Sitcom Arch Nemesis

"Hello...Newman."
"You boys made me have to apologize to Mrs. McClusky, my worst enemy."
—Lynette, Desperate Housewives

The Sitcom Arch Nemesis is a very different creature from the dramatic or action-show Arch Enemy. He usually isn't dangerous or evil, for the most part he's just very annoying—sometimes he's actually a very nice guy. However benign or friendly he is, he just rubs a character from the show (usually the lead) entirely the wrong way, and the two will never miss an opportunity to have at each other. Often the character and his nemesis are kindred spirits and don't even realize it; these rivals are much more likely to have an Enemy Mine plot than dramatic rivals.

This character is almost never one of the main cast. Exceptions to that rule include Mimi, Drew's nemesis from The Drew Carey Show, who is pretty much the second main character of the series; and Marcy from Married... with Children, who started out as just an ultra-nice neighbour but wound up as Al's cackling nemesis. An all-purpose jerk along the lines of Frank Burns from M*A*S*H doesn't count, since he's hated by everyone equally.

Examples of Sitcom Arch Nemesis include:

Anime and Manga

  • In the various versions of the anime/manga El-Hazard, Jinnai always has a near-psychotic hatred of Makoto, school ace and a Nice Guy to boot, who easily makes friends with anyone, including Jinnai's sister Nanami. It also doesn't help that Makoto is too nice to notice that he's been beating him in almost every aspect without even trying.
  • Subverted in A Little Snow Fairy Sugar: Greta considers Saga to be her rival in all things, but Saga, who is uninterested in rivalry, pretends to be completely oblivious to Greta's challenges and boasts.
  • Axis Powers Hetalia
    • France and England, so much that there's a "French-English Quarrel Preserve" and England gets involved in The War of the Austrian Succession just to fight France. It's said that antagonizing each other is the only thing that keeps the two old timers going, and of course, it's Truth in Television.
    • Greece and Turkey too, and in fact Turkey is the only thing that makes the usually laid-back Greece get riled up at all. Also, Hungary and Romania.
  • Cowboy Andy from Cowboy Bebop, who is a rival bounty hunter in it for the glory. Spike hates him, and spends more time fighting off Andy than he does actually trying to catch the episode's bounty. Faye and Jet realize that this is because the two men are too similar: Both are impulsive, petty, tend to jump to conclusions and have a penchant for causing wanton collateral damage.
  • Gash Bell's enemies numbered among them a demon who could brainwash other humans, a giant mindless destruction machine... and a weird-mouthed human who delighted in tormenting him. Somehow, that last one was a challenge he never overcame.
  • Yotsuba&! has Yanda, whom she instantly hates with a hatey five-year-old hate but other characters merely find annoying. It doesn't help that Yanda takes a childish glee in figuratively yanking her pigtails.
  • Piyoko from Di Gi Charat and the Digi Devil from Panyo Panyo Di Gi Charat really try to be legitimate Big Bads, but being inept villains in humor series whose schemes rarely rise above the level of Poke the Poodle dooms them to be this instead.
  • Watanuki from Xxx HO Li C hates Doumeki for no adequately explained reason, and just refers to him as annoying him since the moment they met. Unfortunately for Watanuki, Doumeki is also a living spirit repellent, while Watanuki's very blood attracts spirit, so he's often forced into Teeth-Clenched Teamwork with Doumeki. Further complicating matters, several people in universe seem to ship him with Doumeki, including his own boss and the girl he likes, and there's some indication that Doumeki isn't adverse to the idea.
  • In Kekkaishi, Shigemori and Tokiko spent their mornings attacking each other with gardens hoses; it's part of their feud about the 'legitimate heir' of the Kekkaishi founder. Both are rather upset that their grandchildren don't share their grudge.
  • Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai
    • A rare mutual form can be found in Yozora Mikazuki, a brunette Jerkass extraordinaire, and Sena Kashiwazaki, a ridiculously hot Rich Bitch. Yozora loves heaping verbal, emotional or sometimes physical (by way of a flyswatter) abuse upon Sena until the latter storms off crying; Sena in return loves showing off how rich, beautiful and hot (not to mention huge-breasted) she is compared to Yozora. But at the end of the day, both are Not So Different, being friendless girls who tend to agree on anything they, ironically, are Comically Missing the Point on.
    • To a lesser extent, Kobato Hasegawa, a 13-year-old Elegant Gothic Lolita, and Maria Takayama, a 10-year-old nun, who engage in outright childish fights over the attention of the former's older brother, Kodaka.
  • The Evil Organization Florsheim from Astro Fighter Sunred are the sitcom arch nemesises of Sunred, who finds them all incredibly annoying for constantly picking fights with him. Florsheim, on their side, are Contractually Genre Blind and know that as an Evil Organization they must fight the superhero in order to Take Over the World... But they're really bad at the whole 'being villains' part.


