Tastes Like Diabetes

"Look at him! He's cuter than a puppy and a kitten trying to climb into the same slipper!"

—Stan Smith, American Dad!

This is an audience reaction to works that are strongly attempting to be kid-friendly — using almost all the tropes of cuteness and idealism, like there's some kind of checklist. 'Saccharine' is the watchword. Viewers react to this with anything ranging from cutesy cuddling to violent revulsion.

Keep in mind that extremely over-the-top lightness is not necessarily a bad thing. With proper usage, it may result in an enjoyable series wherein the cuteness is there as, essentially, an afterthought. It's when it consumes the entire series, when it puts being adorable ahead of things like actual plots or likeable characters, that it becomes a problem.

Not to be confused with Sugar Bowl settings in general, as this is an Audience Reaction trope. Use caution when mixing with Gorn and Crapsack World as Grotesque Cuteness or Wide Eyed Idealism may result, respectively. Repeated consumption of this product may result in becoming a Glurge Addict. Also be aware that excessive cheerfulness can be used to disguise a Crap Saccharine World.

Examples of Tastes Like Diabetes include:

Advertising

  • Any commercial by the Foundation for a Better Life.
  • The aggressively adorable kids in the Welch's Grape Juice commercials.
  • The aggressively adorable kids in the Bandaid commercials, especially the little black girl.
  • The aggressively adorable kids in the Motts Juice commercials.
  • The aggressively adorable kids in the Wuzzles commercials.
  • Played with to the point of parody in the late 2009-early 2010 radio ads for the New York Lottery's "Sweet Million" game, which feature intentionally tooth-rotting things like kittens that meow "I love you" and puppies that croon barbershop harmonies for little old ladies.
  • Any commercial for Snuggle. Goddamn that bear...
  • All of the puppy-fueled Cottonelle commercials from the last few years, featuring a puppy that sounds like Zach Braff BEING THE CUTEST THING ALIVE OHMYGODOHMYGOD... So you should... buy... TOILET PAPER. Yeah.
  • The Pillow Pets commercial. "D'awwwwwwww!" cranked up to 11!!!
    • The similar Happy Nappers commercial is even WORSE!
  • Sinupret commercials. Ugh.
  • Any commercial for Kinder Chocolate.
    • When they're not either the most disturbing or frightening things you've ever seen.
  • This commercial for Puppy Chow.
  • FurReal kittens. Aww... *puke*
  • During the early 1980s, Washington, D.C. CBS affiliate WDVM (now WUSA) commissioned a tooth-rotting promo using the branding of "Ours to Share". The campaign was basically one they could have gotten away with if it was a smaller city, but certainly not in D.C., as the reaction was harsh enough for WDVM to fire their creative services director as a result. Watch and look for dentures.
  • The commercials for the Teddy Ruxpin bear are adorable to the point that you'll cry. Case in point:
  • This commercial for the HP Touchsmart 520t.
    • "'Cause, he's bacon!"
  • Parodied in this commercial with "Sun Fizz"
  • Mel the Milkbar, a new granola-milk bar from Kraft. Adorable, huggable, and a MASSIVE woobie.


Anime and Manga

  • Arina Tanemura's works falls into this, possibly due to the art style. As for the stories...not so much. She does some pretty dark stuff before the happy endings including a six-year-old boy committing suicide in front of his mother. Something like that definitely shouldn't Taste Like Diabetes. If anything, Tanemura is more like a Japanese female version of Don Bluth where she does some major breaking the cutie before they earn their happy endings.
  • The cross dressing toddler form of Italy, Chibitalia, from Axis Powers Hetalia.
    • Also, episode 22.
    • How about Chibi-USA? He's adorable, isn't he?
    • Basically, if they're not a bishie-sex god, they are the most adorable thing to ever rot you teeth out, ever.
  • Chiyo-chan + penguin suit. Or simply Chiyo-chan, period (that song she sings in Episode 1!).
    • o/ Cooking is so fuuuuun, cooking is so fuuuuun o/
    • The scene with Marco the kitty is caramalized sugar dipped in a cup of sugar with glaze and powdered sugar on top. Poor Sakaki-san.
    • And speaking of Sakaki, that cuddling scene with Maya...
  • The main character from Because I'm The Goddess.
  • The two sisters Kyou and Asu in Binbou Shimai Monogatari are really just endearing enough to pull off their saccharine sweet interaction, depending on how much sweetness you can take in.
  • Bottle Fairy. Blargh.
    • The level of saccharine is mostly offset by the appearance of the Echigoya sisters. Thank goodness for them!
    • Note that this is not the case with the manga, only the anime suffers from this.
  • Binchou Tan is so cute it hurts.
  • Almost everything about Cardcaptor Sakura, from the openings, to the way all types of love are presented as wholesome and pure, and obviously the title character herself.
  • The entirety, and especially the opening sequence of Chi's Sweet Home.
  • Fuko Ibuki from Clannad when she enters "starfish mode." This picture should ring a bell.
  • Excel Saga with the Puchus, which are more like parodies of this trope, given the fact that when they are initially presented as being evil, and become considerably less cute when hit.
    • They're also paralyzingly cute in-universe, with Nabeshin and Space Butler unable to resist the cuteness when they're trying to escape a Puchuu spaceship.
    • Subverted (Tastes Like Insulin?) with Misaki Matsuya's encounter with one. She is momentarily entranced by a Puchuu, only to suddenly axe it in half, while saying "I don't like cute."
    • The same with Excel, except substitute the axe with a karate chop.

Excel: Aw, it's so cute! (punches Puchuu) But who the heck cares?!?!?

