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(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.CousinOliver 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.CousinOliver, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"'''Do?''' What does he '''do?''' Why, he's '''adorable!''' And people will '''love''' it!"''
|'''Dr. Forrester,''' ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000|MST3K]]''}}
{{quote|''"Aw, I freakin' hate that little kid! Why'd they ever bring her on the show?"''
|'''[[Homestar Runner|Strong Bad]]''', [http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail165.html strong badathlon]}}
[[Cousin Oliver]] is that inexplicable kid added to the show's roster, usually in an attempt to liven up an aging cast with a character the younger demographics can ([[Totally Radical|supposedly]]) relate to. However, such a character is likely to upset the dynamic of the show. And since their only character trait is to be cute and innocently wisecracking, it's far too easy for them to become overbearing and annoying to viewers, especially the ones who have followed the series for a while, making Cousin Olivers very susceptible to becoming [[The Scrappy]].
Sometimes they're introduced at the end of a character's season-long pregnancy arc. Once the new baby hijinks are up, they are then afflicted with [[Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome]]. This doesn't always make it better. Compare
Often a form of [[Jumping the Shark]].
If there's actually an in-series point to the character, compare [[Cain and Abel
{{examples|Examples}}▼
== Anime and Manga ==
* Chibiusa's addition to the ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' cast wasn't initially for this reason, but the writers did end up using her for a younger demographic marketability in the retooled fourth series of the anime. Sailor Luna in the live-action series could also be an example of this trope in the same fashion.
* Arguably, Max from the ''[[Pokémon (
* Parodied/subverted in the ''[[Hellsing]]'' TV series with the previously unmentioned "Integra Hellsing's sister." {{spoiler|She's actually the last of a kind of bizarre vampire that used mind-control abilities to make the [[Muggles]] (including the [[Battle Butler]]) "remember" her. Also, she actually manages to seriously hurt Integra}}, something even the Valentine brothers couldn't do.
* Sort of parodied in the anime version of ''[[Excel Saga (
* Timothy Hearst in ''[[D
* Subverted in ''[[Digimon Adventure]]''. Despite Kari appearing much later than the other Digidestined there was already a younger child on the team with T.K.
== Comic Books ==
* Danny Chase in the comic book version of ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]''. He was even designed to ''look'' like Cousin Oliver. Combine this with abrasive personality, lack of codename, costume, or original powers and he quickly became a [[
** In other words, Danny Chase is to the Teen Titans what Zan, Jayna, Wendy and Marvin are to the ''[[
*** At least they tried to be heroes; Chase tried to be holier-than-thou.
* Damian Wayne in the ''[[
* Chris Kent when he was introduced in [[Superman|Superman's Comics]]. It didn't help that [[Superboy|Kon-El]] recently had been killed off
* Subverted with [[Fan Nickname|Kid-Loki]] who is just the normal Loki reincarnated as his kid self (with only his childhood memories and powers). He has avoided being [[The Scrappy]] by being just so much fun to read about (getting the best lines in any current{{when}} Thor comic), and because he is perfectly aware that he's doing things most kids shouldn't do (but, being Loki, doesn't care because he wants [[Big Brother Worship|to save Thor's life from The Serpent]]. D'awww).
** Plus he somehow gets the two best parts of being a [[Kid Hero]]- he has the youthful idealism (as much as anyone is [[Crapsack World|is idealistic in Marvel, anyways]]), ''and'' the maturity to still actually get things done.
** Now{{when}}
== Film ==
* The addition of [[Meaningful Name|Howard Phillips]] (Jason Barry) to the third film in the ''[[Re-Animator]]'' series, replacing the lead character of the last two films, Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott). Though not a kid, Phillips is significantly younger; producer/director Brian Yuzna admitted freely that Phillips' addition was due to Yuzna's desire not to make a film about "two middle-aged guys".