Comic Books

  • The "Super Buddies" (a group of losers Formerly Known as the Justice League) had a pair of neighbours building a bar next to their headquarters. One of them was Richard "Dick" Hertz; Sue hated him when she found out that he was once the supervillain Blackguard (who?), who worked for the "1000" in Metropolis (oh, that Blackguard, sure). Oh, and Dick had an associate in the bar, who was once the greatest American hero, or so he says -- Guy Gardner
    • Humorously, Blackguard was a recurring enemy of Booster's in his early solo career, but neither seems to remember each other.
  • Donald Duck and his neighbor Jones (essentially a larger version of Donald).
  • Deadpool and Squirrel Girl had this kind of relationship when the former hung around the Great Lakes Avengers.


Fan Works


Film

  • In The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, Steve perceives that he has a professional rivalry with Hennessy, but it's pretty obvious that in reality the former is simply bitter that the latter is a more successful oceanographer, the former husband of Steve's ex-wife and kind of a jerk.
  • In Office Space, Michael Bolton feels this way about Michael Bolton.


Literature

  • In the Discworld book Snuff, Lord Vetinari appears to have reached this level of 'enmity' with the crossword editor of The Times, whose mastery of obscure linguistics and terrible wordplay is advanced enough to give even him pause.
  • In the first chapter of Lunar Park, Bret (in a semi-fictionalized account of the author's real life) takes several personal shots at Keanu Reeves.