  • Fullmetal Alchemist: The interactions between Maes Hughes and Elysia (or just Hughes showing off the family pictures) is this in spades, and they even have an Image Song duet together. Tragically, this would not last for long with Hughes' murder in a phone booth and the resulting funeral.
    • Sig and Izumi occasionally have moments like these in which those nearby are literally pelted with hearts and flowers.
  • Galaxy Angel is the example that has overused this trope and cut everything uncute out of the show, including the male protagonist.
    • Which doesn't even make sense because not only is said male protagonist drawn to look just as cute as the girls, cutting out the romances he shares with the girls actually makes the show LESS cute. But the anime director likely did this for the sake of a Fundamentally Female Cast. Blargh indeed.
  • Hamtaro.
  • The titular heroine of Hayate Cross Blade is a Badass Adorable to begin with, but cranks it way up when she spends the school festival in a duck suit.
  • Hello Kitty. Pretty much anything from Sanrio or San-X, really.
  • Hidamari Sketch. The character designs and Slice of Life situations will have you fearing for your nutbladder.
  • Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. You know, before all the killing.
  • Jewel Pet. The intro speaks for itself.
  • The entire Hirasawa family from K-On!, with the parents Sickeningly Sweethearts and the sisters in a practically similar relationship (minus the Les Yay... maybe), your teeth will have rot before Mugi offers any cake.
    • Then there are the lyrics Mio wrote, if the reactions of the other club members are any indication.
      • The song in question, Tokimeki Sugar, has been released and is sickeningly sweet.
    • Yui's songs might qualify for this trope too, but most of them are more starchy than sweet.
    • Azunyan. When she has her cat-ears on, when she calms down for some reason (eating cake or being pet by Yui), etc. It is impossible to not love her.
    • Does this series really need examples? Every second of every episode qualifies for this trope really.
  • Kimi ni Todoke centers around teenagers who are kind and understand one another. -Gasp-!
  • Elizabeth Middleford from Kuroshitsuji
  • Anything not in the Witches' Realm in Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Kyubey. Really, IT'S THAT BAD.
  • A Little Snow Fairy Sugar... the epitome of overly-cutesy Moe Moe if there ever was one.
    • Note that the word "sugar" is right there in the name, as is "fairy". That might actually count as a Lampshade Hanging.
  • In Lucky Star, Konata's little cousin Yutaka qualifies. From the first moment you see her, she rots your teeth—and as soon as you think it can't get any worse, just wait till you see her interaction with Iwasaki's dog in the OVA.
    • Hell, the entire series Tastes Like Diabetes, or more like chocolate cornets.
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha was like this before the plot showed up five or so episodes in. And then again at several points through the whole series. But special mention should be made of the Vivid manga which takes it Up to Eleven.
  • Aqua, a minor villain from MAR, was so sickenly adorable that she was killed by one of her own allies.
  • Nanatsuiro Drops is so cute, that just watching 5 seconds of the opening will make your teeth fall out and your eyes pop of SO. MUCH. CUTENESS. Gah
  • The whole purpose behind Nyanpire: The Animation
  • Ouran High School Host Club. Honey-Sempai [dead link] . Enough said.
  • Oyayubihime Monogatari, and its American counterpart EVEN MORE SO, HNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGG!
  • Some Pokémon, especially those belonging to the main characters of the anime. Granted, some of these start out cute and get progressively...less so, but there are some that stay adorable. Example: Igglybuff, Jigglypuff and Wigglytuff. Even their NAMES are cute!
    • The Chansey family also falls into this, especially Happiny, the baby form of Chansey. It has a diaper! D'awww...
    • The film short Pikachu and Pichu, which plays at the beginning of one of the movies, is SO cute. Heck, any time Pokémon are interacting in a friendly manner without their trainers present probably counts.
    • In the Diamond and Pearl episode Battling a Cute Drama! Ash and friends meet a girl who only cares for cute Pokémon. In fact, when Dawn (and Brock) battle her, she spends almost all of her time giving speeches about her cute Pokémon. Everyone else is both disgusted and annoyed. Or crosseyed.
    • Dawn and Piplup themselves are big offenders of this trope.
    • Most of the anime and movie endings are this as well. The most recent is the first Best Wishes ending, Kokoro no Fanfare. It involves a Pokémon marching band.
  • While there is some debate over whether the film as a whole qualifies (it is one of the few films from Hiyao Miyazaki that is very definitely for young children), pretty much everyone agrees that the song that assaults you during the end credits of the American dub of Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea is... yikes. Just yikes.

"She's a little fish from the deep blue sea! / She's a little girl with a round tuh-mee!"

  • Potemayo, on the surface. Then you get to the Brokeback Mountain references, crossdressing and toilet humour (and Ho Yay) and you begin to wonder just what the hell you're watching.
  • Intentionally evoked for parody reasons throughout the Pretty Sammy series. Sammy's "Pretty Space" turns the area around her into a diabetic coma inducing place saturated by the color piiiink and with hearts floating everywhere. This gets commented on by the other characters a few times.
  • Risky☆Safety. My teeth!
  • The SuperS season of Sailor Moon was notorious for this.
  • Serendipity the Pink Dragon is a sweet story of a boy and his pink, sappy-eyed sea monster. Look no further than the theme song. "My, what a wonderful world we'd have if we all could be... loving and caring! Giving and sharing! Like my friend Serendipity!"
  • Strawberry Panic, to such levels that people tend to dismiss this show as Stealth Parody.
  • Sugar Sugar Rune. The first half of that anime feels like diabetes heaven.
  • Young Nia, it feels like every single pore of her body begs you with puppy eyes, "please, love me, please love me". And unlike most of these examples, it works.
  • Tenshi ni Narumon. It is a shame that most people are turned off just by seeing the art (or the face of the main character), even though the series is really good and many times it was described as 'reverse Utena'(in terms of main themes and overall surrealism).
  • Even though up to 95% of the monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh! are Badass types, some of them are really cute, i.e. Kuriboh.
    • Tea's deck in the anime has some cuties in there, such as Shining Friendship.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX does this in one episode with a monster called Mokey Mokey. Jaden's friends thought it was so cute, and it actually makes them fall asleep.
    • No mention of Rescue Cat and Rescue Rabbit?
  • Yumeiro Patissiere is ridiculously shojo.
  • The first 15 minutes of Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors is like this. Then they start preparing for war...
  • Dog Days features a pink dog-eared princess. Who is also a pop idol songstress. Her country is embroiled in war... with harmless weapons so everyone can have fun without getting hurt.
    • Bonus points for nearly every character being named after something sweet namely pastries.
  • Any Magical Girl anime shows can have such a diabetes syndrome - notable examples include Pretty Cure and Ojamajo Doremi.
  • Episode 8 of Carnival Phantasm has the scene with Saber giving Shirou a birthday present, the sweetness of the scene is enough to rot your teeth.
  • Hina from Papa no Iukoto o Kikinasai, is strong enough to put you in a diabetic coma.


