Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Difference between revisions

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[[File:~~hilariouslyabusivechildhood_6815~~.jpg|link=The Simpsons|frame|'''I'LL MACE YOU GOOD!''']]

[[File:hilariouslyabusivechildhood 6815.jpg|link=The Simpsons|frame|'''I'LL MACE YOU GOOD!''']]

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* Banjo and Medium Dave from ''[[Discworld/Hogfather|Hogfather]]''. They fondly remember their mother as "tough but fair." By the end, the comedy is cut away and the real effect of Mama Lilywhite on Dave in particular is shown... and [[Funny Aneurysm Moment|it's not funny any more]].

* The Dursleys from ''[[Harry Potter]]''. The Cupboard Under The Stairs may seem funny in concept, but it's hard to imagine actually living in one. However, a lot of the comedy from the Dursleys comes from their social climbing and shallowness and their extreme reactions to magic, not from their treatment of Harry, which is still mostly [[Played for Drama]].

** The first book has a very different tone from the sequels, and starts out as both an homage to, and a send-up, of Victorian stories of orphans raised in wealthy homes, where they were told they would be one of the family, but then ended up as the lowest of the servants, and unpaid to boot, while constantly reminded of the family's kindness for taking them off the streets. They often slept in tiny rooms, or even in the scullery, and while it's true that servants' quarters were usually barely adequate, they usually weren't inhumane. JK Rowling takes what is already an exaggeration for literary purposes, and further exaggerates it for purposes of satire. Harry can't turn around without one more slap in the face reminder than he is less than his cousin. The then book takes a hard left when Hagrid shows up, and Harry finds out that he is rich, had loving parents who left him a legacy, he is famous among his own ~~people-- he~~ was an ugly duckling, after ~~all-- and~~ on top of that, can do magic. It plays out the fantasies that the poor orphans in the rich houses often entertained, before they either died in obscurity, or worked hard every day, saved each penny, and some day made good, depending on the author's message.

** The first book has a very different tone from the sequels, and starts out as both an homage to, and a send-up, of Victorian stories of orphans raised in wealthy homes, where they were told they would be one of the family, but then ended up as the lowest of the servants, and unpaid to boot, while constantly reminded of the family's kindness for taking them off the streets. They often slept in tiny rooms, or even in the scullery, and while it's true that servants' quarters were usually barely adequate, they usually weren't inhumane. JK Rowling takes what is already an exaggeration for literary purposes, and further exaggerates it for purposes of satire. Harry can't turn around without one more slap in the face reminder than he is less than his cousin. The then book takes a hard left when Hagrid shows up, and Harry finds out that he is rich, had loving parents who left him a legacy, he is famous among his own people—he was an ugly duckling, after all—and on top of that, can do magic. It plays out the fantasies that the poor orphans in the rich houses often entertained, before they either died in obscurity, or worked hard every day, saved each penny, and some day made good, depending on the author's message.

* Used in spoof self-help book ''Oh the Humanity''. The narrator's father started carving height notches at six feet to convince the kid he was shrinking, and coming second in a spelling bee led to several years of his mother working the word "psittacosis" into every sentence. Then came school, where his main encounter with "empathy" was when a bully smashed his science fair project and said "That must suck for you, dorkhole."

* Arguably, ''[[Great Expectations]]''. Pip is treated horribly by the sister who "brought him up by hand" and her series of friends, all of whom treat him as a burden and give him a terrible time, ''especially'' on Christmas. The narration treats the whole scenario very comically, probably because ''Pip's'' the one narrating the story and hindsight has given him a sense of humor.

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** Hal can also be like this. He tends to ignore the well being of the family for his own happiness and comfort, such as not working Fridays for years while his wife sacrificed a lot. He also forbid Malcolm from going to an exclusive, all expenses paid prep school because Hal relies on Malcolm to solve his problems (Even though Malcolm said that him not being a major factor of the finances would benefit the family). Hal ''also'' had a bad childhood of his own, albeit of a totally different sort. His father is an eccentric millionaire, but was too busy wrapped up in his own fantasies and games to do any actual parenting. Not that he didn't ''care'' about Hal, of course; but he barely noticed how miserable he was.

** This also ties in to the [[Series Finale]], where Lois refuses Malcolm a high-paying job out of high school since their plan for him is to work his way up from the bottom of society to become President of the United States, and in fact had been planning ''his whole life''.

* It's possible that [[Hilariously Abusive Childhood]] is the backstory for every single character in (and the explanation for the title of) ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]''.

* It's possible that Hilariously Abusive Childhood is the backstory for every single character in (and the explanation for the title of) ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]''.

* On ''[[The Colbert Report]]'', many jokes revolve around the character of Stephen Colbert's upbringing, which led him to be an outwardly confident, blustery man trying to ignore the frightened child inside by adhering unerringly to his own version of reality (in which, of course, there's nothing wrong with the way his parents raised him). It's summed up nicely in this line from his book ''I Am America (And So Can You!)'':

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** What makes it worse was that she didn't try to put any effort into making it up to them.

* The ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' skits about Simon, who sat in a bathtub and showed 'drawrings' of his neglected existence.

* Curtis from ''[[Todd and the Book of Pure Evil]]'' seems to be in the teenage years of a [[Hilariously Abusive Childhood]]. He mentions in one episode that his parents are constantly trying to get rid of him. In another episode, when his friend Hannah questions how he learned to pick locks, he mentions that his parents lock him out of the house a lot.

* Curtis from ''[[Todd and the Book of Pure Evil]]'' seems to be in the teenage years of a Hilariously Abusive Childhood. He mentions in one episode that his parents are constantly trying to get rid of him. In another episode, when his friend Hannah questions how he learned to pick locks, he mentions that his parents lock him out of the house a lot.