Live Action TV

  • In Seinfeld, Jerry had Newman.
    • Jerry also had Kenny Bania although that was one sided as Jerry was Bania's idol.
    • Likewise, George had Lloyd Braun, while Elaine had Sue Ellen, "The Bra-less Wonder".
    • Kramer had FDR... Franklin Delano Romanowski.
    • Unusually for a sitcom, a recurring character had an arch enemy. Jack Klompus was this to Jerry's father Morty.
  • As the description says, Mimi and Marcy are main characters who are these. In fact, because they are main characters, they are more frequent sources of the Enemy Mine.
  • In Frasier, Frasier had Cam Winston. The two were virtually identical to each other, in that they were pompous, snooty, articulate egomaniacs. When they finally called a truce because they thought their parents were dating, their "treaty" included them agreeing to share grooming and personal care advice on features the other one had noticed.
  • In News Radio, Jimmy James had Johnny Johnson.
  • In Dads Army, Captain Mainwaring (the pompous, upper-middle-class bank manager whose power and authority as Home Guard platoon leader has gone straight to his head) has Chief ARP Warden Hodges (the pompous, lower class greengrocer whose power and authority as Chief ARP Warden has gone straight to his head).
  • In Wizards of Waverly Place, the Magnificent Bastard Alex Russo has Gigi.
  • In Cheers, Sam's nemesis was the rival bar "Gary's Old Town Tavern".
    • Also John Hill, owner of "Melville's" the restaurant upstairs.
    • Carla also considered Diane to be her worst enemy with Cliff perhaps a close second.
    • Woody had his father-in-law Mr. Gaines.
  • Mr. Bean had his sadistic grudge against that blue Reliant Regal car.
    • His diary features a similar relationship with the Man in Room #3 down the hall, told entirely through the notes that he leaves outside the door and Bean sticks in the book. They decide to bury the hatchet (literally!) on New Years Eve.
  • Blackadder had an interesting one; it could be argued that Edmund Blackadder himself was the Sitcom Arch Nemesis for most of the series. Captain Darling in Blackadder Goes Forth is this trope played straight and the same could apply for Melchett in Blackadder II.
  • In Scrubs, J.D. has the Janitor and, briefly, hotshot intern Keith.
    • J.D. and Sean also don't much like each other. What with stealing each others girlfriends.
  • In Father Ted, the titular character has Father Dick Byrne. The two constantly get into ridiculous one-upmanship contests, not realizing how similar they are; one episode ended with a split screen of their two households, with identical action going on on both sides.
  • Mrs. McClusky on Desperate Housewives started out as this for Lynette, but ended up as a subversion as the two eventually came to understand each other as the series went on and formed something of a friendship.
    • There's also Susan vs. Edie.
  • In That '70s Show, Red Foreman's arch-nemesis is Bob and Midge Pinciotti. Something of a subversion, as, for as much as Bob annoys Red and Midge annoys Kitty, the two are probably the couple's closest friends.
    • Also, Mitch and his father are enemies of Eric and Red. This was a subversion of the "actually very nice" example, because, as they started losing battles, they revealed their problematic relationship. In later appearances, Mitch was reduced to a joke.
    • Fez has Fenton.
    • Eric's trampy sister Laurie served as the Arch Nemesis to no less than three characters in Jackie, Hyde and Eric himself.
  • The 'perfect mother' Barb Valentine in The Mommies.
  • The UK version of The Office had Tim vs. Gareth. The US version has Michael against Toby and Dwight against Jim; in the former case, Toby looked upon Michael's "rivalry" with a measure of disbelief, and in the latter case, Jim uses it as an excuse to constantly pull pranks on Dwight. A somewhat more straightforward rivalry in the US version was Dwight vs. Andy, first when Andy attempted to usurp Dwight's position as Michael's favorite and later when both got involved in a love triangle with Angela. They have since become fairly good friends.
  • In Grounded for Life, Finnegan had O'Keefe as a nemesis. Their children were dating. Also, Finnegan's bar had "McGinty's".
  • In the latter seasons of 3rd Rock from the Sun, Dick had Vincent Strudwick. Tommy dated Strudwick's daughter Alissa, making them Star-Crossed Lovers.
  • Jake "the Klingon" Klinger, rival plumber to Ben and sci-fi fanatic, in Two Point Four Children (although he retained his Star Trek based nickname, the show he had allegiance to changed in every appearance).
  • In How I Met Your Mother Ted has a big beef against the rival architecture collective "Sven."
    • Also in season one, he has a one-sided rivalry with Robin's two main love interests - Sandy Rivers and Derek.
  • On The Dick Van Dyke Show Buddy Sorell made every attempt to insult producer/ bald brother-in-law of the star Mel Coolley.
    • It's also Lampshaded that their enmity is totally idiotic. Buddy's explanation for why he keeps making fun of Mel is "I do it 'cause I like to rib him! And..I sort of...hate him."
  • Stan Sitwell to the Bluth Family in general, and George Sr. in specific. Subverted by the fact that he is a genuinely nice man who is largely oblivious to the extent of the Bluths' disdain for him, and that George dislikes him because he is in the same business and just as successful (without the need to resort to illegal practices), and his philanthropy makes the Bluths look bad. George and Lucille even went so far as to adopt a daughter they didn't want (Lindsey) who Sitwell was trying to adopt, purely to spite him.