Art


Comic Books

  • Deadpool Hangs A Lampshade on this when reminiscing about his ex-wife: "...all this 'I love you snookie pie' and 'you too honey lips face head mush mush'...go into diabetic shock just walking by the place."
  • Miss Martian of the DC Universe, which is especially interesting considering she's a White Martian.
    • Which leads to fans thinking she's cuter in her true form.
  • Lampshaded in Mark Waid's Empire with the line "I need insulin listening to you!"
  • Spoofed in the Batman/Judge Dredd crossover, where Scarecrow sprays Judge Death with his nightmare toxin, causing Judge Death to panic wildly over the sight of adorable ponies and cutesy little animals.
  • The art of Bob Oksner. All his women, no matter how competent, kick-ass or super-powered, looked adorable.
  • Carl Barks found Christmas stories with An Aesop like this. Unfortunately, he was so good at it, that he got assignment after assignment.


Fan Works

"Lilac, you're the most sickeningly sweet person ever to grace the planet, aren't you?" Lilac didn't seem to catch the insult, and just smiled broadly, apparently under the impression that her 'influence' had reached B as well.

  • This trope is invoked in the fanfic "Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness," when Hannah tells Neville that her Aunt has some sickeningly cute collectible china witch figurines. Apparently, "It's like trying to eat half of Honeydukes in one sitting. You can feel your teeth start to rot the second you cross the front door."
  • Heathcliffe and Aki's relationship in One Piece Parallel Works. One reviewer of the fic describes their relationship as "Diabeetus".
  • Parodied in "Parody of Symphonia", where the particular character achieves the title "So saccharine, she gives you diabetes!"


Film

Wayne: (holding a stuffed bunny toy) You know what I was thinking, Big Bunny?
Big Bunny: What?
Wayne: I'm thinking we should be nicer to our brother Nick, you know why?
Big Bunny: No, why?
Wayne: Well, because he's moved to a new place now, and has got to make new friends, just like you and me.
Adam: Yeah?
Wayne: Yeah.

  • Parodied in the Marx Brothers film Horse Feathers. Thelma Todd's character is going out with Groucho, in an attempt to steal some football signals for a rival college. She adopts an extremely cutesy and high pitched voice and says "If Big-Strong-Man don't let Icky-Baby see the football signals, Icky-Baby gonna cry!". To which Groucho somehow manages an even more cloying voice and responds "If Icky-Girl don't stop talking like that, Big-Strong-Man gonna kick all her teeth right down her throat!"
  • The first half of the musical and film Mamma Mia!! is ridiculously cheerful. It is a musical based on ABBA songs, after all.
  • Parodied and lampshaded in The Naked Gun: 33 1/3 - The Final Insult, when Frank and his wife are in a marriage counseling session, they devolve into baby-talking pet names, at which point the therapist states "Mr. and Mrs. Drebin, please - I'm a diabetic."
  • My Neighbor Totoro: Mei, the 4-year-old girl who would often repeat the last thing her older sister Satsuki says.
    • Ponyo, another movie from Hayao Miyazaki, is even heavier on the cutesy stuff, and that includes the English dub's theme song.
  • Preschool University.
  • Return of the Jedi is notorious for this, just because it didn't have the same Cerebus Syndrome as The Empire Strikes Back, but the Ewoks, of which exactly one dies, despite taking on bad guys who can blow up planets and only being primitive hunter-gatherers, get the worst of it. And then there was an Ewok cartoon series afterward. This was the first time Star Wars was Ruined FOREVER, but would not be the last.
  • Being an adorable puppy voiced by five-year-old American Idol contestant Kaitlyn Maher made Tiny from Santa Buddies ridiculously cute. To some, irritatingly so.
  • In the MSTing of the movie "Santa Claus," Tom Servo (accurately) refers to Lupita, the main child character, as "aggressively cute."

"Lupita, no!"

