The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter

The resemblance is uncanny.

Mokie: You do not know what it means to have a homely daughter, Mayhi. I'm ready to give him a cow, just to take her off my hands. This is what comes of having a two-cows wife. Look at you! You paid four cows for your wife--
Mayhi: Five!
Mokie: ... and she gave you beautiful daughters. Your investment has been doubled.

—Two incredibly ugly fathers in Johny Lingo

So you meet and befriend some older guy on your quest to save the world. He's big, loud, much older than you, and probably ugly as sin - but he's fun to be around and you generally respect him. Some time after you become friends, you learn that he has a daughter. More than that, he's already set you two up on a blind date.

Okay, you can deal with that. She won't be pretty, but she'll probably be nice enough. You don't want to insult the father and after the whole thing you can probably just say that she's not your type—mother of God is that her?! Daaaaaayumn.

Congratulations, you've just met The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter. Sometimes, not only is there a lack of Strong Family Resemblance, but they barely even look like they're of the same species. Often this will be handwaved by making the child the spitting image of her mother instead or by stating that daddy used to be quite a catch, but the point stands that she looks nothing like her undeniably unattractive father.

This trope usually only applies to girls (though not without exceptions), but you probably knew that already. Often the ugly guy is the villain.

Daughter of Ugly Guy, Hot Wife (unless...). The twin sister of the Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter. In Science Fiction and Fantasy stories, can combine with Cute Monster Girl as a form of Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism. Contrast Strong Family Resemblance.

No real life examples, please; this is way too much Your Mileage May Vary on both the father and the daughter.

Examples of The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter include:

Anime & Manga

  • Pictured above: Chi-Chi from Dragon Ball, after the aptly named Ox King produces a photo of her, the only response anyone has to offer is, "Whoa. She certainly doesn't take after you."
    • One could say Videl from Dragonball Z qualifies as a mild example, as her dad Mr. Satan is fairly average looking.
  • A near textbook case is an episode of Fullmetal Alchemist, where Alex Armstrong gets the idea that Lt. Havoc would just love to date his sister Katherine. After Havoc spends a good deal of time freaking over what she'll look like after seeing her super-stout father and giantess mother (complete with the memorable "Pomato" theory), it turns out that Katherine is an adorable Moe girl that looks nothing like her brother, father, or mother...who then promptly rejects him. Additionally, Alex also has the totally hot, absurdly badass sister Olivier/Olivia Armstrong. (An Omake from the manga shows that in addition to Alex's two gorgeous sisters, he also has two other sisters who look just like him, only bigger.)
  • In addition to placing in the Ugly Guy, Hot Wife trope, Mr. Kimura from Azumanga Daioh raises a cheerful and apparently well-adjusted daughter. However, she's only a little girl instead of someone who would be ogled over.
  • The Excel Saga manga plays with Gonk Guy's Cute Little Sister for all it's worth with Sumiyoshi and his sister Canal, who "talks" like her brother despite the lack of resemblance. Sumiyoshi's friends spend the entire chapter speculating about the genetic implications: their father's a Hot Dad with the "family voice", while their mother's the Sumiyoshi lookalike, with normal speech balloons.
  • Urusei Yatsura. The huge, monstrous king of the alien Oni looks nothing like his green-haired bombshell of a daughter, Lum, who definitely takes after her mother. In fact, even compared to the other male Oni in the series (particularly Chick Magnet Rei), Mr. Invader is something of a Gonk.
    • And with Sakura there's a Ugly Gal Hot Daughter example.
  • Ranma of Ranma ½ is a looker, as is his magical-change female form. His father Genma's appearance is noticably improved by being changed into a panda (And even then, a female of the species commented that he was pretty damn ugly for a panda). This is explained by Ranma getting all his looks from Hot Mom Nodoka.
    • That and Genma apparently USED TO look attractive. It's just that, unlike Nodoka, he didn't age very well.
    • Another example is a story from the first season. There's a noodle salesman whom Genma promised Ranma his daughters hand in marriage in exchange for some food; he is a short fat ugly guy with enormous ears, but his daughter Kaori is quite attractive.
  • Charles zi Britannia. Granted, he's not as hideous as some of the guys on this list, he still gets credit for the sheer number of stupidly hot kids (Lelouch, Nunally, Cornelia, Schneizel, Euphemia, Clovis, Guinevere, Carline—and that's just the ones we manage to see onscreen) he's produced, male or female.
    • Try saying that after seeing the Emperor Chuck in his younger days. He just aged badly.
      • I wouldn't say he aged badly, its just that hairdo that does him unjustly.
    • With Lelouch and Nunnally, their mother was beautiful. Strangely, Nunnally is a cute character who has the smallest chest of any of the Emperor's children even though her mother has the largest chest of woman in the show, though she's still young and thus she has time to grow. Clovis is a particularly interesting case, since the unidentified middle-aged woman sitting in the front row at his funeral, presumably his mother Princess Gabrielle, is plain.
  • Amelia and Gracia aka Naga from Slayers. Their father Philionel is described as looking like an ugly, oversized dwarf. The difference is more openly acknowledged in the novels.
  • Ennis from Baccano!!. No, she doesn't get a pass for being an Artificial Human: a significant majority of her body is made from Szilard's intact cells (though she does make mention of an unwilling female donor), meaning she may even be the creepy old guy's Opposite Gender Clone for all we know. However, Szilard was quite old by the time he became immortal, so that could be a factor.
  • Although Asuna would tell you different, veteran sword master Eishun has usually been described as plain-looking and unintimidating. He was much more handsome in his younger days, but this was usually offset by his serious personality and single-minded density. Despite all that, his daughter Konoka is one of the most naturally beautiful characters in the cast. This was later lampshaded by Eishun's old partner Rakan.

