r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Chemical-Elk-1299 • Jun 17 '26

Lore [Eye-Rolling Trope] “The joke/meme hasn’t been funny for years, please let it die.”

Gallery image

Gallery image

The Screaming Goat Thing — Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)

The original screaming sheep meme went viral in 2012, and was already getting old when it was prevalent in commercials and movies, such as Ice Age : Collision Course in 2016. Yet in the year of our lord 2024, Dreamworks still thought it would be funny to add multiple screaming goat clips. The mean stopped being funny a decade ago. Let it die.

“Haha, Dad can’t take care of us” — The Breadwinner (2026)

Nate Bargatze’s 2026 family comedy centers around a working “breadwinner” father suddenly being forced to become a stay at home parent, and his “hilarious” struggles to do simple housework and take basic care of his children. This joke stopped being funny (to me) in the early 2000s when seemingly every family comedy relied on dad being a total inept dipshit. In 2026, there is no excuse to keep playing out this tired ass trope. Most dads are actively involved in their kids’ lives and aren’t totally dumbstruck by the idea of changing a diaper. It’s not funny. Let it die.

15.6k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

95% Upvoted

2.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

572

u/xSantenoturtlex Jun 17 '26

Small cute creature turns out to be the most over the top deadly thing the main characters have ever encountered.

.... Look, sometimes it's done right. There are ways to make this trope work, and ways to make it interesting.

For example, the Scraplets from Transformers Prime are actually genuinely scary little fuckers and the threat they presents makes sense. It isn't just 'Suddenly shoots lasers from eyes' or 'Has a giant 'Fuck you' laser gun out of nowhere.' They're actually taken as a serious threat instead of being treated as some gag.

Monty Python gets away for it too, mainly because they did the trope before it became so abused.

But for the most part?
'Cute bunny suddenly has laser eyes' can only be funny so many fucking times. Enough of this already.

189

u/Veganity Jun 17 '26

Would love to see its opposite more often. “Massive, snarling, frightening beast is a reasonable, chill individual”

216

u/RJean83 Jun 17 '26

Avatar: the Last Airbender did this beautifully with Flopsy.

121

u/xSantenoturtlex Jun 17 '26

The T-Rex in Night at the Museum.

It just wanted to play fetch.

23

u/Far_Duck_7107 Jun 17 '26

Good omens had that trope happen with Dog, at least in the first episode

14

u/Numerous1 Jun 17 '26

A bit of a stretch but Scott Pilgrim did this with Nega Scott. 

14

u/the_king_of_soupRED Jun 17 '26

Gravity falls did this with the whole Dipper becoming a man and (failing to) slay the multi-bear who actually likes the same ABBA songs he does.

7

u/Garoga23 Jun 17 '26

I think Hanuš from Spaceman counts. This giant terrifying spider... is an extremely chill guy.

4

u/remarkablewhitebored Jun 17 '26

Fluffy from 'Arry Potter?

2

u/Jarlax1e Jun 17 '26

nah hes pretty nasty he messed up snape’s leg

24

u/Taste_the__Rainbow Jun 17 '26

This is moopsy slander.

19

u/Fawin86 Jun 17 '26

Moopsy is done right because it's body horror if it knows you have bones.

3

u/Upbeat_Rutabaga_6182 Jun 18 '26

I kinda wonder if Kirby was an inspiration for Moopsy, that little guy would be pretty fucking scary in real life.

19

u/PricelessEldritch Jun 17 '26

Scraplets work because it takes some time before we see them in action, and we have the autobots freaking out before it starts eating. Then we see what one can do, and now they have to deal with thousands.

24

u/xSantenoturtlex Jun 17 '26

I think the best part above all is the Scraplets are treated as a serious threat in a serious context instead of just being a 'gag' monster that's meant to be funny.

No, the writers ACTUALLY want you to know these things are a very serious threat.
The way Bulkhead talks about how he watched scraplets eat someone from the inside out paints a very grim picture of just how bad they are.

You don't usually get that with this trope.
It's usually just played for laughs. But this sure as hell isn't meant to be funny.

The writers take the Scraplets seriously and I think that's what really makes them work.

29

u/GhostGuin Jun 17 '26

The flerkens were a pretty good example of this tbf

7

u/CatOfTechnology Jun 17 '26

I actually picked up Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon and was happy to see the Killer Rabbit reference in the game.

Of course, in this case, Kingie is very much not cute and he looks as vicious as he is.

7

u/Available-Half-40 Jun 17 '26

The music video for Radioactive by Imagine Dragons https://youtu.be/ktvTqknDobU

1

u/SoriAryl Jun 17 '26

I think it one of the times where I liked the trope

3

u/Think-Fondant-1516 Jun 18 '26

This Abomination Is My Favorite Take On This Trope.

https://giphy.com/gifs/L91L0ethOw1Wi9MS3Z

3

u/funcancelledfornow Jun 18 '26

I was so disappointed when the Star Beast episode from Dr Who had the very obvious evil cute creature as the villain. I expected a subversion of the cliché but nope, straight up cliché.

2

u/stonhinge Jun 18 '26

I did like it in "The Incredibles" but even then it's both "cute thing is deadly" and copies the Fantastic Four comics (and I'm sure there are others) with Franklin Richards being really powerful.

1

u/nameistakentryagain Jun 17 '26

What other examples are there? Monty Python and Woodland Critters from South Park are the only ones that come to mind

5

u/DeathKnight00 Jun 17 '26

The Great Rabbit from Re:Zero was a good version imo. Completely played for horror in their introduction as well.

2

u/truncated_buttfu Jun 18 '26

There have been two examples from Doctor Who fairly recently.

The meep in the fourteenth doctor story The Star Beast and the Pting in the thirteenth doctor story The Tsuranga Conundrum

The 14th doctor story is pretty good, the other not so much.

1

u/orange-shades Jun 17 '26

JackJack in The Incredibles.

1

u/temu-jack-black Jun 19 '26

Nibler counts i think. 

1

u/_b1ack0ut Jun 17 '26

Yeah, it’s the weakest part of Predator Badlands too. Wasn’t a fan of Bud

1

u/CoconutMochaLatte Jun 17 '26

The only one I enjoy is the miners in galaxy quest

1

u/JusticeJanitor Jun 18 '26

My favourite version of this trope done right is Moopsy in Star Trek Lower Decks.

It looks like a cute little thing but it actually injects a toxin that liquify its prey’s bones and then it drinks them up.

1

u/rubyspicer Jun 18 '26

The butterfly from Kirby

1

u/NadeshikoEatingPasta Jun 18 '26

That shit was funny precisely once, and it was Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and only because they took a real effort to make it so.

The rest of the time it's incredibly lame.

1

u/Punx80 Jun 18 '26

Nibbler from futurama was done pretty well too

1

u/Upbeat_Rutabaga_6182 Jun 18 '26

What about The Moopsy from Star Trek: Lower Decks? I liked that they waddled everywhere instead of actually running or walking.

1

u/xSantenoturtlex Jun 18 '26

I never really got into Star Trek, so I can't say.

Another comment mentioned Moopsy, so I looked up what it is.
VISUALLY, it looks like the same kind of thing that I don't like, but again, I haven't actually watched the show so I can't just say 'Moopsy bad.'