Meddlesome Patrolman: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

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]].

 

{{examples}}

* 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 ==

* 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.

 

* 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 ''[[Would Hit a Girl|isn't]]'' a "fuckin' male chauvinist pig".

* Another (older) Louis de Funès movie is ''[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051989/ 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 ==

* 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, [[Murder Is the Best Solution|constructive Elenishism]] ends up taking care of the problem.

* A rural-village version often appears in the writings of [[P. G. Wodehouse|PG Wodehouse]].

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* ''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 ==

** 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"...

 

 

== Web Comics ==

* ''[[Casey and Andy]]'': Quantum Cop, except during story arcs, when he becomes a protagonist.

* A ''[[PvP (webcomic)|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 ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters As Device]]

[[Category:Cops and Detectives]]