 episode, so they clearly are able to commit murder when necessary.
** The Robot Mafia plays this up. The mafia is only three robots[[note]]four when "Blotto" (Bender) briefly joins[[/note]]. They act tough, but so far they haven't killed anybody onscreen. They machine gunned a robot who owed them in their first appearance, but being a robot, he just got back up (it's clear they didn't even intend it to kill him, as they say "Consider that a warning"). One of them mentions giving somebody CementShoes, which he enjoyed, because they were lighter than his lead ones. They came pretty close to burning the Planet Express crew up though, and they would have killed Flexo if Bender hadn't bent the unbendable girder they dropped on him. Of the three, Clamps is probably the most violent, but generally he's restrained by the Donbot (or, sometimes, by Joey Mousepad) from carrying through.

What do you do when you need some big, tough guys to menace the heroes, but don't want to risk having them actually, you know, ''hurt'' anybody? You call in The Family for the Whole Family. They're not the scary, competent, make-it-look-like-an-accident mobsters seen in [[TheMafia Mafia]] movies; they're the [[HarmlessVillain harmless]], [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain ineffectual,]] and very, ''very'' [[StupidCrooks stupid mobsters]] that are a staple of family-oriented comedies. No matter how many of them are in their group, you can be sure of two things: there will only be one shared gun among them (if they thought to pack any weapons at all), and they'll always forget that there's a trigger on it when they want to threaten someone, rarely having any Plan B in case [[PushyGunTotingVillain pointing it really hard at them]] doesn't work.

* The bank robbers in ''Film/BMXBandits''.

'''Keep in mind that this trope is ''not'' "Villains who are not very evil", that's MinionWithAnFInEvil. This trope concerns villains who are ''willing'' to commit heinous crimes, but are simply incapable of doing so because of their incompetence.'''