Smug Snake/Western Animation

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • From Transformers, Starscream in all of his incarnations. He fancied himself the smartest, most cunning and handsomest Decepticon. When he wasn't complaining to Megatron about how he would've defeated the Autobots eons ago, he was openly plotting ways to top the slag-maker. All of his schemes failed miserably with at least one or two nearly destroying the earth. He was far more interested in becoming the Decepticon leader than leading them effectively in the rare moments when Megatron was out of the way.
    • Except "The Unicron Trilogy", where Starscream did not act like a Smug Snake.
    • Speaking of "The Unicron Trilogy", Thrust from Transformers Armada practically is this trope.
  • Disney examples:
    • Both Prince John and his actual snake servant, Sir Hiss (who is pictured above) from Robin Hood are prime examples of this trope.
    • Kaa from Disney's The Jungle Book is a Smug Snake. This is the complete opposite of his personality in Rudyard Kipling's original book, where he was more of an Old Master who has the respect (and fear) of the Jungle. Disney didn't like the idea of a snake being a hero.Go figure. The Smug Snake in the book? Shere Khan.
    • Queen Grimhilde, the evil queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, being the Trope Confider for Vain Sorceress and all.
    • Lady Tremaine in Cinderella is incredibly stuck up and clearly going for an "evil mastermind" vibe, but she ends up not being nearly as efficient as she thinks herself to be.
    • Captain Hook in Peter Pan. Kind of hard to enforce a fearsome reputation when you're constantly being made the butt of jokes and slapstick gags.
    • Cruella De Vil in 101 Dalmatians is a classic example. Contrast her usual demeanor with her frequent temper tantrums and Villainous Breakdown in the climax.
    • Edgar the butler in The Aristocats. Incredibly snooty and self assured, but even more of a Joke Villain than the above-mentioned Captain Hook!
    • Madame Medusa in The Rescuers. For all her ego and sarcastic disdain for others, there's nothing remotely magnificent about her.
    • Professor Ratigan in The Great Mouse Detective is an interesting case of a villain who can be both this and a Magnificent Bastard.
    • Sykes in Oliver and Company. Complete with a very smug looking Psychotic Smirk that he quite often gives.
    • Gaston in Beauty and the Beast. Very social savvy and manipulative, but also insanely conceited, Book Dumb, and ultimately a Dirty Coward.
    • Jafar in Aladdin. He thinks he is very clever, and does manipulate the heroes quite a bit, but in the end his lust for power prevents him from thinking through the consequences of his actions, specifically that being a genie would force him to live in a lamp and grant wishes, which proves to be his undoing. He even has a bit of a snake theme going on.
      • Unlike most of these smug snakes, Jafar graduated to a Magnificent Bastard in the second movie.
    • Scar in The Lion King starts the film as a true Magnificent Bastard as he schemes to take the throne and literally claws his way to power, skillfully manipulating others in order to get what he wants. But once he actually has what he long desired, he gets sloppy and devolves into a lazy, whiny, spoiled Psychopathic Manchild whose Jerkassery is barely concealed by Faux Affably Evil-ness like it once was, and when his manipulations fall apart and the truth about his murder of his brother comes to light, he turns into a Dirty Coward who seals his own fate by trying to shift the blame to his hyena followers, right when said followers are within earshot! What an Idiot!
    • Governor John Ratcliffe in Pocahontas. All about greed, bigotry and ego, incredibly low on intelligent thinking. He does get better in that regard in the direct-to-video sequel, but he still doesn't think far ahead enough, as shown by his Villainous Breakdown when his plans start to fail.
    • Judge Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame has exactly one moment of a clever Batman Gambit and spends the rest of the film acting like a snooty, self-important, genocidal Jerkass of a Knight Templar who is fully convinced he is a "righteous man" who has God on his side despite his very clear indulgences in sadism and lust.
    • Clayton in Tarzan. He's more charismatic and manipulative than Ratcliffe, but stiff suffers the same problems.
    • Yzma in The Emperor's New Groove, a self absorbed yet bungling Treacherous Advisor/Mad Scientist whose schemes are not nearly as "Brilliant, Brilliant, BRILLIANT!" as she makes them out to be.
    • Lyle T. Rourke in Atlantis: The Lost Empire, like Grimhilde, Sykes, Scar, and Frollo before him, is both this and a Complete Monster.
    • Scroop, the spider-like pirate in Treasure Planet, especially in contrast with the film's Magnificent Bastard main antagonist, Long John Silver.
    • The Bowler Hat Guy in Meet the Robinsons is this in addition to being an Unwitting Pawn to his own AI-powered Bowler Hat. (No, seriously.)
    • Both the Director and the Agent in Bolt, especially the latter.
    • Both King Candy/Turbo in Wreck-It Ralph and Prince Hans in Frozen try their hands at Magnificent Bastardry, but their egos outweigh their manipulations and planning skills.
