The "I Hate My Wife" syndrome

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Marina Svadkovskaya

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Thinking about it, a lot of cartoons seem to go through this eventually, where married couples spend more time nagging on each other for comedy to the point where it becomes a regular element, rather than just a nice little gag. Some of these include Cosmo and Wanda from Fairly Odd Parents, Plankton and Caren from Spongebob (though I'm not sure if the love was there in the beginning since he programmed her), Peter and Lois from Family Guy, and it even looks like Cleveland and Donna from The Cleveland Show are getting to that point, which seems out of character for Cleveland.

So do you think of this as not a big deal, or an annoying trope? What are some examples of couples that don't go through this? Right now Hank and Peggy from King of the Hill come to mind. Yeah, they're not very affectionate in the first place as far as PDA goes, but they for the most part remain stable and show love and respect for each other.

I personally don't mind it too much (real spouses go through this all the time) except when it goes to an extreme and the characters become OOC just for the sake of comedy.
 
Doc and Drew Saturday smash this cliche (and every other one associated with spouses in kids cartoons) pretty good. All the bickering they do is purely in good jest.

There's nothing wrong with spousal nagging/bickering because it's a truth in real life. What's annoying is that it is written so badly that it relies entirely on predictable stereotypes (the lazy/dumb/fatass husband and the uptight/shrilly/killjoy wife) instead of trying to make it funny, balanced or appropriate within the show. Either the husband and wife characters are created as one-dimensional caricatures of the trope, or if it emerges over time, the husband/wife characters are brutally shoehorned into the stereotypes with total disregard for past characterization.
 
Oh yeah, I couldn't really think of another animated couple that didn't constantly fight and yell at each other. Even when they did bicker with each other, Doc and Drew still had genuine love and concern for each other. I don't think that appears too often with other married animated characters nowadays.

Most of the shows I watch either kill off the parents, they're never mentioned, there's only a single parent, or they barely show up as it is. The only examples I can think of that haven't already been mentioned are from a couple of anime series. Norman and Caroline, May and Max's parents from Pokemon AG, didn't fight, except for that one episode where Caroline thought that Norman was cheating on him. It wasn't mentioned directly, but the whole thing of Norman spending time at the Pokemon Center and packing her bags on their anniversary to leave definitely gave me that impression. But even then, they only appeared together in around two or three episodes, so there wasn't much time to develop or focus their relationship. Besides, it's Pokemon, so I didn't expect them to do something like that.

In Pretear, Himeno's step-mother and father had a fairly nice marriage with often showing happiness over being with each other. Though, I'm not sure if they ever fought or had some kind of disagreement during the course of the series.

I don't mind couples fighting either. It wouldn't make sense if they were completely in love the whole time whenever they're on screen. I just don't think it should consume their entire interactions to the point where I wonder why they're still together. Cosmo and Wanda's relationship is a great example. Most of their interactions involve Cosmo being an unintelligent fairy, making terrible decisions, feeling trapped in his marriage, calling Wanda a nagging wife and Wanda yelling at him for all of the above. Even when they had those same flaws, although I think to a smaller extent, in the earlier seasons, there were still moments where they genuinely cared for each other and wanted to be with the other. I haven't gotten that impression for the longest time. As for Timmy's actual mother and father, while they don't really fight, they don't really interact that often beyond the whole "let's go and have fun without Timmy" so it's kind of hard for me to get a good feel on their relationship.

I don't really watch Family Guy or those other animated comedies, so I don't really know how their relationships in those series work.
 
Basically everything is exaggerated in cartoon comedies, so of course the wife is going to be a nagging shrew and the husband will be the one who's getting jacked out of having fun. In cartoons for kids that are comedies, the message is basically, "guys, don't get married because it's gonna be hell." :p
 
Man, how sad is that? I mean, Hank is the most unromantic guy in the history of television. Seriously, his idea of a good lovin' is a handshake.:sweat:

Yet you're right, that is actually one of the most respectful and loving relationships I've seen on TV.
 
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