    • Lucille also had Lucille 2, her very nice neighbor who wanted nothing more than for the Bluths to succeed. Once, Lucille 2 hired some construction workers to renovate her apartment while she was away, and Lucille wound up getting them to move the wall dividing their homes two feet in, and install a larger bathtub for her.
  • In Chuck, Season 1 had Harry Tang, arch-nemesis to Chuck and Morgan at the Buy-More. Season 2 had Emmit Milbarge fill the role (and how spectacularly he did).
  • In Peep Show, Mark has Jeff.
  • On Full House, once Michelle takes over the Little Miss Snarker title from Stephanie, Stephanie redirects her snide remarks towards Kimmy, who only occasionally fires insults back due to her relative lack of wit. In fact, of all of the main cast who ever makes fun of Kimmy, Stephanie does it the most often—sometimes multiple times in a single episode.
  • In Reba, Brock has not one, but two nemeses—Eugene (a rival dentist) and Lori Ann (Reba's friend). Both of them are eventually Put on a Bus.
  • Adrian Monk has Harold Krenshaw, who shares a therapist and many phobias and neuroses with him. The rivalry is mutual, usually over who is better friends with the therapist or who has made more progress.
  • The Big Bang Theory's Sheldon Cooper actually has two of these, the first being Barry Kripke, who he once got in an Escalating War with (it didn't end well), and the second being Wil Wheaton. The latter has had a showdown with Sheldon twice and Wheaton triumphed both times. However, he used underhanded tactics both times. You might count the Indiana Jones showing as a third occasion, meaning Sheldon has one victory.
    • Shelly is just great at getting arch nemeses. Do not forget Leslie Winkle. Afterall, who "made Sheldon Cooper cry like a little girl?".
  • In addition to the Home Improvement example below under public figures, Tim also hated the nearby but never seen Doctor Johnson, an 80 year old proctologist who won the Christmas lighting competition every year. Considering the lengths Tim goes to beat him, the doctors display must have been quite a sight indeed.
    • Alternatively, Tim's exceptionally overdone and usually dangerous displays may actually have been illegal in the contest (leading to disqualification) and the good doctor was the best of the legal entrants. Given that one year, his display was bright enough to enable a plane landing, illegal is likely. (Then again, they won that year.)
  • From Half And Half Big Deedee Thorn regularly competes with her husband's ex-wife Phyllis. She also has an evil sister.
  • My Wife and Kids has Wanda being this to Michael. They always argue when talking to each other.
  • Sabrina the Teenage Witch has Libby.
  • In Parks and Recreation, there is an extremely bitter rivalry between the parks department and the library department, as well as the entire city of Pawnee with Eagleton (though it's mostly one-sided).
  • iCarly has two pairs: Sam with Freddie, and Carly with Nevel.
  • In It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the gang has a feud with the McPoyles, an exceedingly creepy family with a passion for milk, sleepwear and incest. Charlie and Smitty also qualify.
  • In Coupling, Patrick has Ivan, who is like the uber-Patrick, complete with snazzy car, corner office and blonde trophy wife.
  • Modern Family plays with this trope in the episode where Cam is hosting a charity function for a music appreciation group. He keep referring to his rival (who hosted the event the year before) as his new nemesis. Mitchell tries to point out that it's just silly in real-life, but Cam takes great delight in the drama the relationship allows for.
  • Community has Jeff's rivalry with Rich, the handsome doctor who is always better than him.
    • There is also the rivalry between Prof. Duncan & Senor Chang which they eventually settled through Mutually Assured Destruction.
    • There's also Jeff and Leonard's antagonism.
  • Everybody Loves Raymond Ray actually calls Peggy, the leader of his daughter's scout troop and mother of her best friend, his "arch enemy".
    • The rivalry between Debra and Marie can be seen in this way.
    • Marie thinks that Harriette Lichman is her archenemy for Frank's affection. Frank casually toys with her on that.
    • Raymond occasionally banters with his neighbor Parker despite Ally and Parker Jr. getting along nicely.
    • Robert and Raymond's sibling rivalry borders on this a time or two.
    • Peter, Robert's brother in law started out as this. Ironically his sibling rivalry between himself and Amy has been known to mirror Raymond and Robert's. Not to mention he is currently dating Raymond's arch enemy Peggy.
  • Played with in Sherlock. Sherlock's arch-enemy is revealed to be his smug but concerned brother Mycroft, who just wants to end their silly feud.
  • Town selectman Taylor Doose from Gilmore Girls generally only exists to annoy the main characters, and generally the whole town of Stars Hollow with his obsessive need to control every aspect of the town. Luke in particular sees him as an arch nemesis.
  • Sanford and Son has Fred Sanford and his sister in law Aunt Esther.
  • On It's Your Move, the rivalry between Matthew and his neighbor/mother's boyfriend Norman was the premise of the series.
  • Lizzie McGuire has Lizzie and school bully Kate Sanders.
  • In I Dream, Natalie was this, mostly to Amy. Though when they're forced to work together they do end up getting along in the end. If only until the next episode.
  • Thirty Rock
    • Jack Donaghy and Devon Banks.
      • More recently, Jack and teenager Kaylie Hooper.
    • Jenna Maroney is no stranger to this trope. Her official arch-nemesis appears to be Jenny McCarthy, but she's also apparently had a feud with Raven Symone.