    • Recently, Zootopia gives us both Mayor Leodore Lionheart and Assistant Mayor Bellweather as shoe-ins for this trope.
    • Gladstone Gander in the DuckTales (1987) cartoon. See the comics section. Flintheart Glomgold, Ma Beagle, and Magica De Spell also qualify.
      • Though Gladstone's Smug Snake characteristics were notably more subdued in his animated incarnation than in the original comic books. The episode "Dime Enough For Luck" even goes so far as to portray him in a fairly sympathetic light.
      • He's back to full Smug Snake form in the 2017 reboot. Said series also introduces Mark Beaks as a particularly over-the-top smarmy and obnoxious Smug Snake, and makes, of all characters, Gyro Gearloose an example of this trope as well.
  • Pong Krell from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, among other examples in that series.
  • The Grinch of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. See his entry on the Literature page.
  • Shrek examples:
    • Prince Charming, in Shrek the Third, manipulates the other villains telling them that if they join him, they will all get their "happily ever afters" when all he really wanted was for them to help him get what he wanted, which was the throne for himself.
    • Also Lord Farquaad in the first movie and Rumpelstiltskin in the fourth. The Fairy Godmother could count too, but she was easily the most competent of the bunch.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants examples:
    • Plankton fits this mold to a T, much to his chagrin.
    • Mr. Krabs can act like this Depending on the Writer.
    • Squillum Fancyson, who is wealthy and successful, yet seems to spend most of his time finding new ways to rub it in the face of Squidward.
    • And Bubble Bass.
  • Phantom Limb from The Venture Bros. The effect is almost certainly intentional.
    • The Monarch would be this if he wasn't actually a capable threat who merely devotes himself to annoying Venture. Frankly, every villain on The Venture Bros. fits this trope, with the possible exception of the ones who don't have enough self esteem for the "smug" part, and maybe the Sovereign, who usually appears to have enough on the ball to qualify as a Magnificent Bastard.
  • The nudist aliens from the Futurama movie Bender's Big Score. You'd think that scamming the entire Earth and forcing its population to the outskirts of the solar system would make them Magnificent Bastards, but no. Maybe if they didn't do everything, everything, in the most profoundly annoying way possible (and also if they didn't look the way they do, eeuuuugh). But that's spammers for you.
  • Slade from Teen Titans. He's a creepy guy, but his manipulations leave a lot to be desired (such as telling Robin that he enjoyed fighting his friends.) It's mostly because he can't understand or control the heroes as much as he'd like to, and grabs the Villain Ball tight when he's feeling the urge to be particularly sadistic. The fact that he's widely perceived to be a pedophile doesn't help. He has his moments of magnificence though, especially after becoming Trigon's henchman and graduating to Magnificent Bastard.
    • Unlike some other Smug Snakes, Slade does learn from his mistakes. After getting his butt kicked by the whole team, he makes sure that he never winds up fighting them all at once again (at least until he gets superpowers of his own) and after his manipulations of Robin failed because they hinged only on their being Not So Different, he systematically deconstructed the mind of his next apprentice, Terra (and turns her into a person puppet without her knowledge if that fails). Unfortunately, he's never able to lose the old Villain Ball (sometimes being a sadistic sociopath is a problem), though he does get better towards the end (see his Crowning Moment of Awesome against Trigon's demon warrior.)
      • Other Teen Titans main villains, such as Brother Blood from Season 3 and The Brain from Season 5, also count. Both are very threatening, but their inflated egos prove to be their undoing in the end.
  • Admiral Zhao from Avatar: The Last Airbender. While he was capable of great feats of firebending power and brilliant tactical decisions, his lack of self-control and anything resembling humility just made the viewership wish that Aang and/or Zuko would pile drive him into the nearest hard surface. Repeatedly.
    • Seriously, the asshole tried to kill the moon for no reason other than to assuage his own vanity. And if his plan had actually worked, it's fairly likely that it would have just gotten him offed by Ozai, as killing the moon hurts the Fire Nation as much as it does everyone else.
      • Fire Lord Ozai was probably glad to have an excuse to dispose of his annoying big brother, and that Iroh stopped Zhao's plans was more about preventing their conquest of the Northern Water Tribe than about the moon (the Fire Lord would certainly present it as such if asked). While Ozai is himself a Smug Snake to boot, he's at least a little cleverer than Zhao and likely would have offed him once the full force of the negative effects kicked in. 'Course, this without him taking into account that he promoted the egotistic asshole to Admiral in the first place. Go figure.
    • Kind of made better when you realize that you can Ironic Echo his own words at the screen as the Ocean Spirit Drags him under.