* The [[Trope Namer]] -- played by Robbie Rist -- was added to ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'' toward the end and was the last gasp of the show. He's also cited as the definitive proof of the franchise having [[Jump the Shark|jumped the shark]].▼
▲== Live Action TV ==
** Robbie Rist became a
▲* The [[Trope Namer]] was added to ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'' toward the end and was the last gasp of the show. He's also cited as the definitive proof of the franchise having [[Jump the Shark|jumped the shark]].
** And then he did it ''again'' when he played Doctor Zee in ''[[Galactica 1980]]'' - though he was replaced with another actor after the pilot.▼
▲** Robbie Rist became a [[Cousin Oliver]] again a couple of years later when he was Ted Baxter's adopted son in ''[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]''.
▲** And then he did it ''again'' when he played Doctor Zee in ''Galactica 1980'' - though he was replaced with another actor after the pilot.
* Stephanie on ''[[All in The Family]]'', arguably a case of [[Tropes Are Not Bad]].
* Somewhat parodied on ''[[
** And a year later, Connor showed up on ''[[
* Andrew on ''[[Family Ties]]''.
* Kirby on ''Frasier''.
* Olivia on ''[[The Cosby Show]]''.
** Is it possible this was a direct nod to Oliver? Olivia/Oliver?
* Sam on ''[[
* Peter Cooksley, a Lawrence kid clone.
* ''[[Eight Is Enough]]'' had Cousin Jeremy (Ralph Macchio, who went on to become ''[[The Karate Kid]]'').
* Andy and Pippa on ''[[The Facts of Life]]''.
* In ''[[Family Matters]]'' the Winslows adopted 3J, a streetwise little orphan. Since there already was a kid in the show, little Richie, they merged into a single split-personality
* Joey Lawrence for ''[[Gimme
* Penny from ''[[Good Times]]''. Introduced to give Willona someone to care for, since the Evans kids weren't really kids anymore.
* ''[[Growing Pains]]'' had two: Chrissy, the youngest Seaver daughter, and then later Leonardo Dicaprio's homeless-kid character.
* ''[[Little House
** Not to mention the Olesons' adoption of street urchin Nancy, [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute|who just happens to look and act a lot like Nellie]]. This is a mild subversion, in that Nancy is added to be the ''[[Alpha Bitch]]'' as opposed to a beacon of cuteness. Even more interesting, this is an invoked
***
* ''[[Married...
* ''[[
* In ''[[My Three Sons]]'' they formally adopted Chip's orphan friend Ernie. Justified, sort of, by the need to maintain the accuracy of the show's title after Mike was [[
* Justin on ''[[Power Rangers Turbo]]''.
** For some reason, the creators find it necessary to shoehorn young kids into their movies. The aforementioned Justin was introduced in the ''Turbo'' movie, but he has a predecessor in Fred from the ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' movie, who got nearly the same amount of screentime as the Rangers themselves, doing next to nothing and being all around useless until the very end of the movie.
*** ''[[Gosei Sentai Dairanger]]'' with Ko fits, except he is a bit of a pervert and relies on his [[Empathic Weapon]] to help him out.
*** In all fairness,
*** For some, such as [[Atop the Fourth Wall
* The diner in the ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' episode "[[Jump the Shark]]" is called
* The Porters' foster child Declan in the last series of ''[[
* Played with in ''[[The X-Files]]'' in which one episode had a man who assumed this identity because he associated with the original Cousin Oliver.
** That series played with other shows a great deal, and that in turn got played right back on them when the series ending for ''Strangeluck'' had Chance directed to seek out Mulder.
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* It's questionable whether this is played straight or not. Oliver [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute|replaced]] Jeff in ''[[Coupling]]''. Considering how the [[Trope Namer]] is [[The Brady Bunch|Cousin Oliver]], it could be done as a parody. However, in one episodes after season 3, Jeff is actually '''''removed''''' from a clip of a dinner party.
* April on ''[[Gilmore Girls]]''. Even more annoying in that she is basically a science-and-math-oriented version of Rory in response to viewer complaints that they missed the younger Rory.
** And Rory had great taste in music which kept her from being a total spaz, April was all nerd with very few(if any) redeemable traits.