"Ohhh? I suppose you must be Konoka-chan, then! Now this is a shock! How did that straight-laced old ponce manage to come out with a beautiful little girl like this?"

  • Porco Rosso: Piccolo is Ugly Cute at best, but his granddaughter is a typical Miyazaki heroine.
  • Tsuna from Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Thank God that he took after the Vongola Primo instead of his father.
  • In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, this is followed with Lord Genome and his daughter Nia. It's shown that Lord Genome looked exactly like his daughter back when he was young, which explains her looks. (As seen here, especially when compared with Nia when she cut her hair.)
  • Ryoko and Sanzo in Angel Densetsu. Every time he comes to parent-teacher meetings is mistaken for a yakuza. Goes (a bit less) for Ikuno as well. And of course when you add in Kitano's father as well you have a Melee a Trois on school grounds. We conveniently never see the girls' mothers, but for Ikuno you just have to take a look at her Expy: Claire.
  • Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple has Kensei Ma and his daughter Renka. It's a sort of subversion as Kensei used to be quite attractive.
    • Kenichi's parents may also be an example, though his father isn't exactly ugly. On the other hand, the men in this manga can look very different in body structure, while the women have three body structures: preteen, smoking damn whOaMG hot, And Zoidberg Kisara.
  • Ranzou Saotome of Macross Frontier is not an attractive man, either due to age or just being born rather plain. His son Alto, on the other hand, is a pretty, pretty princess—and nobody will ever let him live it down. Apparently, he gets it from his mother.
  • Xiang Ying is quite the looker despite the fact that her real biological father (no not that lecherous dude) literally scares the heck out of people by his stare alone. There is indeed a scene where they are trying to figure out how to work a photo machine and end up having the same expression. It also helps knowing about her mother, Xiang Ping, looks almost like her and is also quite the looker as well.
  • Borderline case: Gendo Ikari is a scary looking man with fierce eyes, even as a young man. His son Shinji is Bishonen enough that his character design is lifted almost wholesale from a female character. Assuming you don't hate his guts, Shinji's adorable. Flashbacks in the series and other sources do give Shinji a slight but still quite noticeable resemblance to Gendo, but for the most part he takes after his dead mother Yui, who was very beautiful. A straight example is Gendo and Rei, since she is a partial-clone of Yui.
  • Death the Kid from Soul Eater. Not that his dad, Shinigami-sama, is ugly, per se, it's just that all we see of him is a skull mask on a shadowy cloak with inexplicably large, goofy hands. His son? A pale bishonen with black hair (except for his 3 white stripes), and Eyes of Gold, who usually sports a suit.
    • It should be noted that Shinigami-sama said he changed his look from frightening to a Lighter and Softer image for the school's image.
      • Given recent indications, there's a chance that at some point in time Strong Family Resemblance actually applied, with Shinigami looking like Kid. Because Mosquito had to have seen the Sanzu Lines somewhere before.