  • Parodied in the opening scenes of the film A Series of Unfortunate Events about "The Littlest Elf".
  • Toys: The Christmas musical at the beginning.
  • Some of Don Bluth's later films, especially A Troll in Central Park exhibit such cuteness in their characters that it is undoubtedly unhealthy to watch.
  • The ending of The Legend of the Titanic. Everyone, I mean, EVERYONE survives, two couples get married (a human couple and a mouse couple), there's this whole celebration involving pretty much every good character, even the only two that appeared to have actually DIED reappear alive and well with no real explanation as to how they survived, the whole cutesy she-bang. What makes this even more disgusting, though, is when you take into consideration that this is a movie based around one of the most infamous REAL-LIFE 20th century tragedies, and they treat it like some lame fairy tale and add in a giant talking octopus that saves everybody and a blatant anti-whaling message. Ugh, appaling.
  • Pretty much any Hallmark original movie shown on the Hallmark channel. All the characters (especially the CHILDREN) are so sappily unrealistic, you just may want to gag, leave the room, or both. Extra sap points when it's a Christmas movie.
    • Double Bonus Points when said Christmas movie features a helpful old man with a beard. Could he somehow be the really for real...?
  • The movie adaptation of The Lorax has shades of this. Examples include some of the woodland critters that the Once-ler meets (especially Pipsqueak) and some of the musical numbers like "Let It Grow", which really come across as sappy and unnecessary. However, the biggest offender has to be that little 3-year old girl that gets an entire verse to herself in "Let It Grow", and is basically just there for people in and outside of the movie to adore. UGH, if that doesn't qualify for this trope, I don't know what does.
  • Happy Feet to a certain extent. An entire segment of it focuses on baby penguins learning to sing (and dance in Mumble's case), so you're bound to get at least some of this. However, the sequel takes it Up to Eleven in the form of even more of a focus on baby penguins. Then there's Mumble's son Erik, who takes the cuteness factor to absolutely ridiculous heights.
  • Ranjan in The Jungle Book 2. To be fair, this is somewhat made up for by Shere Khan, who is even more of a menacing and dangerous character this time around (he was a serious threat in the first one, but he was also more funny and charming when he wanted to be), but it still doesn't prevent the scenes with Ranjan from being overly kid-friendly. Not only is he a Deliberately Cute Child, but he's got quite an exaggerated kiddy voice, and even more childish mannerisms such as continuously pretending to be a tiger and trying to roar like one.


Literature

  • For Redwall, one word: Dibbuns! (Especially in the later books).
  • Harry Potter
    • Rowling sends up this trope with Dolores Umbridge in Order of the Phoenix, as she's described as having images of insipid kittens mewling on the walls of her office wherever she works and her voice is described as "high, girlish" and sounding like "poisoned honey", she wears a black hairbow, and in the movie she is seen putting loads of sugar (PINK SUGAR) in her tea (also pink). This is a subversion, because she's actually a sadistic, evil, and downright racist old hag.
    • Beatrix Bloxam, author of the "Toadstool Tales" book series that was banned by the Ministry of Magic because the stories caused nausea and vomiting. One would normally assume this meant the stories were scary, as examplified in this fanfic. But in Dumbledore's notes within Tales of Beedle the Bard, it's revealed that the child readers' negative reactions were instead due to Bloxam having re-written Beedle's and others' wizarding fairy tales so that they're sickeningly sweet. "Then the little golden pot danced with delight - hoppitty hoppitty hop! - on its tiny rosy toes! Wee Willykins had cured all the dollies of their poorly tum-tums, and the little pot was so happy that it - " *BARF*
    • The fate of Norbert the baby dragon's teddy waaaaay back in book one.
    • Then there's the epilogue: "All was well"... a bit too well for those sensitive to excessive cuteness.
  • Many people react in this way to the over-the-top, frequent love scenes, love phrases and love acts in the Twilight series.
  • The late Dorothy Parker considered the Winnie the Pooh book The House At Pooh Corner to fall into this trope: "And it is that word 'hummy', my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader Fwowed up."
  • How Susan's charge Twylla in Hogfather tries to act to endear people to her, but Susan will have none of it.

Susan: Real children don't go hoppity-skip unless they are on drugs.

  • Madeline Bassett in PG Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories. Even Bertie Wooster, who's hardly the poster child for cynicism, finds her more than a bit much.
  • The new dog book epidemic (The Dog Only A Family Could Love, The Pup After Mertle, Marley and Me), adorable stories of man's best friend are this.
    • In the words of one reviewer from Entertainment Weekly - "Not to be callous, but I've had it! I'm sure Oogy and Pukka are great pooches, but their cloyingly cute books are enough to give you a case of canine diabetes."
  • Lewis Carroll's lesser known duology, the Sylvie & Bruno books. The overly-cutesy perfection of the title children is probably the main reason these books are not given the same love as Alice.