Zhao: You should have chosen to accept your failure, your disgrace! Then, at least you could have lived!

  • Prince Phobos and Cedric from W.I.T.C.H. Though both are certified manipulative bastards, their egos and tendency to fail at their evil plans make them fall short of magnificence. Oh, and in Cedric's case, Smug Snake is meant quite literally.
  • Eric Raymond from Jem and The Holograms. If you could rate smugness on a scale from 1 to 10, Eric Raymond's smugness would test at 178.
  • Mok Swagger from Rock and Rule certainly has the flourish and cunning of a Magnificent Bastard, but his monumental ego (put on display in two of his songs: "Triumph" and "My Name Is Mok", both all about how great he is) and tendency to melt down in frantic, screaming temper tantrums when he's not getting his way lands him in this trope.
  • Lavor, The Dragon to Big Bad Magmion, from Gormiti: The Lords of Nature Return. Even his Image Song denounces him as a vain, overconfident scoundrel. He's also quite a coward, and happily throws his men into battle with the heroes to get himself away from trouble and gauge his opponents' strength.
    • And just to hammer the point home, the kids even got Genre Savvy about his smugness. One episode had Lucas, Nick and Jessica mess up his plan by simply pointing out how painfully obvious it was, which caused him to lose his head and attack.
  • The Almighty Tallest Red and Purple of Invader Zim. Being, well, the tallest of the Irken people, they're both very smug and full of themselves. Unfortunately for their credibility, the only reason Zim is "invading" Earth is because their attempt to get rid of him backfired.
  • Looney Tunes mainstay Wile E. Coyote had a handful of cartoons where he faced off against Bugs Bunny, and not only talked but took to smugness like a fish to water. His outlook on life is best summed up by his speech to Bugs in their first outing together, "Operation: Rabbit".

Wile E.::Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Wile E. Coyote, genius. I am not selling anything nor am I working my way through college, so let's get down to basics: You are a rabbit and I am going to eat you for supper. Now don't try to get away, I am more muscular, more cunning, faster and larger than you are, and I am a genius, while you could hardly pass the entrance examinations to kindergarten, so I'll give you the customary two minutes to say your prayers.

    • This trope is really driven home in the final exchange of the episode, which functions as an excellent set of Book Ends with Wile E's original speech:

Wile E.: Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mud!
Bugs Bunny: And remember, "Mud" spelled backwards is "Dum."

  • Lydia, the villain of Barbie and the Diamond Castle, believes herself to be the only one worthy of being a muse, and treats everyone else accordingly.
  • Eddy of Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy would fit into this category, being a slimeball schemer for the most part. However, it's revealed that this is a Jerkass Facade due to him being bullied by his big brother.
  • Alluro in Thundercats is so smug, he'll lounge on his enemies' tank waiting for them to return, and his actual method of combat is to attempt to psyche them out into thinking they can't possibly win against him. As he's taller, broader-shouldered, and more muscular than any other cast member, he could probably handle himself quite well in a fight, but he never actually gets physically involved, and so his psyche-out attempts always wind up backfiring.
  • Seen in an RAF Cold War instructional film warning of the dangers of HISS (Hostile Intelligence ServiceS) represented by a smug cartoon snake with a Fake Russian accent. All his dupes were naturally caught by the vigilant RAF police, but the evil HISS would just go on to the next victim.
  • Gibbs of Titan Maximum, despite being both Dangerously Genre Savvy and the Only Sane Man is this due to his incredibly smug nature and the fact that his victories are invalidated by the fact that his opposition is a team of incompetent jackasses, thus mostly succeeding more out of their own failures than anything else.
    • Troy from Titan Maximum might also count. "T-R-O-Y! Why? Because I rock!"
  • Lucius Heinous VII on Jimmy Two-Shoes fancies himself a Magnificent Bastard and feared Evil Overlord, but more often than not he's outwitted by his employee Heloise. He also treats everyone around him like garbage, including his Yes-Man Samy and his Dragon Molotov. But what do you expect from someone whose Satan?
  • The Simpsons examples:
    • Mr. Burns sometimes takes Smug Snake to a ridiculous extreme. For example, one episode involved a plan on Burns' part to block sunlight from reaching Springfield, and a town hall meeting was held about it. During the meeting, the town was being shown what Burns' oil drilling operation did to Bart's pet dog, who was shown needing to use wheels just to walk down the hallway. Burns walks in at EXACTLY this moment, and, with a big smirk on his face, says this:

