Creator's Pet



A Creator's Pet is a character that is hated by the fanbase of a particular work, but ends up taking up a lot of screen-time.

The criteria for being a Creator's Pet is that the character must be:

A) Hated by the fans

B) Loved by the production team

C) Shoehorned into a lot of scenes

D) The other characters constantly praise them, even when they don't deserve it.

A Creator's Pet is more often than not a Mary-Sue, that is to say, a self-insert who is highly unrealistic and has no flaws whatsoever. They can also be a Cousin Oliver, a kid who is inexplicably added to a work's roster to liven up an aging cast, named for Cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch.

Examples

 * 1) Elmyra Duff from Tiny Toon Adventures, the counterpart to Elmer Fudd, was shoehorned into Pinky and the Brain at the request of network executives. She was hated and the show was canceled as a result.
 * 2) Chloe Carmichael from The Fairly OddParents, a complete and utter Mary-Sue, and the third character added to the main cast to boost ratings, after Poof and Sparky. She only exists to make Timmy look bad, and has an incredibly contrived reason to have fairy godparents.
 * 3) Sparky also from The Fairly OddParents, was also added to liven up the cast. He was hated due to being annoying and shoehorned in. He was removed after season 9 ended.
 * 4) Michelle Tanner from Full House. Even though she was there since the beginning, as the character grew, she began to get a lot of screentime and marketing, sweeping all the other characters to the wayside.
 * 5) Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation. He is a Gary-Stu and is a walking deus-ex machina who always saves the whole ship at the last minute. Thankfully, he was kicked off the show after an incident where he inadvertently killed one of his classmates.
 * 6) Scrappy-Doo from Scooby-Doo. He was incredibly annoying and took screen-time away from other characters, mostly Fred, Daphne, and Velma. He was added to boost ratings, and it somehow worked. In later installments of the franchise, Scrappy is made fun of or is an outright villain.
 * 7) PinkAru from Tooba Tooba Noonbory, the Korean-exclusive second season of Noonbory and the Super Seven. She's a token kid character who only exists to appeal to younger audiences and her crying is incredibly annoying. She also shoves a lot of characters, such as Totobory, to the wayside.
 * 8) Chibiusa from Sailor Moon, similar to PinkAru, is a pink kid character who only exists so that little kids can relate to her. She was rather unpopular with Japanese audiences, at least in the anime. In Sailor Moon Crystal, however, the reception of Chibiusa is more positive since her personality here is closest to how she was in the manga.
 * 9) Cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch, who was added in the last six episodes as the cast was growing old.
 * 10) Steve Urkel (Family Matters), While actually a good character, he does fit into the criterion that he is loved by the production team, shoehorned into a lot of scenes and hated by some fans (though not a major portion). This is mainly because he was originally slated to be a one-time character in the series. However, due to fan popularity, he eventually became more prominent as a character until eventually taking over the show as its main protagonist. This makes him a rare example of a good creator's pet.
 * 11) Roger Smith (American Dad!): Similar to Steve Urkel, while he is a great character, Roger would be the most overused character in American Dad!. This would be even worse in the TBS Era where he is pointlessly shoehorned in so much scenes.
 * 12) Mindy Melendez from Ready Jet Go!. Even though she was there since the premiere episode, she wasn't always there in development, only being created when the crew realized that they needed to appeal to younger audiences. Mindy was very popular with the show's target audience, but in season 2, she started to get all the screentime, promotion, and focus, especially since she turned five and finally got to go to space with the older kids. She was very annoying, a walking deus-ex machina, and often bullied others with no repercussions (such as when she triggered Sean's PTSD in "Galileo, Galileo!). As a result, she became the most hated character in the fandom.
 * 13) Jeffy from SuperMarioLogan is an Evelinka Puppet who was added in 2016, and immediately became controversial and hated for his annoying behavior, innapropriate jokes, and swearing habits. Still, he became an very frequent main character in 2017 onwards.
 * 14) Abby Anderson from The Last of Us Part II, a political soapbox character who kills Joel from out of the blue and never gets killed by Ellie in the end of the story.
 * 15) Elmo (Sesame Street)
 * 16) Abby (Sesame Street)
 * 17) Sergio from The Casagrandes, although he always was apart of the show, he is always shoehorned into scenes and some episodes
 * 18) Evelyn from Meta Runner, the team behind the show was well aware of her being an obnoxious character, but made her out to be the ideal of a "love-to-hate" character because of how so-called "ridiculous" she is..
 * 19) Meggy Spletzer (SMG4), A rare example of a "base-breaking character" (one side likes her, while the other doesn't). While she is greatly written and likeable in a fair number of episodes/arcs, she simultaneously suffers from character inconsistency throughout the series, having a number of unlikeable moments here and there as well. Similar to Steve Urkel, she was initally planned to be a one-time character (who was initially described to be an "accident" by the creators) Due to fan demand, her appearances starting rising and become more major in SMG4 episodes as the series went on (to put it statistically, her appearances skyrocketed in 2019, with her appearing in 35 out of 48 episodes; a 73% appearance rate). In 2021, she now has her own spinoff series so she would take a break in the regular series, which admittedly feels necessary given her excessive spotlight in the SMG4 series. Also just like Steve Urkel, she is considered to be the overall main protagonist of the entire Glitch Productions franchise, instead of just another major character in the SMG4 series.
 * 20) Rei Isurugei (Gegege No Kitaro)
 * 21) Kaname Asagiri (Magical Girl Site) (A sadistic torturer who gets a lot of screen-time luring her sister Aya, to help relieve his stress.)
 * 22) Denise from Turma da Mônica, she was originally a supporting character with no personality and a fixed look until she received a redesign by the writer Emerson Abreu who not only changed the character, but forced her to gain extreme focus and prominence in the stories he writes.
 * 23) Milena from Turma da Mônica, an Afro-descendant girl who was created with the aim of promoting diversity and balancing the core of characters, however having no personality being just a mary-sue that everyone thinks is perfect and that MSP forces the public to accept her as the fifth protagonist of the franchise.
 * 24) Owen (Total Drama)
 * 25) Duncan (Total Drama)
 * 26) Mike/Mal (Total Drama)
 * 27) Zoey (Total Drama)
 * 28) Sugar (Total Drama)
 * 29) Amy (Total Drama)

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