Disappeared Dad 30/ 50 60%
1. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Supporting Cast
- Glorified Sperm Donor: Naomi thinks very little of him and refers to him as "the Westchester sperm donor", as he walked out on them and hardly helped in raising Rebecca afterwards. Despite idealizing their relationship at first, Rebecca eventually comes to this conclusion as well.
- Glorified Sperm Donor: He was distinctly unhappy to learn Jessica didn't care about informing him he was the father of her child.
This trope largely has its roots in American service men bringing home wives from U.S. wars in Asia. At the time there was a stigma to the servicemen there impregnating hookers and marrying Asian women that were pretty much seen as call girls. In other cases, said service men got the women pregnant and then rotated home, leaving said women and their children to face social stigma (Defiled Forever for the mother and illegitimacy and Half-Breed Discrimination for the child), especially once Vietnam was unified. See also Abandoned War Child.
- Glorified Sperm Donor: One of the subplots has Cormoran's father, Jonny Rokeby the rock star, continually trying to reach out to Cormoran. In 39 years of life Cormoran has only met Rokeby twice, and he is not interested, even when (in a heavily foreshadowed moment) it's revealed that Rokeby has prostate cancer.
- My Biological Clock Is Ticking: Combined with Best Her to Bed Her. She wants an heir to her martial style, but only her bloodline can inherit, and not just anybody is good enough to be her Glorified Sperm Donor. She set her sights on Kaname because she decided the winner of the Treasure Hunt event was a suitable sire for her child.
Compare and contrast this with Missing Mom. Combine the two, and you get Parental Abandonment. Sometimes, though, Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You. If Dad is dead, we may see a Happier Home Movie. If he is simply too busy to be with his child, it's When You Coming Home, Dad?. If he doesn't have a lot of time but is willing to spend money on gifts and trips for the kids, it's Disneyland Dad. If he's wanted by the authorities, then he's a Notorious Parent. If he had some excuse to leave in the short term and then never returned, it's Parent Never Came Back from the Store. No Fathers Allowed is this on a societal level. See also Tell Me About My Father, So Proud of You, Turn Out Like His Father, Glorified Sperm Donor, and Ambiguously Absent Parent. Contrast "Well Done, Son" Guy.
7. Steve Jobs
- Disappeared Dad: Jobs' angst over being abandoned by his biological parents is shown as a possible reason for his jerkishness. Notably, he is also a self-imposed version of this to his daughter until the end.
8. Pachinko
- Glorified Sperm Donor: Hansu is the opposite of this. He takes an active, albeit aloof, role in Noa's life to ensure that he has a shot at a future that even Hansu could never have. Unfortunately, this ends up backfiring in the worst way.
9. Family Guy S 5 E 10 Peters Two Dads
- Glorified Sperm Donor: Mickey. He has a one-night stand with Thelma (implied to be a drunken one, given his alcoholic nature) and leaves, probably not even knowing that he impregnated her.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Justified in the most nauseating way. Tsukuyomi's lineage inherits the power of Amaterasu and they rely on incest to maintain the purity (i.e., divine power) of their lineage. This power is matrilineal, and the male side of the family is basically just a Glorified Sperm Donor. This system is maintained by thorough indoctrination and what is basically a lobotomy.
11. I Am J
- Disappeared Dad: Melissa's father is described as "little more than a hit-and-run".
- Trace has many examples. Let's see:
13. Royal Bastard
- A Song of Ice and Fire: In general, it's quite common for the nobility of all ranks, from common knights to kings, to have extramarital dalliances that result in noble and royal bastards. These are not legally considered children of their parents, meaning that they cannot inherit land or titles unless made legitimate by royal decree, although it doesn't stop some from trying to claim what they feel is their birthright anyway. Traditionally, they're given a shared last name used throughout each of the kingdoms, rather than taking their father's — Snow in the North, Stone in the Vale, Rivers in the Riverlands, Waters in the Crownlands, Hill in the Westerlands, Pyke in the Iron Islands, Flowers in the Reach, Storm in the Stormlands and Sand in Dorne. They cannot usually take their noble father's coat of arms, but many use it with its colors inverted, with a bend sinister — a bar running from top right to bottom left — across it, or both.
- The Blackfyre Rebellions were caused by Aegon the Unworthy, who fathered a notorious number of children outside of his marriage, legitimizing all of his bastards on his deathbed, while also spreading claims his legitimate son was sired by his brother. The four "Great Bastards" are noted for playing important roles in the Targaryen family rather than Aegon merely being a Glorified Sperm Donor like most nobles; one, in particular, Daemon Blackfyre, funded a splinter branch of House Targaryen named after himself, using its parent house's heraldry with inverted colors (a three-headed black dragon on red, rather than a red one of black), which despite being exiled contested the Targaryen throne on and off for several centuries.