* Nathan from ''[[Misfits]]'' borders on this. Although part of it to used to show why Nathan is the way he is, the fact that the stories are delivered in typical Nathan style makes them hard not to laugh at.

{{quote|'''Nathan''': He's suppose to take me out for the day, so he takes me to IKEA. He buys so much flat-pack furniture there's no room for me in the car, so he leaves me there for 3 hours. Then some guy with a beard sees me hanging around and buys me lunch. I spent my 8th birthday eating swedish meatballs with a known pedophile.

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** And later, the story of Nathan's first sexual experience involves a family camping holiday...and his mother's friend badtouching him.

* The entire show ''[[Married... with Children]]'' is pretty much built around this trope.

* The protagonist's [[Hilariously Abusive Childhood]] was used as a [[Running Gag]] in the Danish Christmas show [[Christmas on Vesterbro|''Jul på Vesterbro'']]. The main character would frequently wax nostalgically about something his ''papa'' used to say, followed by a black-and-white flashback to the father sprouting some words of wisdom, [[Crosses the Line Twice|before trashing him with various blunt instruments]]. Watch a collection of the clips with subtitles [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yqbOFuOiqE here].

* The protagonist's Hilariously Abusive Childhood was used as a [[Running Gag]] in the Danish Christmas show [[Christmas on Vesterbro|''Jul på Vesterbro'']]. The main character would frequently wax nostalgically about something his ''papa'' used to say, followed by a black-and-white flashback to the father sprouting some words of wisdom, [[Crosses the Line Twice|before trashing him with various blunt instruments]]. Watch a collection of the clips with subtitles [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yqbOFuOiqE here].

{{quote|Junior, all humans have the right to privacy. And this is a metal ruler. Bend over. (''WHACK'')

Junior, there are two kinds of women: Whores and your mother, who has retired. And there are many ways to knock out your teeth, but I think it will be most fun to use this pipe wrench. Bend over. (''WHACK'')

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== Western Animation ==

* ''[[American Dad]]'': To some degree, Stan (mostly over-the-top [[Booby Trap~~|Booby Traps~~]] to shut up Haylee's protests). Stan's father Jack was neglectful to a similar extreme.

* ''[[American Dad]]'': To some degree, Stan (mostly over-the-top [[Booby Trap]]s to shut up Haylee's protests). Stan's father Jack was neglectful to a similar extreme.

{{quote|'''Jeff:''' Were you close to your dad?

'''Flashback Stan:''' Daddy, will you read me a story?

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** Lisa can also feel the effects of Homer's parenting, even though she seems to be the favourite over Bart.

* In ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'', [[Harmless Villain|Dr. Doofenshmirtz]] frequently uses his ludicrously traumatic childhood as a [[Freudian Excuse]] for his evil scheme of the day.

** [[The Unfavorite|His mother liked his brother better]], his father preferred the dog, he had to wear dresses for a year because his parents were expecting a girl when his younger ''brother'' was born, he wasn't allowed to go swimming in public pools, he had to pretend to be a lawn gnome after theirs was repossessed -- "[[Continuity Nod|you remember]] ''that'' backstory" ~~-- at~~ one point his family disowned him and he was being [[Raised by Wolves|raised by ocelots]]...

** [[The Unfavorite|His mother liked his brother better]], his father preferred the dog, he had to wear dresses for a year because his parents were expecting a girl when his younger ''brother'' was born, he wasn't allowed to go swimming in public pools, he had to pretend to be a lawn gnome after theirs was repossessed -- "[[Continuity Nod|you remember]] ''that'' backstory"—at one point his family disowned him and he was being [[Raised by Wolves|raised by ocelots]]...

** The page quote references an early episode when Doofenshmirtz says that neither of his parents even bothered to be there when he was born, taking the abusive, neglectful childhood to [[Beyond the Impossible]] levels.

* Carl's continued adult life as a [[Butt Monkey]] to his ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force]]'' neighbors is shown to have been bred in him quite early, as the few glimpses we are given into his childhood include his father making him eat carpet squares ("[[Insistent Terminology|That's berber!]]") and putting him to work as a child in a dangerous chemical factory for days at a time. Of course, Aqua Teen plays ''everything'' for comedy, and this wouldn't even make the top FIFTY most disturbing things they've joked about on that show.

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{{quote|'''Huey''': That's, like... Academy Award-''nominated'' sad.}}

* The ''entire'' childhood of [[The Fairly Odd Parents|Timmy Turner]] can to be considered to this way. Especially as that is why children get Fairy Godparent assigned to them in the first place.

* [[Unreliable Narrator|According to Pinkie Pie]] of ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', she grew up on a rock farm. A '''rock farm''', where she and her family worked all day moving rocks around for no particular ~~reason -- some~~ of which were about the same size as Pinkie herself at the time. Abuse didn't seem to be the intention, but the effect was about as soul-crushing as you'd expect.

* [[Unreliable Narrator|According to Pinkie Pie]] of ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', she grew up on a rock farm. A '''rock farm''', where she and her family worked all day moving rocks around for no particular reason—some of which were about the same size as Pinkie herself at the time. Abuse didn't seem to be the intention, but the effect was about as soul-crushing as you'd expect.

** [[Sarcasm Mode|Nothing like a Puritan upbringing.]]

** They are shown fully supporting her when she sets up a party for them though. It may have just been [[Fisher Kingdom]] effect of living on a ''rock farm''.

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[[Category:~~{{PAGENAME}}~~]]

[[Category:Hilariously Abusive Childhood]]

[[Category:Parental Issues]]

[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]