    • Kid is seen wearing a similar outfit to the one his old man appears in at one point, though he looks noticeably more badass.
  • In Irresponsible Captain Tylor, the cute/pretty Single-Minded Twins are the granddaughters of a guy who is adorable-looking in an Ugly Cute kind of way- he looks about eighty and bears something of a resemblance to Hans Moleman. Also, he was definitely so old that he was a hero of the last great war and he dies of old age near the end of the TV series.
  • Happens in the Trigun anime. The only identified daughter of the Nebraska family, the first named villains to show up, is a fairly normal and physically attractive girl. Her dad looks like a horrifically ugly old guy with three teeth, and her mother is... younger looking, but pretty much a cybernetics-free Opposite Gender Clone of her son, Gofsef. That is to say, a 20+ foot giant built like a bodybuilder and with a swollen, deformed head.
  • Big bruiser Tennouji from School Rumble has an adorable little sister, Mio.
  • Happens a lot in Et Cetera (although the daughters are more cute than hot). Luriele and her dad in the second book, Cornelia and her (literal) bear-looking dad in the eighth book, the priest and his daughter Coronet in the fifth book, hell, even Mingchao and her grandpa could count.
  • One of the secondary antagonists in Mobile Suit Gundam, Dozle Zabi, is a heavily scarred, hulking ogre of a man who in all likelihood wasn't good-looking even before the explosion that scarred him. 17 years later in Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, we find that his now grown up daughter Mineva Lao Zabi is quite attractive.
  • Fairy Tail has Lucy and her father.
  • In Bleach there Omeada's little sister compared to the other members of the family and he thinks she's the ugly one.
  • Kurotsuchi from Naruto compared to her father and grandfather.
  • Pokémon Special. Bianca's father is a very short, very angry, mustachioed man. In the anime adaptation, her father, while more plain than outright ugly, is a large, bulky man.
  • In One Piece, we have King Neptune and his only daughter Princess Shirahoshi. Though his sons have inherited his looks (Your Mileage May Vary on the oldest Fukaboshi). The explanation is that they are merfolk. Their genes have a long memory, meaning that it’s more likely that a baby takes after his/her ancestors than his/her parents.
  • Vice-principal Uchiyamada and his daughter in Great Teacher Onizuka.
  • Just about every single heroine from Adachi's works, of the she takes after her mom variety. Some of the dads aren't exactly ugly but they sure aren't a looker either. The hero's dads though, could very well pass for being quite a looker in their younger days.
  • Tokimeki Tonight, pretty rich girl Yoko's yakuza father is horrible ugly, looking more like a shaved gorilla than an actual human, much to the dismay of main protagonist Ranze when she transforms into the doting father's daughter.
  • Death Note has a male example, while Soichiro isn't ugly exactly his son the Bishonen Light looks nothing like him.
    • And played straight in the case of Souchirou's youngest daughter Sayu, who grows into a very Tall, Dark and Bishoujo teenager.