She knows what she did.

Bill: Hasn't this been done before? I mean, every year some billionaire goes up in a balloon.
Mr. James: Why do you think I'm doing this? The peer pressure among billionaires is tremendous. Bill Gates practically called me a Nancy-boy.

  • On Home Improvement, Tim's hated rival Bob Vila made several guest appearances, often dismissing Tim's show as a ripoff of his own.
    • Tim shows a surprising bit of maturity after a race when he reveals to his wife that he could have won but let Bob win as to do so would have been at extreme risk of destroying the car. Bob bought his car and would just get a new one, Tim built his over the course of a year and wasn't going to throw all that work away just to prove a point.
  • On the short-lived sitcom Hope And Gloria, talk show host Dennis Dupree (Alan Thicke) has a massive grudge against, um, actor Alan Thicke. This comes to a climax at a Growing Pains reunion on Dupree's show which ends in a Thicke on Thicke fistfight.
  • On Caroline in The City, it's Caroline's strip vs. the strip Cathy.
  • On Scrubs, Dr. Cox and Hugh Jackman.
  • On Night Stand, Dick Dietrich and Jerry Springer.
  • Although not an individual person, Australia in general seems to serve in this role for Murray and the band in Flight of the Conchords
  • Karen Walker in Will and Grace has a competition with Candice Bergen.
    • And likes to torment Marlo Thomas
  • In the first season of Mitch Benn's Crimes Against Music Mitch's arch-nemesis was Richard Stilgoe, especially as Robin Ince mentioned Stilgoe whenever Mitch referred to himself as The BBC's most popular satirical songwriter. They eventually battled it out in the final episode of the season, and became friends.

Mitch: Looks like I'll need a new arch-nemesis for the next series.
Richard: Is Bill Bailey ready for this?


Newspaper Comics

  • Comic strip example: in Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin had Susie Derkins. It has been suggested that the two might get to like each other if Calvin ever outgrew the belief that Girls Have Cooties. (Of course, he never got past age six in the comics.) One storyline had Calvin create a duplicate of himself with the morality switch set to "good", who got along very sweetly with Susie, much to the original Calvin's horror.
    • It could be argued that Calvin's real nemesis was Rosalyn the baby-sitter, who was the only person Calvin actually seemed to fear.
    • With Moe, things balanced out in a cosmic sort of way. Calvin ran intellectual circles around Moe, but Moe had the raw physical power to make that not really matter that much in the immediate short term.
  • Bucky from Get Fuzzy has Fungo, the ferret that lives next door. Much to Bucky's consternation Fungo becomes a good friend to Satchel.
    • It's probably safer to say Bucky is Fungo's Sitcom Arch Nemesis, rather than the other way around. Bucky seems to dislike Fungo (and ferrets in general) on the basis that they're too clever by half, and attempts to wage a campaign of harassment against Fungo; Fungo, on the other hand, doesn't really seem to care much about Bucky at all, outside of subverting Bucky's gambits by being too clever by half.
  • Garfield and Nermal.


