The Scrappy Cleanup

So I'll keep Feral Zeke for now since it's a permanent and almost universally despised change, but I'll cut Sam.

Edited by mightymewtron on Feb 12th 2024 at 1:25:19 PM

Project X:

• Catharsis Factor: The midget giving Costa a Groin Attack and Thomas slamming Costa into the front car seat are both considered to be the most satisfying moments in the film.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Costa is utterly despised by viewers for his repugnant nature, being bigoted, amoral, and responsible for numerous problems. Compare that to T-Rick, an Ax-Crazy drug dealer who goes as far as purposely setting the entire neighborhood on fire out of pure spite. It also helps that the latter ends up getting arrested, whereas the former ends up avoiding punishment.
• Love to Hate: The midget, who repeatedly Groin Attacks people for no reason, is quite memorable among viewers. It also helps that Costa, who is also The Scrappy, is one of his victims.
• The Scrappy: Costa is an arrogant, promiscuous, sociopathic bastard who bullies his friends, is casually misogynistic, racist, and homophobic, and is responsible for most of the problems that occur in the film, including stealing from a drug dealer he knows. He also brings a pair of psychopathic kids as "security" who assault a man whose only crime is being upset about the titular party. It doesn't help that he basically ends up a Karma Houdini.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Costa becomes subjected to the dwarf's Groin Attack. There are also three pregnancy tests still in process, implying that any of them could turn out positive.

Costa is liked by fans of the movie. The people who hate him seem to be its critics.

I found another example:

• Award Snub: In terms of the MTV Movie Awards's infamous Best Onscreen Dirtbag category in 2012 — which looked to be centered more on antagonistic bullies or instigators rather than straightforward villains — Oliver Cooper as Costa — a Jerkass hedonist — is a more appropriate pick than either Jennifer Aniston for Horrible Bosses who won — playing a sexual extortionist — or Bryce Dallas Howard for The Help — playing a racist and malicious debutante who was actually way more suited for an actual Best Villain nomination.

This might be more valid as I agree that Jennifer Aniston's character in Horrible Bosses should've been a villain and I think it's fair to say Costa is a dirtbag. But I don't think this movie's fans see him that way. Plus, with how much character bashing is on elsewhere on the page, I question if this is a legitimate example.

Removed it then.

Question these from TheScrappy.Western Animation:

• Teen Titans (2003):
  • Gizmo was perhaps the most commonly-appearing villain in the series, behind Slade. However, he also happened to be a whiny, self-superior Bratty Half-Pint with an annoying voice and nothing resembling Character Development. Even his own teammates don't like him. Last part makes it sound intentional.
  • Kitten takes a lot of heat from the fans, but a lot of it's rather undeserved, as it's not for her unpleasant personality (which is detestable, even in-show) so much as the fact that she forced Robin to date her. Even though the real goal behind that was to regain Fang's attention after he broke up with her. Sounds like hate for other reasons than decorating from works quality and meant to be hated.
  • Mento is by far the least liked member of the Doom Patrol, mainly due to his high strict standards and poor treatment of Beast Boy. He's also disliked for his arrogance in refusing to help the Teen Titans fight the Brotherhood of Evil, which would have gotten his entire team and family killed had it not been for the Titans ignoring his orders. When the character somewhat returns in Season 3 of Young Justice, he is presented in a considerably less favorable light. Fails to state how unintentional.
• Some of the introduced engines of Thomas & Friends, particularly those created during Hit Entertainment's run, tend to be disliked, either due to having limited, more gimmicky personalities, or by fans of the original Railway Series novels who dislike the show's overuse of newly created characters over the original cast. Charlie "the Playful Purple Engine" and the Logging Locos seem to get the most flak in particular. Seems to violate no groups rule as only specific examples is ZCE as to why most hated.

Gizmo and Kitten are definitely intended to be disliked- they're both intentionally bratty and annoying. I'll have to rewatch the stuff with Mento, but those 2 are easy cuts.