Comic Books

  • Hagar the Horrible's daughter Honi is a beautiful, full-figured blonde. Even better, she can't be explained by Hagar's wife, Helga, who looks like a stereotypical Wagnerian soprano (as in: "It's not over until she sings") playing Brunnhilde.
  • Doctor Sivana, Captain Marvel's archenemy, has four children: Georgia and Junior, who look just like him, and the subtly named Magnificus and Beautia, who take after their mother Venus.
  • Dick Tracy has Sparkle Plenty, stunningly beautiful daughter of clock stopper B.O. Plenty and his (former) Abhorrent Admirer wife, Gertie Gravel.
  • Wolverine and X-23 from the X-Men series (although not in the traditional sense, since she's a test tube baby / partial clone).
  • Cassandra and her father David Cain, although this is quite realistic. David is rather grizzled and scarred, as he has been a top level assassin most of his adult life and Cassandra really gets her looks more from her mother Shiva Wusa.
  • In Sonic the Comic's Mutant League comic (unrelated to the cartoon), we have Coach Brikka (orc-like mutant) and his daughter Brenda (apparently normal human, and a busty blonde one at that). Could be justified in that mutations may not be hereditary.
  • Tenebris and Shun-Day from Les Legendaires both play with this trope; Tenebris, despite her father being the creepy old Evil Sorcerer Darkhell, is an incredibly sexy Dark Action Girl, though this is justified both because Darkhell, once brought back to his youth, is shown to be a quite attractive Bishonen, and because she is not exactly his daughter in the genetical sense; he created her through a formula that allowed her mother, Queen Adeyrid, to breed her without mating; Shun-Day, on the other hand, is the "dauthger" of a bird-like demonical Evil Sorcerer who looks like a monster by human standards. While she is not his real daughter either, the fact she is a clone of her still makes it weird.


Film

  • In the Marlon Wayans comedy Senseless, we learn this in reverse. Wayans' character, Darryl Witherspoon, spends the entire movie wooing a gorgeous, light-skinned black girl, and later on we find out that her father is Darryl's boss, who is both plain-looking and white. Upon discovering this, Darryl immediately assumes an interrracial marriage was involved.
    • IIRCL, "marriage" wasn't mentioned, but he did compliment his boss on having "jungle fever"
  • Paulie Bleeker of Juno is somewhat of a male example. Being played by Michael Cera, he is cute in a male-Moe kind of way, with a frumpy mother described by Juno as "possibly was hot once, but now looks like a hobbit."
  • Victoria of Corpse Bride, while not necessarily "hot," is quite pretty. What's interesting is that not only is her father not much of a looker, her mother is, quite possibly, worse.
  • In Grown Ups, Rob Schneider's character has two beautiful daughters from previous marriages, and another one that looks exactly like him.
  • In the classic monster movie Them, the dorky Absent-Minded Professor who is sent to help shows up with another entomologist too. An incredibly gorgeous brunette. His daughter. How on earth this could have happened is stranger than the idea that atomic bomb tests could have turned ants into giant monsters the size of a truck.
  • In Run Fatboy Run, Mr. Goshdashtidar is the father of the unbelievably, incredibly hot Maya.
  • Gender inverted in the Shrek films: Fairy Godmother is short, plump and plain featured at best. Her son is literally Prince Charming.
  • The grouchy landlord Mr. Ditkovich's daughter in the Spider-Man series.
  • In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, you look at Cedric Diggory and his dad and you think Ced got all his looks from his mom.
  • The Virgin Suicides, commented on in the movie.


Literature

  • In Discworld, the female offspring of Igors were described as uniformly lovely. Which makes one wonder how/why (at least) one of them could pass as a male Igor.
    • It's suggested that Igors are good enough surgeons that visible stitches, stoops, lisps etc are completely avoidable and are only kept for the sake of fashion/tradition - but this doesn't apply to Igorinas, who get the full benefit of cosmetic surgery with none of the mandatory hideousness (and the Uberwaldian blood probably helps).
    • Sourcery has Conina, the beautiful warrior-maiden (who would rather be a hairdresser) who happens to be the daughter of Cohen the Barbarian, who when we last saw him a few books ago, in The Light Fantastic, is a skinny, bald old man covered in scars. She says she got her looks from her mother (who was a temple dancer).
      • Even though Cohen takes into account the fact that he is ANCIENT. As a young man, he was the greatest barbarian alive, and probably way better looking.
        • * It's possibly that Twoflower and his at least one gorgeous daughter (depending on what you think of the description of Pretty Butterfly) could count. He's probably closer to "not handsome" than "ugly", though, so perhaps not.
  • A Subversion of the "looks like mother" explanation was used in Lois McMaster Bujold's The Warrior's Apprentice where Elena Bothari has all the features of her father, but rather than being scary and ugly, they are beautiful. For example, Sargeant Bothari is a six-foot-six monster of a man, quite imposing. Elena Bothari is a tall, slender woman.
    • Becomes a painful plot point when after Bothari's death, Elena's mother can't stand to even look at her, because she looks too much like the man who raped her.
  • Eileen Stoker in The Butler Did It (by P. G. Wodehouse). Her father was a boxer.
    • Lampshaded in Indiscretions of Archie: "Your mother must have been terribly attractive."
    • In the Mulliner story, "Romance of a Bulb-Squeezer" this trope evokes the following dialogue:

"What do you mean," [Clarence Mulliner] cried, "by saying that she took after you?"
"She does."
"She does not. She is the loveliest girl in the world, while you look like Lon Chaney made up for something."