Radio

  • Phil Harris, of the radio sitcom The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show, had two of these on his show: his brother in law Willy and the grocery boy Julius, who is in love with his wife, Alice.
  • Possibly the grandfather of them all, Jack Benny and Fred Allen.


Theatre

  • A very dark version from Cabaret in the form of the promiscuous Fraulein Kost, who turns the play's extremely sympathetic Jewish character over to the Nazis, then rallies a bunch of background characters to Nazism in the truly spectacular Villain Song that closes act one. Her motive in doing this? To spite her landlady.


Video Games

  • The relationship between Tycho from Penny Arcade and Homestar Runner's Strong Bad in Poker Night At the Inventory.
  • Raul Tejada and "Best Friend" Tabitha in Fallout: New Vegas. In the Black Mountain Radio channel, Tabitha is often threatening Raul with execution. However, Raul merely needs to remind her that he has not outlived his usefulness and is the only one who could possibly repair her beloved robot Rhonda (as well as being a useful repairman in general), to her frustration. If the Courier does not complete their quest, the two are still at it for a long time.


Web Comics

  • Pv P has Max Powers. Cole and Brent hate Powers with a passion, with Francis often joining in on the hate on. It gets to the point his name is the comics' The Khan whenever something goes wrong for Cole.
    • Later on Cole admits that he doesn't even really have a good reason for hating Max, he's just petty and begrudges Max the fact that he's an overall good guy and more successful than Cole.[1] This admission prompts Max to go on walkabout, as the Australians call it, and he eventually comes back with the grating edges sanded off his personality, and the staff of the magazine grow to think of him as a good friend.[2]
  • In Sluggy Freelance Gwynn seems to feel she and Torg have this relationship at times. Torg actually thinks of her as a really good friend, if maybe a little too hot-headed.
  • The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob has Jean and Voluptua. Jean has always considered Volly to be a rival for Bob's affections and resented her for it. After years of ambiguity, her suspicions have now proven to be true.
  • Chet from Tip of the Iceberg
  • Problem Sleuth and his next-door neighbour Ace Dick detest each other for unknown reasons, although at the start of the story he does accidentally blockade PS in his office with a bust of Ben Stiller. They continue writing insulting notes to each other and pissing on them until PS accidentally orders AD a load of whores, and AD decides it's time to bury the hatchet and start working together with PS to get out of the building.
  • Rachel from Dragon City and her neighbor Emily don't like each other, though they got a little better when their daughters became friends and a little better after Rachel became Emily's deputy mayor.
    • Rachel's daughter, Erin has a girl named Cynthia that she's always feuding with at school.
  • Shows up in Anime Arcadia.
  • Commander Badass in Manly Guys Doing Manly Things has Canadian Guy.
  • Jeph Jaques and Sam Logan act like each others' sitcom arch nemesis in guest comics and on their own comics' homepages, but are friends in real life.
  • In Casey and Andy, Andy had an Escalating War across time with none other than Grover Cleveland.
    • Although Grover Cleveland made regular one-panel appearances for years, before the final arc where he was a major character. And it turned out there were really good reasons for all of it.
  • In an example that exists only in the character's head, Sensei Greg of El Goonish Shive is convinced that Carrot Top is his arch-rival.