14. Video Games
- Metroid:
- In general, details concerning protagonist Samus Aran's backstory — her early childhood on the the mining colony of K-2L, the death of her parents at the hands of Ridley, being raised by the Chozo, etc. — have historically been relegated to supplemental material such as the comics and manga, as well as the occasional game manual. This has occasionally led to some plot elements in the games coming across as somewhat confusing or even misleading due to the lack of context, such as the reveal at the end of Metroid Dread that Raven Beak is her father, which skips over the detail that he was nothing more than a Glorified Sperm Donor that assisted Samus's actual Chozo caregivers in altering her genetics.
15. Darwin's Game
- My Biological Clock Is Ticking: Combined with Best Her to Bed Her. She wants an heir to her martial style, but only her bloodline can inherit, and not just anybody is good enough to be her Glorified Sperm Donor. She set her sights on Kaname because she decided the winner of the Treasure Hunt event was a suitable sire for her child.
- Glorified Sperm Donor: Mentioned by Thaddeus when his wife is discussing an event she was at that had inner-city white children there. She is not amused.
17. Tropes I to P
- Parental Substitute: Steve becomes this to Carol over time, starting in chapter 2, and by the time of chapter 60, at Pepper's prompting, he fully accepts that in every real sense he is her dad and starts doing more than just playing the part (her actual father having been demoted to Glorified Sperm Donor status for what he tried to arrange).
Glorified Sperm Donor: Fathers a baby, then leaves the woman he slept with to raise the baby herself, without taking any responsibility for that child.
19. Family Title
- My Biological Clock Is Ticking: Combined with Best Her to Bed Her. She wants an heir to her martial style, but only her bloodline can inherit, and not just anybody is good enough to be her Glorified Sperm Donor. She set her sights on Kaname because she decided the winner of the Treasure Hunt event was a suitable sire for her child.
20. Loren: The Amazon Princess
- Gayngst: Orientation-inverted, but still very much present for Karen and possibly Loren if she is romanced by Saren. Because their culture dismisses men as anything but slaves and Glorified Sperm Donors, their love for their male slaves is the cause of much sadness and inner turmoil for them. Towards the end of her romance Loren even has a Jerkass Realization about the misandry of Amazon culture and resolves to put a stop to it.
21. Action Pack
- Glorified Sperm Donor: Kyuubi is treated like this and none of the Uzumaki’s call him Kira’s father because of it, or if they do it’s because they need to justify Kira being a half-demon.
22. Deceit
- Glorified Sperm Donor: Pierce and (deceased) Lance's father turns out to have been this. Two rogues came to the village Taja was alpha of. Taja was impressed by how the eldest was able to survive in the wild, probably for as long as Taja had lived, and he agreed to pass his strong blood down. Taja never got to know his name; he disappeared the night after impregnating her.
23. Hazbin Hotel
- Wham Episode:
- Chapter 17, when Riker in the wilds meets an elderly rogue named Nova, who is said to be "older than Taja and Anahi", have gray fur, and lack several teeth. Word of God tells us he is the rogue who impregnated Taja, and whom Taja and Pierce thought was dead.
24. Once Upon a Time S7 E7 Eloise Gardener
- Glorified Sperm Donor: Gothel tricks Hook into impregnating her, so that their child can take her place in the tower.
- Given that Gothel conceives Alice purely to escape the tower and has no interest in raising her or even making sure she won't starve to death there, she can be considered a Glorified Egg Donor. Hook, on the other hand, decides to become a devoted single father.
- Glorified Sperm Donor: All of the angels and demons consider Lucifer Adam's father, and don't even consider his adopted family as a factor. Adam himself completely inverts this; Lucifer is nothing to him, and Mr. Young is, always will be, and always has been, his real dad.
26. Jobs
- Disappeared Dad/Glorified Sperm Donor: Jobs knocks up his girlfriend just as Apple is starting to take off. He deals with this by dumping his girlfriend and refusing to admit the child is his, going so far as to decline visitation rights with his daughter even after he's been found legally responsible for her support.
- Weirdly, Jobs' reconciliation with said daughter Lisa is left offscreen. She just pops up one day, sleeping on his couch.
27. G to I
- Glorified Sperm Donor: They exist with one term being "dead-beat dads".
28. G.I. Joe PSAs
29. Riverdale S 3 E 04 Chapter 39 The Midnight Club
- Glorified Sperm Donor: FP who got Alice pregnant and is seeing another Southside Serpent chick on the side, neglecting responsibility for his unborn child. Justified since he didn't know she was pregnant.
30. Law & Order S11 E13 "Phobia"
- Glorified Sperm Donor: Kelley couldn't care less that he had a son and only showed interest when he found out from Celia Goddard that the boy was being raised by two men.
Chosen Conception Partner 6/ 50 12%
- The entire boat scene which was improvised:
- The author of the books concluded that men are indispensable for reproduction, but unnecessary for pleasure.