Burns: Oh, those wheels are squeaking a bit. Perhaps I could sell him a little oil.

      • However he met his downfall at the fact he was too impulsive. As he later admits in the second of the two parter, nobody could touch him so he felt like he could do anything. He spots Maggie holding a lollipop and decided to act something he wanted to do earlier: steal candy from a baby. During the struggle, the gun he was holding slip out of his holster and into Maggie's hand, accidentally going off and shooting Burns.
      • Given Maggie's history with violence, perhaps she did it deliberately.
      • Accident nothing, it is quite likely from her Little Miss Badass role in the show that Maggie did that on purpose. It would not be the only time she deliberately shot someone. It is also quite likely that it was not about his trying to steal candy from her so much as everything else she did (note her angry facial expression in the town hall meeting right after what Marge said; Maggie seemed to understand on at least some level what is going on, which would fit right into her Wise Beyond Their Years portrayal.
    • Russ Cargill, the Big Bad of The Movie, is quite the Smug Snake himself.
    • Sideshow Bob. He is educated and indeed clearly a mastermind. But Bob is such a showman that more often then not, his schemes fail because he either misses a small clue or just loves to be theatrical in his work. To be fair, a lot of these small clues are easily missed. For the most part, Bob has very clever schemes; it is more often a matter of circumstance that they tend to fall apart. To be fair, he does show some Magnificent Bastard tendencies as well, and is most definitely less of an example of this than Burns.
  • Cobra Commander from G.I. Joe was an intentional Smug Snake. Serpentor was a Smug Snake who at least seemed like he was intended to be a Magnificent Bastard. Destro and Tomax and Xamot were Smug Snakes who were almost certainly supposed to be Magnificent Bastards. Destro even comes kind of close sometimes. But it could be that they're all meant to be Smug Snakes since they're in a group called "Cobra."
  • Blaineley from Total Drama World Tour has a very inflated image of herself but isn't in the same league as Heather or Alejandro when it comes to manipulation and ruthlessness.
    • Justin from the previous season also qualifies. He boasts about being a great, manipulative strategist but it turns out that he's The Brainless Beauty whose manipulations rely solely on his good looks. When his face gets damaged, he barely poses a threat.
    • The Total Drama series is quite abundant in these. Heather falls on the Smug Snake side of the spectrum often despite being a Magnificent Bitch at other times, sadistic host Chris Mclean himself has the attitude and overestimation in his own cleverness down pat, and there's also the likes of Scott, Mal (Mike's evil personality), Scarlet, and the Ice Dancers in other seasons, the latter being hit by this trope so hard that they fall into total irrelevance by the end of their season despite all the scheming they'd done.
  • In ChalkZone, Reggie Bullnerd is very clearly stupid, but thinks he's smarter than he is anyway.
  • In Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes, Loki starts out as a Magnificent Bastard but as things begin to increasingly not go his way across the first season finale he undergoes a Villainous Breakdown and ends up a ranting, half-insane Smug Snake.
  • In the Fast Forward Season of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003, we get Darius Dunn, a Manipulative Bastard and a master of deception who is surprisingly so arrogant that he berates his goons whenever they fail him, and doesn't take well to the Inuwashi Gunjin no longer willing to serve him, nor does he take well to the firewall set up by Cody to keep information about his time window a secret from everybody. He even throws a hissy fit when he finally loses his control over the Gunjin themselves.
  • In the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series, The Wizard is cocky and arrogant in both fights against Spidey, but he loses his cool when Spidey turns the table on the Frightful Four, especially in the second fight, where his team loses the numbers advantage.
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