Web Original

  • The Angry Video Game Nerd and The Nostalgia Critic play this to each other. The guys who play them actually get along in real life, but even the character's attempts to do a review together ends in them beating each other up... again.
  • In Soon I Will Rule The World, the main character has an unusual one in that said archnemesis is one of his own minions, the Shapeshifter, who keeps playing annoying pranks on him. He would get rid of him if not for the fact that the Shapeshifter has a nigh ungodly resilience to death and whenever AA tries to kick him out, it always turns into a case of The Cat Came Back.
  • This is more or less the best way to describe the relationship between Encyclopedia Dramatica and Uncyclopedia, and The Other Wiki too for that matter. (We're the wacky special guest if anything.) Although the former two tend not to bother feuding anymore since given that they're both parody wikis (albeit with entirely different themes) and all involved just look silly.
  • This very wiki sometimes appears to view The Other Wiki this way, while believing that from the other side it's more like Unknown Rival.
  • Inverted Trope in Red vs. Blue, as despite the two sides literally being at war, they act in more of a friendly rivalry, and the only one to actually take the war seriously is Sarge.
  • On Twitter, Kevin Smith and Neil Gaiman treat each other this way. (In real life, they are friends and fans of each other's work.)
  • Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics is occasionally this to Randall Monroe of Xkcd, explaining xkcd's scorning of North's field of expertise ("Because FUCK computational linguistics"). Like the previous examples, they're really friends.
    • Meanwhile, North and Andrew Hussie played this to each other for a while, to the point of... well, this. Again, actually friends.
  • Hitler Rants Parodies depicts Fegelein this way.
  • Ghost has Alex Jones and Howard Stern.

HOWARD STERN IS RUINING AMERICA!