2. Fire Emblem
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses: The game is awash with Grey-and-Gray Morality with the majority of antagonists and protagonists committing horrible acts for good reasons, and on the various routes, they will all show good and evil sides to themselves and remain sympathetic even as antagonists. Even the likes of the Flame Emperor/Edelgard is shown to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist with a very justifiable reason for their actions, and Rhea/Seiros, despite her insanity, has a tragic backstory for it. However, there are still a couple of villains who stand out all the more for their wickedness and lack of redeeming qualities.
- Count Varley of the Empire and Baron Bartels of the Kingdom, for similar reasons. Both are major Abusive Parents who are directly responsible for the mental issues and trauma of their children (Bernadetta for the former and Mercedes and Jeritza for the latter). Varley regularly verbally abused Bernadetta and left her tied to a chair to pigeonhole her into a submissive housewife he could marry off for profit, both of which have caused her to become an emotionally devastated Shrinking Violet who can barely stand to be outside her dorm room for more than a few minutes at a time. Bartels took in Mercedes and her mother for the express purpose of siring a child with a Crest for himself and planned to send them off once he had what he wanted, only to change his mind — because he wanted to sire another child with a Crest with Mercedes. The sheer horror of that latter intention caused Jeritza to go berserk, and awakened his evil Blood Knight Split Personality, the Death Knight, who killed Bartels in retaliation. These two are especially notable because the player never gets to meet either of them in person in the original game, with word of Varley being placed under house arrest after the Flame Emperor takes control of the Empire being the only time he becomes relevant to the story for even a moment. Varley does get some nice Offscreen Karma in Bernadetta's epilogue slides where she severs all ties to him so he can't benefit from whatever life choices or marriages she undergoes. Three Hopes also allows you to either kill him or allow him to die depending on which path you chose.
- In Captain Proton and the Planet of Lesbians, Buster Kincaid is faced with twin scantily-dressed scientists intent on using him as a Glorified Sperm Donor for their Lady Land society. He tries a Survival Mantra ("I must drink beer, beer is the mind killer..."), the procedure for assembling a Class IV Rocket Engine ("Insert the long tribanium rod into the moist cunt...I mean the Moise-Carver termination socket. Do not attempt to force the rod if it becomes stuck, but instead come, I mean coat the rod in ejaculate...ejection lubricant in order to ease its passage into the tight hole...") and then:
- Supernatural: Sam and his brother Dean are both hunters, but the former has had relationships with a werewolf, a kitsune, and a demon, and the latter with an amazon who used him as a Glorified Sperm Donor as well as an angel who later experienced a Face–Heel Turn and tried to kill both of the brothers before they were born. However, this is subverted when Sam has a fling with a female doctor who is suspected to be a siren, but turns out to be a Red Herring.
5. Dynamite And A Laser Beam - Redux
- Heroic Lineage: Josefumi Kujo and Yoshihara Kira come from the Joestar Family, though Yoshihara is only related to it due to Jouta Kujo, Yoshimura Kira's father being a Glorified Sperm Donor meaning they both have the The Joestar Birthmark on top of both of them being a member of the Joestar Family.
- Glorified Sperm Donor: Yoshimune views the members of the Ooku as this, with a rotation schedule for her visits to her multiple regular partners and frequent quickies with servants. Yoshimune's deliberate lack of favoritism prevents harem power grabs, since none of her concubines have special access to her to use as leverage. When she finds herself pregnant, it also means that none of them can gainsay her when she names a weak and malleable one-night-stand as the father.
ZCE 4/ 50 8%
- Glorified Sperm Donor: Martin's father takes this trope up to eleven.
%%* Glorified Sperm Donor: Avallek, Dracaena Leffoy's faerie father.
- Glorified Sperm Donor: Flynn's father was probably this.
Others 3/ 50 6%
The closest to a correct wick. The father in question is unable to return, but it still fits the idea that biological father is more significant than the one who raised him.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: Upon learning that his dead biological father was a powerful, handsome, and courageous lawyer, Bart immediately identifies with him to the point that he throws aside his living parents.
2. As Five
- Glorified Sperm Donor: Subverted, as despite what's shown early on, Clara never becomes quite able to see him as her father.
- Defied:
- Alice decides that being a parent has nothing to do with genes and everything to do with nurturing, and that because she is going to be the only one raising Charles she is going to be his only true parent.
Literal Sperm Donor 2/ 50 4%
1. The Simpsons
- "Adventures in Baby-Getting", which reveals that Homer donated his sperm in the past, and now he has a massive number of offspring, all over the world, raised by different women. It throws Bart, Lisa, and Maggie hard into Uniqueness Decay. It also throws up a nonsensical line in Homer declaring he never wanted to be a father, which not only would make his donation to a sperm bank particularly stupid, but also contradicts his clear enjoyment of being a father in the "classic" seasons.
2. Delivery Man
- Glorified Sperm Donor: David sold a great amount of sperm to the sperm bank, fathering over 500 people under a pseudonym. Once most of them grew up, they tried to nullify his anonymity through legal means. David sued the sperm bank to prevent this from happening, and won the case. Not long after, he decides to reveal his identity publicly. All his children began to love him dearly.