Live Action TV

  • Lampshaded in Psych when Lassiter tries to win back his estranged wife with sugary-cutesy figurines and an equally nauseating card. When she rejects him, he takes the sugary-cutesy figurines down to the shooting range and happily blows each one away.
  • Barney and Friends, to anyone over the age of seven. Some of these folks become parents and the "purple freak" is forgiven as being a instant thirty minute babysitter.
  • Oh boy Willow and Tara in the early stages of their relationship in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the episode "Family" being the sappiest episode ever. It ended with the two of them hugging while floating in the air. Thankfully they became a much more realistic couple towards the end of season 5.
  • The Tenth Kingdom largely avoided this... an exceptional feat for a 10-hour miniseries about fairy tales. But in certain places, the sappiness factor was cranked Up to Eleven. See also: Hearts and butterflies swarming through the air in Kissing Town under a pink, heart-shaped moon. Insulin, STAT. Add in the literal Love Is in the Air, most exemplified by the massive pink heart which appears over Wolf and Virginia's head as they share their first kiss, and the little Cupid girl skipping through the streets dispensing fortunes, and... yeah.
    • Then there's the singing ring...
  • Parodied in the Seinfeld episode "The Soup Nazi". George and Elaine are disgusted by the sappy nicknames Jerry and his Girl of the Week constantly call each other. So George decides to strike back by doing the same thing with Susan. But the plan works too well, and Susan starts babbling like a two-year-old.
    • Also from Seinfeld, a surprisingly straight example; for a show centered on four cynical Jerkasses (although Kramer and occasionally Elaine could be very well-meaning), some of the child characters who appeared now and then could be pretty sugary. One example being the boy in the hospital Kramer accidentally donated the Yankee birthday card to.
  • The MTV Miley Cyrus 2009 New Year's Special A Miley-Sized Surprise: The Veronicas dressed up as fairies, a high-pitched sugary voice reading horrible poetry with the most Totally Radical Painful Rhymes imaginable, and all the gushing about making a difference combined.
  • Connie Talbot from Britain's Got Talent.
  • In later episodes of Family Ties we get little Andrew Keaton, the youngest of the 4 Keaton children. It even affects the politics-obsessed Alex P. Keaton
  • The ending voice over segments in Modern Family.
  • The BBC's recent Robin Hood occasionally strays into this sort of territory with its uplifting messages and such. Then the writers, in their infinite wisdom, decided to have an episode filling in Robin and Guy's backstory. Cue Child!Robin developing his addiction to vomit-inducingly-noble stances while throwing out tax collectors.
  • This trope is a staple of a video known as the Palate Cleanser on Web Soup, which immediately follows the segment "Things You Can't Un-See".
  • Star Trek has several episodes taking place on the resort planet Risa. It's supposed to be the Federations greatest vacation place, but both the environment and the locals are sickeningly nice and hospitable.
  • The Doctor's holographic family in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Real Life" start out like this, but B'Elanna tells him how unrealistic this is and he agrees to let her alter the programme to make it more realistic.
    • She also invokes it by first saying, "I am stopping this before my blood sugar levels overload."
  • Semi-parodied among The Muppets with Bean Bunny -- the Muppet that Henson Studios learned to love to hate.
    • Your Mileage May Vary, but the 1981 episode of The Muppet Show with Linda Ronstadt was arguably a low point. No offense to any Ronstadt fans out there, but she wasn't really the best choice for a guest host. After so many high-spirited and even brassy celebrities who could at the very least hold their own alongside the Muppets - Peter Sellers, Dom DeLuise, Raquel Welch, even Rudolf Nureyev for goodness's sakes (and when a Russian can appear jollier than you!) - Ronstadt just seems so quiet and demure (and, with that idiotic little grin, like a Stepford Smiler) that she winds up dragging down the entire show. The Muppets try their best to compensate with their trademark subversive and even ghoulish humor, and Linda's first number, Roy Orbison's "Blue Bayou", is fine (although she performs it in nineteenth-century "granny" underwear for some odd reason), but the finale, with her singing "When I Grow Too Old To Dream", is just too sentimentalized and pathetic to make anyone feel good, made all the worse by resident Jerkass Rizzo the Rat actually shedding tears as he listens to the song. But perhaps the worst part is that (Muppets Tonight and the odd special notwithstanding) this was one of the last episodes the Muppets ever did on network TV.
  • Doctor Who has these, essentially living fat.
    • Leave it to Doctor Who to combine Tastes Like Diabetes with horror...
    • Some fans complain that the Tenth Doctor and Rose got like this.
  • In an episode of Have I Got News for You, Stephen Fry, upon seeing Victoria and David Beckhams' coat of arms (the motto being something along the lines of Love Friendship), he quipped "sometimes there just isn't enough vomit in the world."
    • He made the same joke on QI when panelist Clive Anderson's buzzer was the sickeningly saccharine "Everything I Do, I Do It For You" by Bryan Adams.
  • Animal Planet's Too Cute documentary series contains graphic depictions of CUTENESS.
  • An obscure television series called Hug-a-Bug Club was pretty much Barney and Friends, except with insects instead of dinosaurs.
  • The Star Wars Holiday Special. It's particularly jarring when you consider that at the end, Luke and Leia join them, and their families were killed in the movie. It's even more jarring when you consider that in a couple decades, Chewie will have the moon dropped on him.
  • This was a major complaint about Full House back in the day. But hey, if the show didn't fit this, it wouldn't be the Trope Namer for Full House Music.
    • Seasons 6, 7, and 8 toned down a bit on this, though, only having that occur whenever Nicky and Alex are involved.
    • On an interesting note, any moment on a show that is overly sappy (even if the show itself is not normally) is called a "Full House Moment" outside of TV Tropes.
  • Invoked on Mystery Science Theater 3000 with Nummymuffin Cocoabutter, an impossibly adorable pet created by Dr. Forrester so he can take over the world while everyone is preoccupied with one. He ends up getting sucked into the Cuteness Proximity himself before this can happen.
  • The end of the TV film of The Stand. King ended the book with a mix of light and dark,but the miniseries really turned up the sentimentality and happier stuff.


Music

Newspaper Comics

  • Love Is.... Concentrated and undiluted example.
  • Family Circus. almost no one but 6-year-olds and grandmothers actually finds it anything but sickeningly sweet.
  • Rose Is Rose.
  • Monty played with the trope, adding the alarmingly cute Giggles the Bear to the cast. The strip claims readership reached an all-time high, citing letters like "After reading today's 'Giggles' strip, I cut it out and cuddled it - signed, My Inner Child", and "When I saw your new character/product line 'Giggles,' I felt a peculiar stirring in my loins - signed, Comic Syndicate Executive.".


Tabletop Games

  • Subverted again in Munchkin Fu with the monster card "Big Eyes, Small Mouse". Its description? 'Too cute to live. Your duty is clear'.
  • Candyland.