Western Animation

  • The Simpsons has many examples :
    • Homer has Ned Flanders, who was almost always jovial and kind in return.
      • Reverend Lovejoy also feels the same way about Flanders.
    • Homer also had Frank Grimes, though that was entirely one-sided.
      • Another one-time example for Homer was being George H.W. Bush in "Two Bad Neighbours".
    • There is a noted mutual dislike between Homer and Patty and Selma.
    • Bart has an actual Arch Enemy in Sideshow Bob (who tried to kill Bart and some family members a few times, so not just a Sitcom Arch Nemesis), but apparently is also an enemy of radio personality Dr Demento.
      • Principal Skinner is more conventionally a sitcom arch nemesis to Bart.
    • Maggie has Gerald, the baby with one eyebrow.
  • In The Fairly OddParents, Mr. Turner had his one-sided rivalry with his next-door neighbor, Mr. Dinkleberg. Or, as Mr. Turner usually called him, "Dinklebeeerg..."
    • Mind you, in one episode the two of them fought each other with milk-powered Giant Mecha. Dinkleberg didn't seem to have a problem with the idea.
  • Kappa Mikey provides us an odd example, where the lead is the Sitcom Arch Nemesis to another main character. Mikey is utterly oblivious to Lily's seething hatred and jealousy towards him. This is what happens when you put the Cloudcuckoolander and the Alpha Bitch on the same set.
  • Given the way supervillainy is treated in The Venture Brothers, The Monarch and Doctor Venture fall under this trope. The Monarch's aggression is hardly noticed by Venture himself, seems almost completely arbitrary (aside from the fact that Venture made fun of The Monarch's poetry in college), and Doctor Girlfriend has even acknowledged within the show that the two share enough similarities to be good friends were it not for the supposed hatred that exists between them. However, the Monarch has genuine, murderous hatred toward Rusty for reasons yet to be revealed.
  • Futurama:
    • Professor Farnsworth's rival "Wernstrom!"
    • The ongoing and largely unexplained hatred of Zoidberg on Hermes' part. It was shown on subtle occasions that Zoidberg was something of an annoying leech to him, as well as his incompetent qualities that Hermes barely tolerates the rest of the team for. Add to that his sheer lack of backbone and he's the ideal stress ball for a traditional bullying employer.
      • This is on odd case however. Yes, Zoidberg could be annoying sometimes but he never offended anyone directly since it was more of a case of What an Idiot!. While the others accepted this, Hermes, for some unexplained reason, constantly goes "Bananas" on Zoidberg, even when the latter did nothing.
    • Zoidberg did have one with the medical robot in "War is the H-word".
    • Leela and Zapp Brannigan.
  • Dexters Laboratory had Mandark, who is practically the same person as Dexter except more evil. They would have gotten along great if not for both of their egos demanding the other one be their assistant.
    • This was elevated in a Retcon in a later episode, where it is revealed Mandark's entire ascension into scientific study was motivated by getting back at Dexter for laughing at him when they first met.
    • And then 'Ego Trip' he becomes an actual villain, stealing Dexter's latest invention and using it to conquer the world and drain everyone's intelligence until they regress into extreme stupidity.
  • Family Guy
    • Stewie/Bertram, Chris/Monkey, and Peter/Ernie the Giant Chicken.
    • The show seems to be slowly developing Quagmire and Brian into this manner, though it was more of a one sided hatred on Quagmire's part at its earliest points.
  • King of the Hill Hank Hill had... Thatherton! A rival propane salesman who used less than morally scrupulous methods!
    • He also had a pretty major rivalry with Kahn Souphanousinphone...sometimes.
  • Darkwing Duck hated Gizmo Duck, mainly due to Gizmo's skillset (Flying Brick vs Badass Normal) and popularity (The Ace vs Butt Monkey) being the complete opposite of Darkwing's.
  • Chowder Mung Daal and "Endive."
  • Adventures of the Gummi Bears has Gruffi and Grammi as this, due to the former's Jerkass attitude.
  • Bob's Burgers is across the street from Jimmy Pesto's Pizzeria, and the two managers have a mutual obsessive hatred as a result.
  • South Park has their iconic rivalry with Kyle and Cartman. Cartman is an insane anti-Semitic Comedic Sociopath, Kyle is an over-persistant voice of logic (and a Jew). Their feud ranges anywhere between exchanging childish insults or actually trying to kill each other on numerous occasions.
  • American Dad has Chuck White, Stan's next-door neighbor.
  • Phineas and Ferb: Although Doofenshmirtz is an actual villain and he has a real Arch Nemesis/Best friend in Perry the platypus, he also has a Sitcom Arch Nemesis in Rodney, a fellow villain.
  • Dee Dee, Marky, and Joey are this to Oggy from Oggy and the Cockroaches.
  • In ChalkZone: Rudy Tabootie has Mr. Wilter and Reggie Bullnerd.
  • Scaredy Squirrel has Nester (who is also the show Big Bad) and Paddy Padderson (who is also one of the shows Dragons).
  • Sidekick's Eric Needles has Professor Pampelmoose and Master XOX.
  • Kim Possible and Bonnie Rockwaller.
    • Ron Stoppable and Mr. Barkin
  • Angela Anaconda: "Oh no, it's Ninny-Poo."
  • Bessie Higgenbottom of The Mighty B! has three of these. The first being Alpha Bitch Portsia. The second being Portsia's Yes Girl Gwen. The third being Anton St. Germain.
  • My Gym Partners a Monkey Protagonist Adam Lyon has Principal Pixiefrog, Bull Sharkoski and Chad.
  • Trudy Beekman from Archer who's never actually been seenl on the show, but Mallory almost constantly complains about her.
  • Doug Funnie and Roger. Also humorously echoed in Doug's dog Porkchop and Roger's cat Stinky.
  • Looney Tunes has many examples. Bugs Bunny of course had Elmer Fudd then later Yosemite Sam, Wile E Coyote and The Road Runner had the Road Runner, Sylvester had Tweety and Speedy Gonzales, and Foghorn Leghorn had the Barnyard Dawg.
  • Family Guy
    • Lois' father, Carter Pewterschmidt is rivals with Ted Turner.
    • And Peter is in bad relations with James Woods.
  • Clone High had Principal Scudworth's perpetual rivalry with John Stamos. "STAMOOOOOOS!"
  • Wilbur Cobb from The Ren and Stimpy Show apparently had an antagonistic relationship with Walter Lantz ("No-account son of a bus driver...") back in the good ol' days.
  • On American Dad Francine has a pathological hatred of George Clooney; she spent an entire year trying to get him to love her just so she could break his heart. When that didn't work, she chopped her own hand off so she could escape from some handcuffs to kill him.


  1. ↑ the only hint of anything less than exemplary character on Max's part, in fact, was an inability to see Skull the troll, and this is hinted to be more self-absorbtion than any legitimate sin on Max's part
  2. ↑ He can see Skull too
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