Mascots and other tiny or cute characters generally love sugar. It often happens that the hero, or more often heroine, will find a small and cute creature, bring it into their room to take a closer look at it just to find out that has a huge sugar addiction. After the initial shock has worn off the startled main character now has to not only hide, but also provide for, something that is 60cm or less tall and eats enough sugar to put a horse in a diabetic coma. On top of this, the mascot's sweet tooth will usually cause trouble for their caregiver at least once, whether or not they find out.
This trope is not necessarily limited to the above situation; sometimes a main but not central character will end up taking care of the sugar-loving mascot and occasionally we'll even see a villain have one.
Compare Mars Wants Chocolate, when aliens become enamored with Earth's food. Other characters typically being characterized as having a Sweet Tooth are geniuses.
Examples:
Animation
- Flower Angel: Kukuru has quite the sweet tooth and will instantly eat any sweet foods that are set in front of him, though this characteristic is only ever prominent in Season 1.
Anime & Manga
- Aikatsu!: While Otome is human, she's the official mascot of Pop'n Popcorn and is constantly seen eating all sorts of candy and pastries. Her idol aura reflects this seeing that it prominently features sweets and fruits.
- Cardcaptor Sakura:
- Kero constantly eats sweets despite the fact that he not only doesn't need to eat but is also just barely larger than the utensils. This has caused problems on several occasions, including briefly living in another house after getting drunk off chocolates that contain brandy, giving random answers on Sakura's math homework sheets to get it out of the way so she'll buy him pastries and, of course, being fed by Sakura for over a year for his own amusement.
- Spinel enjoys sweet things, but only after eating them when he is put in a state of alcohol-free drunkenness.
- Kumappuri: The title character enjoys pudding to the point that it is a part of the series' theme items.
- A Little Snow Fairy Sugar: Sugar has to have at least one waffle every day.
- Mirumo de Pon!: Mirumo is supposed to be helping Kaede find love, but spends most of his time dodging his fiancee and eating chocolate. At one point Kaede is even put in crisis when she eats a piece of chocolate that was made to poison Mirumo in order to save him.
- Natsume's Book of Friends: In "To You From Bygone Days", Nyanko-sensei can be distracted from his job as Natsume's yokai bodyguard by the prospect of eating dango. He spots the suneko jump from a cyclist passing by, it's just that he's too preoccupied with the treats Natsume is buying him. Consequences of being a Big Eater, huh?
- One Piece: Tony Tony Chopper is known in-universe for his love of sweets, earning the epithet "Cotton Candy Lover"
- Ouran High School Host Club: Honey is arguably the mascot of the series and is shown eating large amounts of cake in each episode. In one episode, he even goes through withdrawal symptoms after getting a cavity and not being allowed to eat cake until the cavity is fixed.
- Rascal the Raccoon: The titular character likes to eat sweets such as sugar cubes and candies.
- Sgt. Frog: Tamama has rarely, if ever, been shown eating normal food, yet almost always has a bag of some sweet or snack food on hand. While it hasn't really presented any problems to his partner, Momoka, at one point Keroro has to take responsibility for Tamama trying to eat a giant candy house on a television set.
- Sonic X: Bokkun at one point goes against his instructions and helps the heroes twice, with the promise of getting apple pie and strawberry cake as a reward for his efforts. More than a bit odd considering that he's a robot, but there you go.
- Yo-kai Watch: Jibanyan loves to eat choco bars, so much that the future-robot version of himself, Robonyan, has an onboard factory in his body.
Fan Works
- Ashes of the Past: The squirrel-like Pokémon Pachirisu really likes her sweet Poffins despite her Trademark Favorite Food being nuts.
- Goosebumps Adventure: Parodied as Weasel Mascot Oogie loves eating lint, a soft cloth use for dressing wounds. You could say it becomes sweet when the cellulose is degraded into sugar but honestly, Oogie is just weird like that.
- The Winewood Clan: Vendelia's wretched servant, Drogwed, has a massive sweet tooth.
Live-Action TV
- Farscape: Rygel is small and mascot-like and he does have a SERIOUS sugar addiction.
Rygel: Crichton! How illegal is this dren? You gotta get me more! I don't care what it costs!
Video Games
- Feral: The Twiggles love sweets. One quest has you help a Twiggle find some sprinkles for its burrito because even with chocolate syrup, whipped cream, brownies, and cookie dough, it still isn't sweet enough.
- Flappy Dragon: Flappy's Flavor Text reveals his love for donuts.
- Garfield's Scary Scavenger Hunt: Perfection Pastries are about the only thing that can put both Garfield and Odie content enough to obey when you tell them to go to their boxes.
Webcomics
- Bardsworth: Upon receiving some pixie stix, Fawn falls into a Played for Laughs sugar addiction.
- Girl Genius: Agatha's wasp eater tries to eat a waffle cone whole while in Paris
and was seen eating chocolate truffles and other sweets in the dining car on the train to Paris.
- Sluggy Freelance: Team Pet Kiki the ferret loves sugar almost as much as shiny things. When she gets her paws on sugar in large quantities or very concentrated form, she gets incredibly, hyperkinetically active. Riff weaponizes this at times by giving her pixie sticks, after which she tends to leave Kiki-shaped holes in walls or anything else that gets in her way.
Web Video
- Nnemonic: Cocaine, a flying dog, is very fond of eating sweets. This reflects the real person behind the character, Cinnamoroll of Sanrio.
Western Animation
- Miraculous Ladybug:
- Tikki, the cute Kwami that allows Marinette to transform into Ladybug, very much loves macarons and cookies; sugary treats are, in fact, her preferred food to recharge her magic after a transformation. It's convenient for both the plot and Tikki's sweet tooth that Marinette knows how to bake all sorts of pastries because her parents run a bakery.
- Played for Drama in "Dearest Family". Tikki's craving for candy gets so out of control that she uses her creation powers without her holder to create the biggest galette to satiate her hunger. This puts everyone at risk as the gigantic object threatens to crush a sizeable portion of Paris when it lands. Plagg comments that, in a similar incident far in the past, Tikki summoned an 8-day rain of chocolate mousse.
- In contrast, Adrien's Kwami Plagg prefers chunks of pungent Camembert cheese, making him an inversion.
- Pinkalicious & Peterrific: In "Frost Fairy", Pinkalicious and Peter befriend a fairy and expose her to human food — which causes her to develop such a sweet tooth that she ends up destroying a gingerbread house they built.