TheScrappy.Advertising is a mess. It's nebulous how we define Scrappy for advertising, but even at its most lenient of "these are characters hated most among all advertising" and not just specific brands, some of these are just entire commercials that are hated as opposed to characters, and some aren't even consistently hated.

I was thinking of bringing up that page sometime as well, because I agree that there's a lot of misuse. As you mentioned, a lot of examples seem to be characters who were only hated for a period of time (e.g. Energizer Bunny), entire commercials/campaigns that were disliked, and some cases that seem more like Base Breaking Characters.

In addition, there are also a few examples that appear to be calling real people Scrappies — such as this one:

I think there was a discussion on whether or not people who appeared on reality TV can count as Scrappies, and if I remember correctly, the consensus was that they can only count if they're hated on the show itself — not for anything they did outside of the show. I believe a similar principle is in place for other media.

Considering that the entry seems to imply that the reason why Jared is hated is mainly because of what he did in real life, I don't think this counts. If the character he played in the ads was genuinely hated (and not just considered unappealing) before his scandals were revealed to the public, it could be rewritten to focus on that, but for now... cut?

That entry reads as if it was initially added before Fogle's crimes came out, as a lot of the page came out pre-2015, so I assume it was written with disdain for him as a spokesman, which could qualify him. But it's hard to tell where the line is with real-life people as spokespeople, even if Jared was treated as kind of a character.

Yeah here are a few of the dubious examples from that page:

• The Luvs had their animated babies from their 2011 campaign; the most infamous of these ads being the "Poop, There It Is!" commercial, where said babies engaged in a talent show that seemed to parody American Idol in which said babies tested the how well their Luvs brand of diapers compared to their competitors' by defecating in them, causing their diapers to inflate. Many viewers found the ad to be disgusting, and it was named by many online publications as one of the worst adverts of that year. That said, the campaign quickly fizzled out by the following year.
  This is just an ad that people dislike, the babies are not individual characters.

• Ads for the "Planet Honda" car dealership in Jersey City feature the most stereotypically annoying, loudmouthed car dealer guy, who MUST SCREAM EVERY WORD LIKE THIS!!!
  • Kia has the similarly loudmouthed Jim Sipala, who ends every radio commercial with how he wants to see ya in a Kia.
  Both of these feel like ZC Es, and also real life since car dealership ads usually do not have characters, they are the real salesmen.

• Metro PCS has commercials starring a stereotypical Indian guy, who's best described as an Ethnic Scrappy. It also does not help that one Metro PCS ad continually states "Period Power".
  Another ZCE, it doesn't say how or why he is hated asides from being sterotypical.

• Sprint recently hired Paul Marcarelli, Verizon's "Can You Hear Me Now" guy. However, people consider him a traitorous douche.
• The guys in the Staples commercials that yells "WOW! THAT'S A LOW PRICE!"
  Both of these are ZC Es and don't say why they are hated.

• Carly Foulkes, also known as the "T-Mobile Girl" in most of her commercials, paired up with an incompetent owner of an inferior phone service, before they are informed of the superiority of T-Mobile. More recent commercials abandon this and simply have Foulks in a more Ms. Fanservice role clad in skin tight leather riding a motorcycle.
  This is just a description of their ads, it doesn't say why she is hated.

• The animated GrubHub dancers became widely despised for their unbelievably cringeworthy moves mixed with butt ugly designs to the point that there's several editorials noting why their ad campaign was such a failure.
  The Grubhub dancers are technically a group, not a specific character. Also this is just a hated ad.

The first one could go on So Bad, It's Horrible, but Scrappy seems like misuse.

Edited by PhiSat on Feb 20th 2024 at 2:53:16 AM

A lot of these entries either are already on SBIH or are just trying to get around the limits for SBIH. I might just remove anything not about an actual character.

On Sam & Cat:

• The Scrappy:
  • Goomer. Every scene he is in tends to make Cat incredibly saner and more tolerable in comparison. His appearances per episode also diverts the focus from the show's babysitting service plot.

This might be Character Perception Evolution, but I've seen people (mainly Quinton Reviews and his fans) genuinely find Goomer funny or even the best character on the show.

