Meddlesome Patrolman



This is the beat cop who wears a uniform, patrols the neighborhood, controls traffic at cross-sections, and watches for infractions to the road code. Heroes who break the law whether unwittingly or out of childish mischief will likely end up on his wrong side, and be given a fine or taken to the local police precinct. Neither a Rabid Cop, a Cowboy Cop, nor an Old-Fashioned Copper, the Meddlesome Patrolman is still liable to be as annoying as the Obstructive Bureaucrat.

A frequent recurring minor character in classic Franco Belgian Comics and an obvious foil to protagonists who are either street urchins or just regular children who use the streets as a playground. So, expect some examples to be found in older American shows and comic strips (basically dating from before the rise of suburbia). The meter maid is a possible variation.

Anime and Manga

 * Hotori, the main character of Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru, has a long running feud with the stressed neighbourhood cop Matsuda, although besides being cheeky, playing hooky and sneaking out at night she isn't exactly a delinquent.

Comic Books

 * Gaston Lagaffe: Joseph Longtarin is Gaston's nemesis, forever looking for a reason to give him a fine for this or that alleged traffic violation. Gaston retaliates with various practical jokes that often involve parking meters.
 * Agent 212 is an interesting case of a Meddlesome Patrolman who is also the protagonist of a series rather than a supporting character.
 * Agent Bodard in Corinne et Jeannot. His main purpose seems to add insult to injury caused by Corinne on Jeannot.
 * Agent 22 was a recurring nemesis of Boule et Bill in the early albums.
 * Agent Dussiflet or his peers get to slap a fine on Achille Talon, or drag him in handcuffs to the local police precinct, on more than one occasion.

Film

 * The motorcycle cop played by Tim Robbins in Robert Altman's Short Cuts takes advantage of his uniform to pull over good-looking women and ask them for dates.
 * In Ghost Dog: The Way of The Samurai, one policewoman pulls over a car with a seriously wounded passenger and insists on the full formal procedure before allowing to move him any closer to the medical attention. Unfortunately for her, the wounded guy is a gangster, and, well... definitely isn't a "fuckin' male chauvinist pig".
 * The French movie Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez and its five sequels are a film series were not only the main character (played by Louis de Funès) but most of the supporting cast is this kind of cop, of the National Gendarmerie subtype.
 * Another (older) Louis de Funès movie is Ni vu, ni connu. This time, the protagonist is a poacher, and he's outwitting a Meddlesome Forest Guard.
 * Charlie Chaplin's character of The Tramp has often to deal with a Meddlesome Patrolman (or ten) in many of his movies.

Literature

 * Mandatory Discworld reference: that would be Sergeant Colon and possibly Corporal Nobbs. Colon especially hits the Meddlesome Patrolman wall hard when he is temporarily promoted to Captain during the events of The Fifth Elephant.
 * If border guards count, then The Tamuli has a great example in the form of some Cynesgan guards who were deliberately trying to stall Sparhawk. This being a work starring Sparhawk, constructive Elenishism ends up taking care of the problem.
 * A rural-village version often appears in the writings of PG Wodehouse.

Live-Action TV

 * Karen and Davis from Corner Gas occasionally do this.
 * Marie Pervenche, a French live-action TV series from the 1980s. Although the eponymous character doesn't spend much time doing that job before adventure calls. OTOH, Danièle Evenou, the actress who played her, is wacky enough in real life to be compared to Gaston Lagaffe.
 * Bruce "The Goose" Hopkins, the council bylaws officer from the Australian kids show Streetsmartz.

Music
"Standing by a parking meter When I caught a glimpse of Rita Filling in a ticket in her little white book"
 * "Lovely Rita" by The Beatles.


 * Funny story, actually; Paul McCartney wrote this one as a sarcastic love song to a woman who had given him a ticket not too long prior. When asked about the woman's name, his reply was something along the lines of "She looked like a Rita to me." It is no doubt merely coincidence that choosing that name made it easier to find rhymes for "parking meter"...

Recorded and Stand Up Comedy

 * Coluche, a famous French stand-up comedian, had a routine called "Le Flic" ("The Cop") in which he played a Meddlesome Patrolman.

Web Comics

 * Casey and Andy: Quantum Cop, except during story arcs, when he becomes a protagonist.
 * A Pv P arc had Brent get on the wrong side of a bike cop that turned into a mixture of one of this with a full-blown stalker.

Western Animation

 * This has been invoked in multiple cartoon shorts in which a patrolman sees some children out and about instead of at school and goes through considerable effort to corral the truant children and get them to go to school. At the end of the short, the cop gets to the schoolhouse with the children and notices a sign pointing out that the reason the children are out and about is because it is a school holiday—something the kids have been trying to point out for at least half the short.
 * Pretty much every episode of Top Cat revolves around the cats running some shady scheme while trying to keep Officer Dibble out of the loop.