    • Somewhat subverted in that the girl in question is implied to be quite plain, possibly even a bit homely. Clarence is a photographer and is so tired of taking photographs of lovely girls that she seems beautiful to him.
  • Fleur Delacour of Harry Potter fame was easily the most beautiful good guy in the entire series. When we meet her parents in Deathly Hallows, her father is described as short and plump with a pointed black beard, and "nowhere near as attractive as his wife." (Who Fleur of course closely resembles.)
      • Granted, Fleur and her mother are part-Veela so everybody next to them looks plain.
    • Also a gender inversion in the case of Tom Riddle. His mother Merope is rather unfortunate-looking due to inbreeding in the family, and used a love potion to snare handsome muggle Tom Riddle Sr. The head of the orphanage recalls that when Tom was born, Merope said shortly before she died that she hopes he looks like his daddy. Boy howdy, did he! And the woman who ran the orphanage told Dumbledore that she also hoped Riddle Jr. looked like his father because "[Merope] was no beauty". Ouch.
  • In the book The Princess Bride, Buttercup's mother and father are both described as quite tiny and ugly, and both of them are not exactly sure how they managed to produce Buttercup, but they're not going to investigate the happy accident.
  • Gender Flipped in one of Neil Gaiman's short stories in Keepsakes and Treasures, in which a specific human bloodline is marked by the women all being hideous-looking and the rare male offspring being the most beautiful people in the world.
  • Subverted Trope in Cookie by Jacqueline Wilson. The main character, Beauty's, father was expecting his daughter to take after her gorgeous mother, but instead she took after him...her name doesn't suit her.
  • Kitai in the Codex Alera is a Hot Amazon White-Haired Pretty Girl. Her dad, on the other hand, is the cheerfully fugly and grotesquely overmuscled chief of the Gargant tribe. We like him anyway.
  • In the Star Wars Expanded Universe novel The Bacta War, Corran Horn meets his girlfriend Mirax Terrik's father Booster for the first time. His immediate response is "Oh, I guess you take after your mother."
  • Redwall has Bowfleg and Bluefen from The Outcast of Redwall. It explicitly states Swartt was VERY surprised that the ugly, stupid, overweight Bowfleg could father the frail and pretty Bluefen.
  • In Alexandre Dumas The Woman With the Velvet Collar, Antonia looks like an angel. Her dad is wizened, pockmarked, and has a leg twisted like a corkscrew.
  • In A Song of Ice and Fire, Roslin Frey certainly won the genetic lottery. Her father, Walder Frey, is described as weaselly (he was at best on the ugly side of average in his youth, but old age has deteriorated his appearance) and thoroughly unpleasant. Roslin, on the other hand, is a classic delicate beauty. It's worth noting that Walder Frey had 29 children, just counting the ones born in wedlock, and most of them were varying degrees of unattractive.
    • Sansa Stark could also count, since on a few occasions her father Lord Eddard Stark is described as having a plain and unremarkable appearance. Sansa, meanwhile, is an extremely beautiful redhead who takes after her mother Catelyn Tully.


