Bad Parents In Animation (Anime, Western Animation, Eastern, etc)

I already got approval from the moderators to start a thread like this.

Does anyone have an opinion on who you think are awful parents of animation?

3,2,1, go!

The Griffins, Mindy's mom, Butters' parents, the Lanes, Cotton Hill, and of course Homer Simpson... yeah, bad parents are pretty well-represented in cartoons, particularly those aimed at adults. However, unlike a lot of people, it doesn't really bother me when it's played for laughs like the above examples. I just accept it as part of the Crapsack World that most of these shows are set in.

edited 21st Jun '13 9:29:40 AM by redhed311

The better thread,and I'd get the title changed is finding good parents,that is far more impressive.

If anything bad parents are just the norm,be it the typical apathetic kind like The Turners or Johnny's parents to the mentally abusive kind like Cotton

And then you have Mike Di Martino and Bryan Konietzko and their hard-on for bad dads.

Seriously find good parents.

I think Gozaburo Kaiba and Butters parents come in mind. Also, Giovanni's mom.

Stan Smith is bad, but Peter and Lois are worse than him.

edited 21st Jun '13 11:08:10 AM by MsCC93

HA! The parents in Ed Edd N Eddy don't even bother taking the time to exist!

The parents in Eliot Kid - to name something forgettable and deservedly obscure, come to mind... They either need to get that little fool some therapy/medicine to control him proper, or send him to a military school for some real-world proper discipline... or both. Whatever it takes to get that overactive imagination under control once and for all and make him into a productive member of his society - before he ends up raped, murdered, or imprisoned for his childlike stupidity!

Seriously, I'm glad the main character(s) in Mona The Vampire, Doug, & Rugrats for example(s) (shows I actually like that do everything RIGHT that Eliot Kid does HORRIBLY FUCKING WRONG, even if just IMHO!) have their overactive imaginations in control, even if they are just kids, dammit!

I also feel the parents of Maggie from The Buzzon Maggie deserve a somewhat similar dishonorable mention for what I just stated above about Eliot Kid - anything to make the world a better place for everyone around here and not just me.

edited 21st Jun '13 12:51:32 PM by TheShopSoldier

I think we all can agree that Shou Tucker deserves a free "World's Worst Dad" coffee cup.

edited 21st Jun '13 2:08:55 PM by TheAirman

[[Removed Irrelevant post]]

edited 16th Jul '13 2:52:41 PM by MsCC93

An unintentional example: Littlefoot's dad. Seriously, his excuse given in the sequel he appeared in is one of the most asinine, and frankly only shows him as being an asshole.

Lady Tremaine definitely counts. I mean she's a total bitch to Cinderella.

edited 21st Jun '13 7:31:56 PM by MsCC93

Pete, particularly in Goof Troop, is such a bad father his son stands out to me as one of the biggest Woobies of all time despite having a decent mother (well, at least on the show. In the movies...)

He's bumbling at best, abusive at worst (and more commonly). It should be noted that he treats PJ like complete crap so often that on those rare occasions where he's nice to him (or pretending to be) PJ is usually surprised, or suspicious.

Granted, unlike many of these parents from media aimed at adults, Pete is mostly not physically abusive. But the amount and intensity of emotional and financial abuse (not to mention Parental Favoritism, which shows up less often due to the relatively minor role of the little sister, Pistol) more than makes up for it.

I wanted to put in my two cents for a really well-written example of a bad father (as a Foil to the good father, Goofy!)

Also: While on a Disney kick, Mother Gothel? Earlier posts talked about how well they're represented in cartoons aimed at adults (and usually for laughs), but in my honest opinion, Disney does a great job of playing them realistically, regardless of setting.

Edited out something that has since become a Blatant Lie.

edited 13th Sep '13 10:42:32 PM by PPPSSC

Randy Marsh has gradually become even worse than Butter's parents as seasons progress. Stephen is a domineering imbecile, but is at least shown to genuinely care about Butters on several occasions. Randy slowly downgraded from a parody of a realistic dysfunctional parent (eg. "Clubhouses"), to a moronic but well intentioned Knight Templar Parent (eg. "Child Abduction Is Not Funny") to a Peter Griffin-level manchild that abuses and neglects his family in his selfish and destructive antics ("Creme Fraiche"/"A Nightmare On Face Time").

Sheila Brovloski has tamed since her Knight Templar ways of the movie, though there is something disturbing in how Kyle, the show's Only Sane Man and constant snarker to the stupidity of the adult world around him, is still implied to be deathly afraid of her, even betraying every moral fiber of his body just to keep off her bad side ("Pre School"/"Good Times With Weapons").

edited 21st Jun '13 6:41:54 PM by Psi001

I'll mention Norman Osborn as well. Worst part about him is how his emotional and later physical abuse of his son is played coldly straight, and manages to get away with it.

[[removed irrelevant post]]

edited 16th Jul '13 2:53:22 PM by MsCC93

Timmy Turner's parents definitely deserve mention, although how bad or good their parenting is seem to vary Depending on the Writer. Sometimes they're loving parents who care about him, but more often than not, they're neglectful and inattentive.

Giovanni himself. Also Ghetsis, Norman and Bianca's dad.

If Pokespe and the games are anything to go by, abusive parenting is actually encouraged in the Pokemon world. Kids are expected to survive on their own at 10.

Anyone who gleefully shows their son a book titled "Questions we don't want to answer to our son" and shrug it off when they think he's eating off the trash can't be called anything but a dick. Not to mention Dad once willingly enslaved Timmy along the rest of the human race (Beauty pageant episode), and that was before Flanderization sank in really hard.

The Turners are often defended with the 'too stupid to know better' card, but I think they really are aware of how awful they are for the most part, they mostly don't care to improve (just like everyone else in the show). The idiocy card only can take them so far.

How is Norman a bad father?

Shall I bring up Son Goku and Chi-Chi from Dragon Ball?

The sad thing is that Chi-Chi is the voice of reality that no fantasy lover wants to listen to. Although it does weird that she was practically controlling every aspect of Gohan's life, but she's extremely laid-back towards Goten and Pan. Maybe it's a Japanese cultural requirement for the eldest son to carry the heaviest burdens.

Now, Goku himself is not blameless. Don't get me wrong, he's a fun guy to be around, but he's essentially a child in a man's body. Notice how many times he's away from home and his sons seem to spend years of their lives without him. I know it's a Japanese cultural thing for the family patriarch to be absent from the house, but it comes off as neglectful at times. The other thing that's pretty sad is how he keeps putting the fate of the world in the hands of little kids, because he thinks they're exactly like him, when they're not.

When Piccolo or even Bulma and Vegeta seem to be much better parents to have, you know Goku and Chi-Chi are not eligible for Parents Of The Year Awards.

By the time she had Goten, she seemed to pretty much just have realized the men would do whatever they wanted with her sons' life when they felt like it (granted, often not without reason), and kinda gave up on being a Control Freak.

That's true. I remember the Nostalgia Critic once considered her his least favorite villain.

IKR, I hate that annoying bitch. That's saying something.

edited 22nd Jun '13 4:00:20 PM by MsCC93

[[removed irrelevant post]]

edited 16th Jul '13 2:54:12 PM by MsCC93

And Vegeta being in Trunks' life robbed him of all his badass points when he grew up.

[[removed irrelevant post]]

edited 16th Jul '13 2:54:36 PM by MsCC93