Theater


Toys


Video Games

  • Parodied in Diablo III with Whimsyshire as a Take That towards complaints about early screenshots being "too colorful".
  • Parodied in Kingdom of Loathing:
    • It is possible to summon a love song so saccharine that it does a fairly decent amount of damage.
    • Iiti Kitty. During nearly all attacks, they state that it's an adorable monster. For a mummified cat trying to beat you senseless. Iiti is Ancient Egyptian for "Hello".
    • Hell, "cute" was recently added as the sixth element, though nothing actually uses it. Yet.
  • The redesigns of the "Littlest Pet Shop" pets. They were originally just small cartoon animals, but now they're saccharine googly-eyed Animesque chibi horrors (a wee monkey shouldn't have jowls, darn it!).
  • The entirety of Twinkle Star Sprites (a puzzle/shooter/fighting game) is about the same color and sweetness as a pack of Starbursts. Strangely, the game is highly enjoyable nevertheless.
  • Kirby - at least, until its villains brings the Mood Whiplash.
    • The trailer for Kirby: Epic Yarn seems to have turned this Up to Eleven with the art style.
  • Mug'gok the Ogre in World of Warcraft. Granted, most single-headed Ogres aren't exactly the brightest gemstones in the mine, but Mug'gok's childish rants and raves are kinda sappy.
    • Yes, but he's actually there to KILL the arakkoa, so, it probably doesn't count. (What else would he have the hammer for?)
    • Furthermore. The tauren babies in Nagrand and, I believe, Agmar's Hammer. The first time you see them, you WILL squeal so loud that your entire vocal system will splatter over the walls.
      • No NPC in WoW is more sickeningly adorable than Mylune. All of her quests are about saving critters in Hyjal. She says she can speak deer (It's all in the nose) and if you don't save the little fawns, she'll give you the big eyes (Yes, her eyes grow big and dewy). She's happy when you save the deer because "now they can grow up and have ADVENTURES!" P.S. She thinks you're swell for saving the critters.
      • Mylune actually deserves a special mention here because her deliberately saccharine speech tends to sound funny rather than sickening. It seems that Blizzard deliberately parodied this trope with her.
  • Princess Anastasia, yes, that Anastasia in Shadow Hearts: Covenant takes this trope and runs with it. And she damn well knows it, too.
  • Marona. Especially any scene with both her and Castille in it.
  • Kanji Tatsumi, the Jerk with a Heart of Gold in Persona 4, when accused by police of bullying (and he was innocent, as he was just making plushies for a boy and his mother), has this to say to the police:

"Dolls! I made them. They're dolls! Go and see them for yourself. They're so cute they'll give you diabetes! The instantly-lethal kind!"

    • Not to mention Nanako...
  • Eternal Sonata, pretty much every time Polka is on screen. Several other characters qualify as well.
  • The first half of Zone 3 in Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots (which is where the second page quote came from) appears to be this, what with the the pretty pink colors and the cute little suns and plants and dolphins and butterflies and bees decorating the area. The twist? This is where the Surprise Difficulty kicks in... and you have to remind yourself that you're still in an Eternal Engine run by a Mad Scientist voiced by Tim Curry.
  • Eversion. Wait, NO!
  • Loco Roco. Wait, what?
  • Touhou fan art often tries to underscore the Moe when they aren't trying to underscore the sexy. Some artists simply know no moderation. Espescially vulnerable (to both, actually) are Remilia and Flandre, who, being Friendly Neighborhood Vampires that are childlike but Really Seven Hundred Years Old, are sometimes victim to infantile "Moe Blob" makeovers.
  • Yoshi's Story takes place in a cutesy storybook world with baby Yoshis as playable characters making, well, babylike sounds trying to get back the "Super Happy Tree" from Baby Bowser. Unlike the previous Yoshi's Island, which was for all ages and featured challenging stages, this game with its saccharine world and low difficulty level was obviously targeted towards little kids.
    • Low difficulty, sure. Unless you're trying to get through level 6-3, that damn Ghost castle. And since it's targeted towards little kids, the precision timing and tendency of the ghosts to give chase whenever you weren't staring the bastards in the eye, this level can qualify both as That One Level and Nightmare Fuel.
      • 4-2 could also apply because of the Blurps, right?
    • Yoshi's Island, while indeed more difficult, is just as adorable. You're a cute dinosaur, and you have to relay a cute baby across a colorful, crayon-drawn, (mostly) happy island environment to another cute dinosaur. Rinse and repeat until the baby is reunited with its missing twin brother.
  • The little mole girls in Moleville from Super Mario RPG.
    • Also from that same game, we have the Mystery Egg. You can buy it from the blue-spotted Toad in Moleville after getting the 5th Star Piece, and it can only be hatched by Peach while she's wearing the B'Tub Ring and using the Egg 10 times. Afterwards, it becomes the Lamb's Lure, in which a cute, chubby, little lamb rolls around, turns an enemy into another lamb, and they fly up into the sky. If you do that 48 times, the Lamb's Lure becomes the Sheep Attack, which summons a bunch of these cute little lambs darting across the screen turning all enemies into even more lambs. If you don't find that cute, then get help.
  • In the Babeland level of Duke Nukem 3D, there's these cartoon mice walking around, saying things like "We're gonna have a wonderful day!" in the most cringe-inducingly cutesy voice imaginable. No wonder that, when you shoot one, Duke says, "Damn, that was annoying."
  • Beatmania IIDX 16: Empress is already cute and happy and pink from the get-go. Then someone goes and plays I'm Screaming LOVE and it all goes to hell. Fluffy-bears-swimming-through-candy-carrying-spoons hell.
    • There's plenty of precedent for this. Raspberry Heart. Sweet Lab. Romeo and Juliet. With Your Smile. Sigsig. Poodle. Silvia Drive. Eco-G. ICF 5800. Not to mention Wish, Double Loving Heart, and Sun Field...from DISTORTED.
    • One word: smooooch. It's been parodied to the level of Memetic Mutation.
  • Regina Berry in Ace Attorney: Justice for All is the sweetest sheltered little lion tamer. Half the circus is in love with her (and Even the Girls Want Her) and she thinks that when people 'go away' they go up to the sky and become stars. It's so intense that you're a little sympathetic when you find out she was the one Acro was trying to murder.
  • As its own official Getting Started guide puts it, "Even death is cute in Luna Online!"
  • Played for Laughs in the Adult Swim Flash game Robot Unicorn Attack, in which you play as the titular robot unicorn, dashing through a sparkly, purple world collecting fairies while Erasure's Always loops in the background.
  • Kissy Poo for Xbox Live Indie Games, although it might be justified seeing how it was designed for pre-schoolers. Players control the titular Kissy Poo, who must cheer up all the sad animals with a sweet kiss.
  • Famously subverted by Animal Crossing, which seems like it'd fit, but really isn't that bad at all.
  • Xbox title Raze's Hell really let the player loose on those goddamned cuddlie-wuddlies. Eliminate them all.
  • The first couple hours of Klonoa: Door to Phantomile. Then it starts getting depressing, tragic, and sometimes downright horrifying.
  • Hilariously parodied in Creatures II, (and probably in Creatures I as well) where the baddies and goodies taste like diabetes but commit all sorts of bloody acts of violence on each other.
  • In the Dungeon Keeper games, this seems to be one of the reasons for the war against the surface, or at least so suggest the mission briefings. Eg: "Sing Song. A joyous realm, filled with life and music. Let us silence their wailing voices once and for all."
  • Xbox 360 Kinect launch title Kinectimals. Those cubs has to be the cutest things to ever grace Microsoft's console.
    • Though when it was first shown at E3, the presentation was so full of Narm that the word "Skittles" became an instant meme.
    • So they're not the creepiest things ever to be put together from ones and zeroes?
  • This trope has been played straight, exaggerated, lampshaded, parodied, deconstructed, exploited, and who knows what else in the Ar tonelico series. Saki from Ar Tonelico 3 even has an attack that turns enemies (including people) into cake.
  • Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands are teeming with Kawaisa. Taken Up to Eleven in world 4 of Rainbow Islands, where all of the enemies are toys and it has even brighter colors than the other worlds.
  • A literal version in The Several Journeys of Reemus—the honey made by Sugar Bees is so potently sweet that ingesting even a small amount will cause a temporary diabetic coma while the body sorts out all this extra sugar. Injection works just as well, so any schmuck with a dart gun can weaponize the effect.
  • In contrast to the somber Tragic Marionette and Sinful Rose's Fragrance that play of the Game Overs of the first two Disgaea games, Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice has the Maritsu Evil Academy Entrance Applicant Recruiting CM Song: a tune so peppy and cheerful that most fans suspect that the game is making fun of them for dying.
  • In Rod Land, absolutely everything is cute, from the characters, to the bosses, to the surrounding environment.


