"No clever captions!"
"I arrange an all-expenses-paid adventure holiday for the hedgehog, and he has the unmitigated gall TO HAVE FUN?!"
— Dr. Robotnik, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, "The Last Resort"
The hero is at a party or some other fun session. Everybody there is having a good time. Then the villain shows up to ruin all of the fun. Maybe he was upset that he wasn't invited? Nope! He just hated the fact that you were all happy and having a good time in general and admits he would have ruined everything even if you had invited him.
These guys are the cold-blooded murderers of fun through and through. Maybe they find people having fun annoying, or they are working on something and the happy music is distracting to them. Of course, there is also the possibility that they see ruining other people's fun is more enjoyable than seeing them have fun, they consider having fun as the real evil, or they consider it their duty as a bad guys to ruin peoples' fun. These types of villains are often The Grinch in holiday-themed media. May overlap with Dystopia Justifies the Means in extreme cases (such as the villain wanting the whole world to be miserable).
If the villain is a grown-up ruining the fun for children, then they are a Fun-Hating Confiscating Adult. Sub-Trope of The Killjoy.
See also Evil Is Petty. Compare No-Nonsense Nemesis. Contrast Villains Love Entertainment.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Ayakashi Triangle's version of the Hiderigami, a god of drought and heat, is sustained and empowered by the misery its heat waves inflicts on humans, and thus hates people enjoying themselves in spite of them. Reo takes advantage of this by holding a beach party to draw it out.
Reo: Let's have some fun! We'll show that we're enjoying our youth without caring about the extreme heat. That's how we'll lure out the Hiderigami! It'll be sensational!
Shirogane: I see. Ridiculous, but it makes sense. Threatening an ayakashi's reason to exist is a matter of life and death.
Comic Books
- Before Cerebus Syndrome kicked in, Dr. Robotnik of Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) was all about people not having fun under his rule.
Film — Animation
- The main goal of Professor Poopypants in the Captain Underpants movie is to eliminate laughter by means of a Ray Gun that is attached to a giant radioactive toilet that eliminates the part of the brain where humor comes from (the Haha-Guffaw-Chucklotamus) as revenge against the world for mocking his name.
- In Recess: School's Out, the main villain, Dr. Benedict, sees no benefit to Summer Vacation or Recess and has repeatedly tried to get rid of recess during his career. His focus on test grades is so extreme that he is willing to use a Weather-Control Machine to create eternal winter, and to him this means the end of summer vacation forever.
- Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town: Burgermeister Meisterburger hates toys so much, he has them outlawed and confiscated from all the children in town. He will have anybody seen with toys arrested when he sees them.
- Sleeping Beauty: Maleficent is irritated that she wasn't invited to the celebration for Princess Aurora's birth. So, she goes and curses Aurora to die by her sixteenth birthday. It is implied there's some spite there already, considering Maleficent is already known as an "evil" fairy compared to the three "good" fairies Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather.
- In Yellow Submarine, the villains are the Blue Meanies, a group of blue guys who hate music. They hate music so much, they invade Pepperland, formerly an idyll full of music and fun, and turn it into a sort of Mordor.
Film — Live Action
- The whole "Morality Club" in Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988). Basically, they hate her precisely because she's fun and sexy, and they see that as a threat to their way of life.
Literature
- The Berenstain Bears Big Chapter Books: Miss Glitch and Vice-Principal Grizzmeyer tend to fall under "fun-hating Stern Teacher" on multiple occasions.
- In The Berenstain Bears and the Dress Code, Miss Glitch and Mr. Grizzmeyer both have it out for the various new fashions the cubs are wearing, feeling they're disruptive (which Brother later thinks to himself is nonsense, citing the fact that everybody in Teacher Bob's class is still getting good grades in spite of the clothes). Mr. Grizzmeyer even threatens to suspend Skuzz for the rest of the school year if he ever comes to school again in the spiky "punk" hairstyle he'd come in with one day, and that's before Miss Glitch sends Queenie home for wearing an ultra-short miniskirt.
- The Berenstain Bears' Media Madness once again has Miss Glitch take on the role of the "fun-hating stern teacher", joined by Vice-Principal Grizzmeyer in voting against accepting the television equipment being gifted to Bear Country School. When it's accepted anyway, she tries to get control of it so she can use it for educational purposes only rather than entertainment as it was originally intended. She also throws out the program schedule for her classroom (as most of the programs have nothing to do with education) rather than posting it for the students to see like she was supposed to.
- Carrie: Margaret White is an insane religious fanatic who, in addition to thinking all Sex Is Evil, seems to think anything fun is a sin, even random things like summer camps. Whenever Carrie tries to have fun, Margaret inflicts ridiculously harsh punishments.
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas!: "The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season! Now please don't ask why, no one quite knows the reason", although the following verses suggest it's mainly because of all the noise from the celebrations in town and from all the children playing with their new toys.
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Implied with Jadis, the White Witch from the title. Though her rule is characterized by general unhappiness, that's pretty standard for an Evil Overlord with contemporary fascist overtones. However, as her rule is starting to crumble, she seems genuinely disgusted when she encounters a group of animals celebrating, referring to their merriment as "gluttony and waste" before turning the unfortunate revelers to stone as punishment.
- In the Rainbow Magic series, Jack Frost spends much of his time trying to ensure the fairies and humans can't have fun.
Music
- Voltaire's song "When You're Evil" mentions how much enjoyment the narrator gets out of preventing other people from having fun.