I've personally always hated him, but I'm just one person.

I'm skeptical of Scrappy entries on kids' shows because nine times out of ten it's the opinion of the older fans and doesn't necessarily represent the opinion of the target audience.

Edited by SharkToast on Feb 20th 2024 at 7:41:07 AM

How much do we cut?

Depending on the show, I'm lenient on that, because sometimes the target audience is too young to even really grasp that they're watching fiction created by adults to entertain them, so most Audience Reactions don't concern them. But with something like Sam & Cat, which is aimed at kids and tweens, it's believable that the target audience can recognize a character they actively dislike. Plus with some shows, these may be adult fans who grew up on the show sharing their takes.

I have discovered that Ember's status in Invincible animated series was changed for The Scrappy to Base-Breaking Character. Does that mean we can cut her on the main page because I found to link to her cleanup post, otherwise you can confirm her character was saved

Last I checked the main characters wasn’t allowed to be a Scrappy. So should we delete this entry from Sex and the City or is it fine given it’s an ensemble show?

The Scrappy: Unusually for a TV Show, a case can be made for Carrie - the main character. But watch any video of SATC online and the comments will be full of comments on about how petty, dramatic, selfish and whiny Carrie is, especially how badly she treats Aidan or takes her friends for granted.

Edited by Mariofan99 on Feb 21st 2024 at 7:02:13 AM

They can be a scrappy if the audience otherwise still like the show. It's just rare that this happens

This is on Lady and the Tramp:

• Ethnic Scrappy: Si and Am, the Siamese cats, who pretty much read as a checklist of every single Chinese stereotype ever: cunning villainy? Check. Buck teeth? Check. Broken English? Check. Downplayed, as they're quite popular.

If they're quite popular, doesn't that disqualify them? Or does it work differently for Ethnic Scrappies.

It doesn't. Cut

What about my post?

From Robotech

• The Scrappy:
  • Minmei. Childish attitude, somewhat ditzy, complaints about her dub actress and the quality of the songs written for her. Minmei is hated so much that any of the episodes focused on her are often skipped by fans of the series.
  • Kyle too: right after his worst moment (leading a group of civilians in stopping Rick and the military from removing a size-changing Protoculture Chamber from an exposed position after a group of Malcontent Zentraedi tried to steal it), he has a My God, What Have I Done? moment when he sees the consequences (Khyron coming in force and stealing it, allowing him to get an army of full-sized Zentraedi), and in the next episode he takes his kidnapping at Khyron's hands as a chance to tell Global to let him die if it meant that Khyron wouldn't get his way and call Khyron a coward to his face (while still being a jerk when Rick rescues him). And, finally, in episode 34 calls Minmei out on her own selfish act. The comic books, in a plot point confirmed as canon by Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles, has him admit he was wrong in the most drastic and clearest way he could come up with: joining the military as part of the Robotech Expeditionary Force.
  • Dana Sterling: childish attitude, thoughtless, only gets a slap on the wrist for mistakes, etc. Kyle and Dana don't fare too well in the originals either, where Kaifun is seen as a hypocritical, narcissistic Soapbox Sadie, and Jeanne Francoise is pretty much Dana Sterling in the original Japanese.
  • The Narrator... not because of his voice or even what he is saying. He has quite a pleasant speaking voice and the voice actor is fairly well-known. It's the fact that when the show was originally released, it was intended for children ages 7 to 14, and many things needed explaining. Now that most of the audience is primarily adults, the voice comes in and explains everything to the point that at times it can actually kill the emotion of a scene. Fans have commonly complained and many wonder how the series would be without a narrator.
  • Annie in New Generation can have this effect on people.

A lot of the examples are ZCE and Lynn Kyle and his original Japanese counterpart are arguably hate sinks, cut.

Can I removed Dr. Regal as Scrappy from the Battle Network 4 YMMV page, since he's no longer despised as poorly-written because of the sequel game and anime?

No one objects to you doing that considering what it said from you.