Web Comics

  • The Jinxlets of the webcomic Starslip Crisis. The Jinxlets get nourishment through SNUGGLING.
  • Vinci from Vinci and Arty; consult your physician before attempting to read this webcomic. Occasionally lampshaded as the 24 year old male raccoon gets confused for a 10 year old boy or girl.
  • Chibi Mikusan. Oh mother of god, the whole of you will be disintegrated at everyone's adorableness there.
  • Heavily lampshaded in this The Dragon Doctors. Oh, and then the author demanded someone put it on here. So I did.
  • This Xkcd strip starts off appearing as a straight example, before diving into subversion so fast it'll set the air on fire.
  • My Milk Toof even has a ridiculously adorable title!
  • Lampshaded quite effectively by this DMFA comic.
  • Tiny Kitten Teeth, especially the Tigerbuttah strips. It's enough cute to make your brain reboot.
  • Done (in a weird way) and lampshaded in this Something*Positive.
  • Homestuck features the ever so lovable Squiddles! You can even buy a poster!
  • Parodied with an NSFW Comix April Fools' Day strip, then subverted the next day.
  • Slightly Damned's romance is cemented firmly in the diabetic range, which can grate against some of the less romanticly inclined chartacters.
  • In El Goonish Shive, Susan began physically choking after Elliot and Sarah started flirting in the same room as her.
    • And then there's this. Justin's response two pages later sums up everything that can be said about that...
  • The Perry Bible Fellowship plays with this very often: lots of strips start too sweet, but end in some horrible bloody mess. Also, in the strip Suicide Train shows a character who has such an aversion to a too sweet world.
  • Narbonic passed into this territory for a while. It was lampshaded by the characters wondering if they were disturbing the readers by being all cutesy and flirting all the time. They then remembered that they were evil, so the readers could suck it.


Web Original

  • At one point, the cast of The Funday Pawpet Show got annoyed with a handfull of channel dwellers who kept complaining that the show was getting too raunchy. In response they split one episode into two parts - First half was The Squeaky Clean Pawpet & Friends Show which fit this trope, followed immediatly by The Poink Show which allowed the naughty weasel to crank the raunch Up to Eleven.
  • Cute Explosion.
  • This.
  • Used for laughs in Happy Tree Friends. Their misadventures often begin with them playing, doing something innocuous or disgustingly cute typical of animated animals. Of course, it ends badly.
  • The titular giant Killer Rabbit in Big Bunny gives his thoughts on the matter:

Too many sweet things can make your brains sticky and unpalatable.

"Pictures that invoke so much adoration that they cause near physical harm to occur. This is far above the level of just cute. Pictures that are HHHNNNGGGGG worthy."


Western Animation

Pebbles: I know a way to make wishes come true/Easy as climbin' a tree/Just close your eyes and open your heart/Slowly repeat after me.../Tickle, toddle, nickel-y noddle/Toodle-a bell and a shoe/These are the magical words I say/ when I want a wish to come true

  • Lila, the "ever so" sickeningly sweet farm-girl from Hey Arnold!!, and Olga at times.
    • Therefore, the episode where Lila becomes Olga's "little sister" as part of a program is absolutely rife with this stuff.
  • The Fairly OddParents episode "So Totally Spaced Out", where little cutesy creatures that speak in Painful Rhyme known as "Giggle Pies" become a huge threat to the cuteness-hating, violence-loving inhabitants of the planet Yugopotamia.
    • Somewhat ironically, Giggle Pies actually taste of manure when eaten themselves.
  • The 'Disney Universe' in Family Guy. That is, until Mort Goldman the Jew shows up, prompting a reaction to the annoyingly persistant rumor of Walt Disney's anti-semitism.

Stewie: Oh yeah I forgot. This is a Disney universe....

    • In the episode "The Former Life of Brian", Brian gushes about his son to extremes. When he finally leaves, Joe remarks to his owner, "Peter, your dog is giving me diabetes."
    • Brian as a puppy in "The Man with Two Brians". D'awww~
    • Invoked by Tom Tucker when Diane Simmons pretends to act excited and interested by their interns, Meg and Niel.