Pro Wrestling
- This is The Gimmick of "No Fun" Damian Dunne, a heel fun-fighting cop who considers ruining other people's fun much more important that everything else. In some promotions such as ATTACK!, IPW:UK, Fight Club Pro and PROGRESS Wrestling he even leads (as "Chief Deputy" Dunne) a Power Stable called the "Anti-Fun Police", composed of him, the Hunter Brothers (as "Jim Obstruction" and "Leigh Obstruction"), Travis Banks (as "Sergeant Banks"), Dan Moloney and Ryan Smith (as "Los Federales Santos Sr." and "Los Federales Santos Jr.").
Theater
- Babes in Toyland: In most iterations, Barnaby only cares about money and tries to destroy Toyland by any means necessary.
- Twelfth Night: Malvolio has a Puritan disdain for fun and games. The main characters delight in taunting him with their singing, drinking and jokes. This was Truth in Television, as Puritans of Shakespeare's age were opposed to theater. The Bard obviously took this very personally, which is probably why he gave this particular villain a name meaning "ill will." Puritans successfully outlawed theater in London in 1642, a ban that lasted until the Restoration in 1660.
Video Games
- In BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm, minor side-villain ORDERHEAD wants to destroy everything that is not absolutely serious. Its wiki bio even says that it "will never stop fighting until the world is free from silliness and laughter".
- In Disco Elysium, the culprit hates anyone taking even small pleasures from their lives, such as listening to music, having friends, taking drugs and partying, enjoying nature, exploring weird personal interests, making art, or going about your life without hating every minute of your existence, because he views it as Escapism, a distraction from the unfinished work of building Communism and a betrayal of the Revolution that failed. note
- In Divinity: Original Sin II, the demon possessing the Wandering Minstrel Lohse hates her cheerful music and makes her break her (friend's) lute when she tries to sing the first time in the game. She does not sing again until she manages to get rid of him towards the finale.
- "Kirby Super Star": This is Meta Knight's motive in Revenge of Meta Knight. He wants to take over Dream Land because he feels that the inhabitants are too lazy and corrupted.
- Soma Spirits: Dissonance absolutely despises any form of joy or leisure, believing it makes people too lazy and complacent to do their duty to society, and rules over the World of Sorrow, where his citizens must sacrifice their personal feelings to contribute to the collective. The very existence of the World of Joy, where everyone is always happy and free to play all day, enrages him so much that he aims to use the Orbs to stamp out all happiness and wipe out the World of Joy completely.
- Toontown Online: Main objective of The Cogs is to destroy all the fun and colorful happiness in Toons and create a business utopia. Practical jokes are also what destroys cogs.
- Viva Piñata: Professor Pester and the ruffians hate piñatas and will show up in your garden to ruin your hard work. In the sequel, he attempts to cause trouble in Piñata Central and find the weaknesses of every piñata on the island so that there are no piñatas for parties.
Webcomics
- Homestuck: While major villain Jack Noir doesn't specifically target fun, being more of an Omnicidal Maniac, his Start of Darkness is triggered by being forced to wear an overly whimsical, multicolored harlequin costume, which drives him into an unstoppable homicidal rage. Alternate Universe versions of Jack are extremely no-nonsense, showing a love of boring, adult thing like suits and business apparatuses, while disdaining fun things like witty one-liners.
Western Animation
- Dr. Robotnik in both Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Underground is known for trying to stamp out fun wherever possible, in the latter banning all music as well.
- The Evil Sorceror No-Heart from Care Bears (1980s) is so evil that he is legitemately physically harmed by any good emotions anywhere, so he is this by necessity.
- Elena of Avalor: Shuriki hates music, dancing, and festivals, to the point of having them outright banned from Avalor during her rule.
- The Fairly OddParents!:
- The Pixies love everything dull and boring and their plans always involve trying to suck all the fun out of Fairy World and Earth. In School's Out! The Musical, they actually succeed, but their victory is short lived.
- Flappy Bob starts out as this in School's Out! The Musical. He was adopted by the Pixies and raised to believe that fun is a terrible thing. At first, he works to remove all fun and is instrumental in the Pixies' victory. However, half-way through the musical, he has a change of heart and uses his skills as a lawyer to beat his adoptive parents and restore fun to the world.
- Mr. Herriman of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends usually ends up in this role. Interestingly, he is far from evil—he's still an imaginary friend after all—but his idea of "fun" is incredibly lame, and he is in a position of authority where he can enforce his view. In one of the "Bloo Superdude" stories, Herriman's counterpart outright states that suppressing other people's fun is how he has fun (of course, that story is told by Bloo).
- In Making Fiends, Vendetta hates singing, happiness, and vegetables. Whenever she sees somebody else having fun, like main character Charlotte, she seeks to ruin their good time. If she ever plays nice with another person, it will probably be for her own selfish reasons and not because she actually wants to have fun.
- Gloomious Maxiums from the Rolie Polie Olie movie; The Great Defender of Fun, arch-nemesis of Space Boy and Space Dog and Willie and Wally Jolly.
- In The Simpsons Musicville couch gag, Mr. Burns is portrayed as such in that he hates anything jazz and forces everybody in Springfield to play his preferred music and only his.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: The episode "Banned In Bikini Bottom" features the organization T.U.O.O.F.A.T.T.A.F.A.D. (acronym for The United Organization of Fish Against Things That are Fun and Delicious) who shut down the Krusty Krab and ban Krabby Patties for being fun and delicious. The ban is lifted when the leader accidentally takes a bite of a Krabby Patty, resulting in a Heel–Face Turn.
- In The Yum Yums, the Sourpusses hate all fun and plan to ruin the Yum Yums' theme park just because they can.