Live-Action TV

  • One Three's Company episode had an Ugly Guy's Hot Cousin: Mr. Roper asks Jack to take his cousin Karen out to cheer her up (he thinks Jack's gay and won't make a move on her). Jack initially tells him that he can't do it because he has other obligations on the same night, he and the girls speculate on what a woman would look like with Mr. Roper's face and/or body... and then Karen shows up at the door. Jack very quickly changes his mind about turning down Mr. Roper's request (though it also was partly because Mr. Roper offered to pay him).
  • Similarly, Drew's cousin, played by Nikki Cox, on The Drew Carey Show; all of the Careys (and Drew's friends and acquaintances) marvel at her very existence.
  • Elle Bishop on Heroes: "And Stephen Toblowsky fathered Kristen Bell... how?"
  • On Night Court, Dan Fielding, Prosecutor and Man-Whore, is told by his boss the D.A. to look after the Boss's niece. As the D.A. is a Small Person, he expects the niece to be as well. Instead, she's an industrial-strength hottie. (And he's under orders to be a gentleman, which is difficult because he's a man-slut and she's handing out nude pictures of herself and bragging about being double-jointed.)
  • The Munsters was a show in which the entire family were freakish monsters...except for Marilyn, the hot blond "black sheep" of the family. This was usually played for humor - a normal guy would get stuck having to meet what he assumed would be an even more hideous monster than her parents, while her family would try and talk down her "bad points"...and the guy would finally meet her.
    • Given the basic cast were a Frankenstein's Monster and a Vampire, who somehow produced a Wolfman son, Marilyn is probably the most least odd example of genetics on the show.
      • Considering that a made-for-TV movie depicted her parents as Bride Of Frankenstein and a meek mad scientist... no she isn't.
  • In a 3rd Rock from the Sun episode, the Solomons befriend an overweight, unattractive couple. Tommy sees a picture of their hot daughter (which we don't) and describes her as "a triumph of aerobics over genetics".
    • In another episode Tommy meets his girlfriend's parents. When he sees her father, a bald, ugly man, Tommy's perplexed. Then he meets the mother, a perky blonde just like her daughter, he goes "Oh, now I get it!"
  • Al and Kelly Bundy from Married... with Children. His backstory has him being a football player good-looking enough to score with a cheerleader (what Peg used to be). The only reason Al is "ugly" is that he's gotten older and his diet hasn't helped any.
    • In Ed O'Neill's new show Modern Family not only does he have a young, hot wife but his grownup daughter from a previous marriage is hot as well.
  • Tiffany Malloy (played by the aforementioned Nikki Cox) in Unhappily Ever After (a blatant self-rip-off from the producers of MWC).
  • Scorpius and his daughter Trakeena on Power Rangers Lost Galaxy
    • She is supposed to evolve into a form similar to her father, but she dislikes the idea.
  • The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: Will reluctantly agrees to go on a date with Jazz's sister, whom everyone assumes will look like Jazz in drag. In reality, she's very attractive, but she has other issues.
  • Chris on Parks and Recreation has this exact reaction when he begins to date Butt Monkey Jerry's beautiful daughter.
  • Donna Pincilotti on That '70s Show definitely takes more after her mother.


Theater

  • Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: Sweeney Todd and Johanna. Averted Trope in the movie, where he's allegedly ugly but it's still Johnny-frakking-Depp. Forced transport to Australia for years of hard labor probably do one's looks no favors. In the theater performances, Sweeney Todd more often looks like he's played by a foot. A fat foot.
  • Variation: "Meeskite" from Cabaret is the ballad of an ugly couple who eventually have a beautiful baby boy; the wife, Pearl, is even uglier than the narrator.
    • That's the expurgated version. In the original version, the wife isn't ugly, she's Jewish. The resulting child doesn't look Jewish. Or, at any rate, through the doting father's eyes. The joke is that Jewish = ugly; the only attractive Jew is one who happens by some accident not to look Jewish. Since the song is one of the cabaret songs, and is thus a burlesque song sung in Germany just before WWII, it makes perfect sense, but some audience members didn't quite "get" the difference between the songs that were part of the ordinary score, and the songs in the cabaret, and were offended, so the song was changed. In the 1980s rewrite and revival (where Cliff is finally gay), the song was not used. However, in the 1972 movie, where all the songs are in the cabaret, and none are in the body of the film, the original "she wouldn't look Jewish at all!" version is used.
  • Rigoletto, an ugly hunchback, has a beautiful daughter, Gilda. (Based on Le Roi s'amuse by Hugo, who must've liked hunchbacks.)
  • Don't Drink the Water: Main character Axel is shocked when he meets the shrubby and crazy Walter's gorgeous and polite daughter, Susan.