* Done in ''[[The Donna Reed Show]]'' when the family adopts a homeless child after their eldest daughter leaves for college.
* Jamal's younger cousin Casey on ''[[Ghostwriter (TV series)|Ghostwriter]]''.
* Gloria on ''[[Touched By an Angel]]''. The Valerie Bertinelli character.
* Little Nicky in ''[[Fresh Prince of Bel Air]]'', though he's a bit of a [[Subverted Trope|subversion]] since he managed to avoid becoming the show's [[The Scrappy|scrappy]]. Partly because his [[Intergenerational Friendship|friendship]] with Will was amusing and he was not a [[
* Ricky, the kid next door who liked to sing with ''[[The Partridge Family]]'' (often seen as a [[Dueling Shows|Dueling Show]] to ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'').
* Arthur McArthur, also known as "the little fat kid", from ''[[Hey Dad..!]]!''.
* Billie Jenkins was an extra witch added onto ''[[
* Guppy in ''[[
** Not to mention he wasn't shoved down our throats like some of the other aforementioned examples of this trope, having appeared in only five episodes. However, they were all in the same year and that could be evidence that the writers stopped before he got a chance to become a [[The Scrappy|scrappy]].
* Nicky and Alex in ''[[Full House]]''.
* Dale from ''[[Law
** Subverted to
*** Though in their defense, he was a screw up and a [[Man Child]].
* Sky, a late addition to the cast of ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'', who appeared in the final three stories of the series as a regular before it was cancelled due to the death of its lead actress. Played straight and Sky is not necessarily a Cousin Oliver in the case of being an annoying addition, but she does qualify as far as being a young character added to a well-established cast that was growing older than their target demographic.
* On ''[[Degrassi]]'', Snake's never-before-mentioned godson, Connor, comes to live with him — conveniently right after his daughter goes away to college.
* Riff in ''[[
* Adric in ''[[
* Sofi in ''[[Two Broke Girls]]''. While she doesn't adhere to the basic Cousin Oliver requirement - she's a 50-something post-cougar, rather than a kid or teenager - she otherwise fulfills a number of the other Cousin Oliver criteria; she upsets the dynamic between the two leads, and critics and fans have singled the character out for criticism. As this is written the series is still midway through its first season, so time will tell if Sofi catches [[Chuck Cunningham Syndrome]].{{verify}}
* Alex on ''[[One Day At a Time]]'' was the orphaned son of Ann's recently-deceased boyfriend whom she took in. Unlike most Olivers, his presence, while changing the show dynamic, didn't ruin it, and he lasted four years on the show -- almost half its run.
* Possibly the most extreme yet simultaneously most forgotten example was Raul Garcia (played by twelve-year-old Gabriel Melgar), who was added to the cast of ''[[Chico and The Man]]'' in an attempt to keep the show going after the suicide of [[Freddie Prinze]] in its third season.
== Video Games ==
* Robots don't age, but Capcom added the rookie Axl, who acted all of 13 to the cast of ''[[
* Joey MacAdoo, Samantha Pearce, and Arthur Chen in the ''[[Backyard Sports]]'' series, replacing the much more mature Jocinda Smith, Sally Dobbs, Kenny Kawaguchi, and Billy Jean Blackwood. Joey is easily becoming a [[
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Every once in a while an example comes along that defies the precedent, that's exactly what happened in ''[[Coming Up Violet]]''. As many readers know, the primary schick with ''[[Fur Will Fly]]'' was that Brad was the only human living a world filled with furries. ({{spoiler|Well, at least until Brad sets a whole mess of pandimensional aliens [like himself] free from a detention facility, but that's neither here nor there}}.) The comic's sequel changes this dynamic by introducing Dawn, a
** This is surprisingly similar to ''[[
== Web Original ==
* Parodied by ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20100219121535/http://www.theonion.com/content/news/cousin_oliver_to_join_white_house The Onion]''
== Western Animation ==
* [[The Scrappy|Scrappy-Doo]], from ''[[Scooby Doo]]'' .