Tom: Don't act any cheerier, Diane, you'll give us all diabetes.
Diane: Bite me, Tom!

  • Foofy Wuggums, the little lost and frightened imaginary friend from the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends TV movie Good Wilt Hunting, who is literally a pink teddy bear who speaks in Baby Talk. Hell, just look at his name...
    • And it certainly helps that he's voiced by Tara Strong, the Ultimate Mistress of Cuteness.
  • The Pastoral Symphony segment of Fantasia. Rosey-assed cupids, simpering centaurs, and candy-colored unicorns and pegasi bury the viewer under an avalanche of sugar.
    • Right up until Zeus shows up and crashes the party.
  • The opening scene in the South Park episode "A Very Crappy Christmas", where Kyle and Ike wait for Mr. Hankey in the bathroom. They even left out cookies and milk for him which got eaten by a cockroach.
  • Parodied in Time Squad, where they portrayed Edgar Allan Poe of all people as this. It's only until the characters start criticizing his pink cake that he's Maddened Into Misanthropy and becomes the poet that history knows him for.
  • In The Secret Saturdays, Drew Monday is very much like this to Zak, when pretending to be his mother. She does later say:

"You do not know how nice it is to not have to pretend to care about you anymore."

Agnes: It's so fluffy I'm gonna die!

  • Lady Rainicorn from Adventure Time Looks like a toy but is really a Badass Adorable.
  • In the Futurama episode "Lethal Inspection," we get baby Bender.
    • Lampooned mercilessly in the episode "Love and Rocket", and summed up nicely by Lrrr (Ruler of Omicron Perseii 8):

"This notion of "wuv" confuses and infuriates us!"

      • And from the same episode, the Lovey Bears.
  • Many of Chuck Jones's pre-Dove Boys shorts such as the Sniffles series. He revisited his earlier penchant for the cutesy in Feed the Kitty.
    • And of course there's his little penguin, who brings out rare protective reactions from Bugs Bunny, quite against his will.
  • Parodied in the extreme in 'The Vampire Strikes Back' episode of Count Duckula where they visit the Planet Cute.
  • Certain scenes of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. Specifically, anything involving Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, or Apple Bloom. The show does like to play with this trope: Fluttershy's bashfulness is a source of much humor on the show, while Apple Bloom's cuteness is counterbalanced by her forceful and outgoing personality, as seen in her overbearing sales pitch for the family apple stand in "Call of the Cutie". Meanwhile, Pinkie... is different.
    • Played straight and mocked in "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", where the excessively sweet story is deflated by Scootaloo's mockery. Spike gets in on the mockery too when he comments on Twilight's unusually corny friendship letter.
    • The trope is subverted from the very first with the Title Sequence that initially begins with the usually treacly melody, until it explodes into a rock tune following the sequence's fast cutting making it clear that this incarnation is under new management.
  • The later seasons of Rugrats, particularly the ones with Dil and Kimi.
    • Well, it is a show about babies, so the entire show could be considered this.
  • The direct-to-video and DVD Recess special "All Growed Down", with the main six as kindergarteners.
  • The Land Of Dreams in The Dreamstone is a surprisingly undiluted in this regard, especially with the Noops, Rufus and Amberley (this only worsened in later episodes, which dissintegrated what few obnoxious traits they initially had). Possibly played deliberately as they were to some extent Hero Antagonists.
  • Ed Otter from Brandy and Mr. Whiskers when he tells that Dougie the turtle story: "It was a misty morning in the amazon, much like today, and Dougie the turtle was wondering why his shell was so hard while his heart was so soft. Oh whiskers, you had never seen colors so bright and pretty. Dougie knew right away that this was a very special cesspool. And so the happy magic piggies laughed and danced and played until the wee-wee hours of the morning. The end!"
  • Melissa from Phineas and Ferb.
  • This episode of Krypto the Superdog has kittens and puppies galore and every one of them will are melt-your-face cute.
  • Puppy In My Pocket: "Let the spirit of the friendship heart light the way the the magic fountain".
    • It gets exceptionally painful when one of the show's hyper-sugary theme songs starts blaring over it all. Parents joining their children are advised to cover their ears if they have sensitive kidneys.
  • (usually) Subverted by Bubbles Utonium on The Powerpuff Girls. She can induce diabetes in one moment then kick as much ass as her sisters the next.
  • Winx Club has the prison of Lightrock expose the inmates to great amounts of cuteness to bring them to reform. It got mixed results with the Trix: while in prison they swore to be even more evil once they were out, but when they were about to be brought back in two seasons after breaking out they were absolutely terrifies of being imprisoned there again.
  • Roll had this reaction in the Mega Man cartoon to a park attendant's overly sugary demeanor and voice.
  • The Disney Junior cartoon T.O.T.S. is guilty of this. In every episode, the protagonists, Pip and Freddy, deliver super-cute, neon-colored baby animals. And they always sing cheerful songs while they're at it. Ugh.

Other


Real Life

  • The streetcar system in Würzburg, Germany has a chorus of little kids announcing the next stop. Downright creepy, not to mention rather difficult for non-native speakers to understand.
  • One symptom of uncontrolled diabetes is excretion of glucose in the urine. Back before the development of analytical chemistry, the only way to diagnose the condition was... You guessed it - tasting.
    • In fact, the proper name of the disease is diabetes mellitus, referring to the fact that the urine is sweet like honey.
    • If you're not diabetic, sometimes urine can also taste sweet if you consume a lot of artificial sweeteners, like diet soda. Or So I Heard.
  • The Japanese street fashion Lolita has a crazy lovechild between Sweet Lolita and Decora; OTT Sweet Lolita.
  1. ↑ It's actually Suite Pretty Cure, but it's written the same in Japanese
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