Videogames

  • Princess Medea of Dragon Quest VIII fits this trope.
  • The Legend of Zelda has a few examples:
    • Links Awakening has father Tarin (who looks like Mario) and his cute & gorgeous daughter Marin (who is said to look like Zelda).
    • In {Ocarina of Time, there is a bit of a contrast, shall we say, between the esteemed King Zora XVI and his daughter Ruto. Malon and Talon, modelled after Marin and Tarin, are similarly dissimilar. In Malon's case, it is possible due to one of Talon's remarks that her mother was a Gerudo or had traits of one, explaining her appearance.
    • In The Wind Waker, Mila and her father.
    • This also happens in Twilight Princess, where Ilia is quite cute compared to the Mayor of Ordon Village.
      • This is lampshaded in universe. By a Goron.
    • And in Skyward Sword, where Zelda's cuteness has nothing to do with her owl-faced dad.
  • Bartre's daughter Fir in Fire Emblem 6. She takes after her mother.
  • In Dynasty Warriors, the daughter of Zhang Fei, Xing Cai. Gender inverted with Xiahou Ba, who is much more handsome and attractive than his father, Xiahou Yuan.
    • Xiahou Ba's attractiveness is even lampshaded by Zhang Fei, who complains that Ba bears no resemblance to his father at all.
  • Princess Garnet of Final Fantasy IX turned out not to be the daughter of the gigantically obese, blue, ogreish Queen Brahne, seemingly averting this, but then you remember that Garnet was picked for Brahne's adopted daughter because she looked nearly identical to the Queen's recently deceased baby and then your mind starts boggling again.
  • Gender inverted in Mask of the Betrayer. Want to know what Cute Monster Guy Gannayev's mother looked like? This. Good thing he took after the father, huh?
  • Sweet little Eliza from Harvest Moon DS: Island of Happiness always gets weird looks when she mentions that she's the daughter of the constantly scowling carpenter, Gannon.
    • The Tale of Two Towns has adult stunner Laney and her hulking, Camp Straight Gonk of a father, Howard.
  • Natalia from Tales of the Abyss is considerably cuter than her father, Largo and her adoptive father: King Ingolbert.
  • Not a real application, but invoked in Breath of Fire III: to smuggle Nina (an adorable little winged-human girl) out of Wyndia, Garr (a giant beast-man) claims she's his daughter. The border guard blanches for a second, then declares she must have a beautiful mother.
  • Rayn from the Jak and Daxter series is the daughter to Krew. And if you've seen what Krew looks like, heaven help the woman he ended up with to produce her!
    • And to a lesser extent, Keira and her father Samos.
      • And to an even lesser extent, Ashelin and her father, Baron Praxis.
  • While Manfred von Karma from the first Ace Attorney game is rather weathered and harsh looking, his daughter is rather more pleasant in court. If a bit harsh.
    • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney case 3:3 features Viola Cadaverini [dead link] who is quite pretty (in a dark and edgey way) as apposed to her grand father, Bruto Cadaverini, and her father who is never named but shown very briefly in case.
    • This may be different depending on your views but Lauren Paups is attractive while her father is more on the unattractive side. Once again, Your Mileage May Vary on this one.
  • Guilty Gear has a case of ugly woman's hot daughter: Dizzy, the Fetish Fuel Station Attendant, is actually the daughter of Justice, a borderline Eldritch Abomination.
    • Justice once used to be a human woman but turned into an Eldritch Abomination so that may not count.
    • Justice is pretty much given to be hot when she was still human, Sol would probably not be so hung up on her if she wasn't.
  • Subverted Trope in Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories: It's revealed at the very end of the game that Rozalin and the guy claiming to be Zenon are not in fact related by blood.
    • Played semi-straight with Mao in Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice: Mao's a somewhat cute (creepy Mad Scientist tendencies notwithstanding) nerdy humanoid-looking demon. Then you meet his father's Ghost. The guy's single finger is four or five times Mao's height! Pity his mother.
      • Hey they live long, they have a long time to grow big or get fat.
        • Remember that said overlord was extremely fond of using elaborate ruses to scare people away and a VERY powerful sorceror if provoked into combat. That brings the question of how much of that was actual size and how much was illusion. Regardless he was probably pretty tall anyway, especially with that menacing armor to bolster said size.
  • Hypothetically, Gen'an Shiranui and Mai Shiranui according to some fans. However, this is unconfirmed.
  • The Sims 2 players who marry their sims to funny-looking townies often end up with surprisingly attractive sim offspring. Pleasantview townie Goopy Gilscarbo is particularly infamous for having gorgeous kids.
  • Gender flipped in the Mushihime-sama series. Larsa is fat and her beauty or lack thereof leaves much to be desired. Yet her older son Aki is beautiful, and Palm looks to be following in Aki's footsteps.
  • Gerald and Maria Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog. Subverted in that Maria is Gerald's granddaughter.
    • Dr. Eggman, on the other hand, is almost a spitting image of Gerald, albeit younger and fatter.