** Parodied in ''[[Scooby
** There's also Flim-Flam, the [[Ethnic Scrappy|ethnic kid]] from ''[[The 13 Ghosts of Scooby
** As well as Scooby-Dum, who made appearances in ''The Scooby-Doo Show'' and ''The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour''.
* ''[[The Simpsons (
* Sharko, from the final season of ''[[Sealab 2021]]'', is a spoof of this character type.
* Lola Bunny, although not a kid, was shoehorned into the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' lineage the same way a Cousin Oliver often is. Even to the point of her being a baby in ''[[Baby Looney Tunes]]''... even though the gang didn't know her in ''[[
* Spoofed in ''[[Drawn Together]]'' with Strawberry Sweetcake.
* Spoofed in the ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]'' episode "Pinky and the Brain and Larry" before [[Executive Meddling]] [[
* The animated version of ''[[The Godzilla Power Hour|Godzilla]]'' ([[Godzilla:
* Hana in Season 4 of ''[[Kim Possible]]''. Fortunately, she played an extremely small role (when she even appeared) outside of two episodes, so her existence did not significantly impact the tone of the show.
* ''[[The Critic]]'' parodied this Trope when Duke Phillips attempted to add a cute kid with an endearing speech impediment to Jay Sherman's show to try to boost his ratings.
{{quote|
'''Kid''': (suddenly normal-voiced) Hey, that speech impediment shtick is copyrighted. You'll be hearing from my lawyers! ''(cute voiced)'' I mean, ''wawyers''. }}
* Parodied / referenced in ''[[Batman:
* Dil, and later Kimi, in ''[[Rugrats]]''.
* Poof, Cosmo and Wanda's son on ''[[The Fairly
* This trope can be a variation on having a [[Kid Sidekick]] and is very prone to happen when a live-action series is turned into an animated one; this is usually done for Saturday morning TV or the local equivalent, so the thinking is that kids want to watch other kids involved with the heroes. A classic example is ''[[Emergency|Emergency +4]]'', in which the paramedics and fire-fighters from the show ''[[Emergency]]'' were saddled with a bunch of 4 kids who got to chase the grown-ups around in a van labelled "+4". The network that commissioned the ''[[Star Trek:
* In the season 2 episodes of ''[[Action League
* Spike Witwicky and Carly were teenagers in the first two seasons of ''[[Transformers]]''. Then, in [[Transformers:
** ''Every [[Transformers]]'' series has kids who tag along with the 'bots just because network people don't think like humans and believe kids would truly rather see [[Transformers Prime|some kid try to impress some girl with racing]] than ''Autobots vs. Megatron and his robo-zombie horde.'' Daniel is generally considered the worst (with Kicker from ''[[Transformers Energon]]'' a close runner-up) and Sari from ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' was actually ''liked.'' The ''[[Transformers Armada]]'' kids and the ''[[Transformers Film Series]]'' kids are considered mostly harmless if not for the [[Developing Doomed Characters|screentime-hogging]]. The [[Transformers Prime|current batch]]... we'll see. However, it quickly became clear that Miko's being a [[Running Gag]] of "Everything's going fine for the Autobots, but oh no! Miko's snuck along and we have to go save her ''again!''" moments are something the creators are having a lot more fun with than the audience. Over the first season, though, her doing this diminished from "thrice per episodes" to "once every few episodes." In general, though, Transformers fans are [[Just Here for Godzilla]], so every TF human begins life in Scrappy status and must pull himself/herself out.
* Nibbles from ''[[
** The ''[[
* ''[[Sam and Max Freelance Police (
* Corporal Capeman from ''[[Inspector Gadget]]''. He added nothing to the series when he was added and his chemistry with the others is zilch.
* In ''[[Batman
* Bat-Mite himself in ''[[The New Adventures of Batman]]'', to the extent that he basically wrecks the series by spoiling the Batman/Robin dynamic and taking screen time away from the more worthy third wheel, Batgirl.
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[[Category:Characters As Device]]
[[Category:Youngsters]]
[[Category:Characters and Casting]]
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