Four Man Band discussion

Five-Man Band was sent to TRS a while back because of its artificial definition and droves of ZCEs and shoehorns, and it was expanded from its original rigid roles to its more freeform current status covering dynamics of any five-man group. A cursory glance shows that Four-Man Band suffers from the same issues, and I'd argue that expanding it in a similar fashion would fix its issues as well. Thoughts?

Edit: It was mainly this IP thread that brought the issue to my attention.

Edited by badtothebaritone on May 30th 2023 at 1:15:36 PM

I have beef with every "specific role" ensemble trope except for the trios, and this one has been on my radar for a while. I def agree that we need to do something about it.

Four-Man Band seems oddly specific, since it's defined as a comedy trope.

It may be, I don't know, that groups with these four roles were common in comedy. But looking at the examples on the page now, it's clear that people have been playing the game of choosing one person for each role to get the best possible overall fit even if it's not at all good.

Casanova Wannabe seems particularly prone to misuse: the on-page examples claim that Ford Prefect, Legolas and the Tin Man are CWs.

Many of the examples are not natural groups of four at all: the Harry Potter example cites the main trio and promotes Neville to main to make a foursome; the Hitchhiker's Guide example lists five characters; the Peanuts example is an arbitrary selection of four from a much larger Ensemble Cast, and so on.

Not sure there is much worth salvaging at all from this.

Honestly, unlike with the "classic" Five-Man Band where I at least had a vague awareness of old mecha shows and the like that seemed to fit, I can't even remember ever seeing this at all. The description doesn't even fit the image, at least as far as any TMNT incarnation I can think of.

This sounds like Five Bad Band, where it wasn’t really a thing and was basically made up from scratch to shoehorn characters into ensemble tropes. That trope got cut — wouldn’t be surprised if this one did too.

Sandbox.Four Man Band Wick Check if anyone wants to do it

Yeah this really seems shoehorned in most cases I am not convinced it's actually a trope.

Also the change of an image from one from The Real Ghostbusters to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) then people realising neither of those examples fit these archtypes perfectly seems telling to me.

EDIT: Also just noticed how "off" the Peanuts example is in matching the archetypes anyway (how is Charlie Brown not the butt monkey?)

Edited by GracieLizzy on Jun 4th 2023 at 3:42:50 AM

If this does go to TRS, is Four-Man Band going to be turned into a super trope for four man groups (like what happened to Five-Man Band)?

IDK, Five-Man Band was a special case since five-person teams were very common and had a lot of reasoning behind it (such as having multiple possible dynamics without being too large). Four-Man Band may suffer the same fate, but only if it can be demonstrated that a four-person team holds any purpose or meaning.

This trope was supposed to be a group of comedic foils so maybe that if it's not covered by multiple tropes? I dunno if a group of four is popular in comedy though

You know what? I changed my mind. I'll wick check this trope before Gossipy Hens.

EDIT: Wick check is live. How are the categories?

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jun 11th 2023 at 5:48:19 AM

Four-Girl Ensemble, apparently the Distaff Counterpart for this, might also be worth looking into. I think they're meant to be a four-person version of Three Faces of Eve or Three Faces Of Adam.

We also already have Four-Temperament Ensemble and Four-Philosophy Ensemble.

...Both of which I think are also a hot mess, but we'll worry about that later.

If it helps, here's the oldest version of the page in the Internet Archive.

Regarding the Four-Man Band, what is exactly the role of the Casanova Wannabe? Isn't that the character who wants to be the ladies' man? Some of the characters are even female.

PS some characters that are categorized as the Butt-Monkey can also be categorized as the Only Sane Man. (See the laconic tab for No-Respect Guy.)

Edited by PricklyClypeasteroid on Sep 26th 2023 at 5:53:24 AM