The Team Wannabe

Come on, guys! Let me describe The Team Wannabe here! I can be a great troper!

A character wants to be part of some group, whether a gang, club, or being a superhero's sidekick. They'll keep begging and pleading until they get in. Sometimes they even might, but usually they just stay the wannabe since Status Quo Is God. In a few cases, they might get spurred enough to start to resent the group that rejected them, becoming a villain (or hero, if the group turns out to be evil).

The Tagalong Kid is often this. An Ascended Fanboy is often a former wannabe.

Compare Never Be a Hero, I Just Want to Be Special, Hero with an F In Good.

Contrast The Drag Along.

Compare/Contrast Jumped At the Call.

Examples of The Team Wannabe include:

• Syndrome in The Incredibles wanted to be Mr. Incredible's sidekick.
• Princess Moorbucks in The Powerpuff Girls wanted to be a Powerpuff Girl at first.
• Anybodys of West Side Story really wants to join the Jets.
• In Gall Force, Mitty is the Tagalong Kid variant. Sandy allows her to follow them because she's the local expert on where the best hiding places are.
• Chang in the second season of Community wants to be part of the study group.
• In The Simpsons, Chief Wiggum wanted to be in the Be Sharps.
  • Rudy from the episode "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" really wanted to be in Homer's Super Bowl group. As the kid himself says, "What I lack in size, I make up for in obnoxiousness!"
• John Cleese in the Monty Python Abbatoir sketch, which rails against the Freemasons who rejected his membership application.
• Lorne (The Friend for Life!) from the Sam and Max cartoon really wants to be a freelance policeman. Sam and Max are less than enthusiastic about it.
• Katsushiro from Seven Samurai
• Chico from The Magnificent Seven.
• In Saint Beast, Shiva is desparate to enter the Saint Beast rank to be close to Judas, and even nearly gets another candidate killed over it. He ends up the only contestant who doesn't get in because of this, and his later petitions to be let into the group are shot down for the same reason.
• In Hi-de-Hi! Peggy's entire character arc was her desperately trying to join the camp entertainers, The Yellowcoats. Many a Zany Scheme was attempted in this aim.
• Scandinavia and The World's Estonia desperately wants to be one of the Nordics, "because she wants to party with the cute booooys!".
• Irving time and again tags along with his idols Phineas and Ferb, which is unwelcome to the rest of the kids in the group. Phineas and Ferb themselves welcome him, except in Irving's first appearance, when they are freaked out by his stalker nature.
• Ivar in Tales of Xillia.
• Marty (Mega-Girl), in the Whateley Universe, wants to become one of the Empire City Guard. She keeps trying to fight with them and they keep telling her parents what she's been up to. She's an extremely powerful Flying Brick but she's a sophomore in high school and she can't legally be a superhero until she's eighteen. Meanwhile, the Empire City Guard is the premier superhero team in New York City.