Web Originals

  • Doctor Thadeus Thanos. a Mad Scientist villain from the Global Guardians PBEM Universe was an ugly, scrunched up hunchback whose face looked half-melted. His daughter Gladiola, on the other hand, was not just beautiful, she was stunningly so. Of course, he did genetically engineer her to be that way...
  • Jobe of the Whateley Universe started out as a carbon copy of his unattractive supervillain dad: short, nerdy, weasel-faced,... But one lab accident later, and he's now the Beautiful (drow) Daughter of the Ugly Father.
    • Or Techwolf's (Harry Wolfe) father and his sisters. Due to a curse on an ancestor, the men in Harry's family look like the werewolves from The Howling. The daughters all look gorgeous.


Western Animation

  • In episodes taking place in the future, Homer and Lisa Simpson provide an example of this trope.
    • See Ugly Guy, Hot Wife for an explanation of Homer's ugliness. Also, Lisa wins second place in a beauty pageant.
      • During a game of Monopoly.
      • ... And also a real pageant in season 4.
    • Future Maggie also resembles Future Lisa pretty closely.
    • In an episode set in the future, Lisa marries Milhouse and they have a teen daughter named Zia who resembles Lisa. She was genetically engineered to have the "best of their DNA" which meant mostly Lisa's.
  • Disney
    • One wonders how Maurice ended up with tall, skinny Belle for a daughter.
    • Likewise concerning the Sultan.
    • This is mentioned by The Nostalgia Chick in her Disney Princess review. She talks about how there is a period of time when the princesses seemed to have goofy, old dads who they tried to escape by getting married.
    • Averted in Mulan. Fa Zhou is still quite good-looking, and is even a Cool Old Guy instead of being a Bumbling Dad.
  • Pixar's Brave has Mérida, a Tomboy Princess who is quite attractive. Her father King Fergus is a good ruler and family man, but he's not really much of a looker.
  • A Goofy Movie features the hero's crush Roxanne, a short, curvy, pretty young girl with an extremely large, hairy, mean, overweight Overprotective Dad.
  • Family Guy averts this. Peter Griffin is no looker, but his daughter Meg is as ugly as sin.
    • Canon may try to make her as ugly as possible but Meg has the same facial design as her mom who is considered drop-dead gorgeous.
      • And Word of God states that people are really harder on Meg than her appearance or behavior warrants.
    • However: the episode Meg gets a makeover, she turns out to be drop dead gorgeous.
      • And when Peter went blind from nickel poisoning, Lois stopped wearing makeup. Brian urged her to resume using it.
  • The Replacements inverts this trope, too. How the beautiful Shelton's mother could give birth to a two hideous abominations like Shelton and Shelly defies all rational explanation.
  • Jimmy Neutron has Professor Calamitous and his daughter Beautiful Gorgeous (Yes, that is her real name)
  • Phineas and Ferb has Dr. Doofenshmirtz and his daughter Vanessa.
  • Subverted Trope in Hey Arnold!. Helga and her father both have unibrows and billy goat shaped ears, and Helga is so plain looking that she tends to get mistaken for a boy. In contrast, Miriam (Helga's mom) and Olga (Helga's older sister) are better looking than both of them.
    • Although in episodes where Helga wears different outfits, such as the Valentine's Day episode, she's actually quite pretty.
  • The Flintstones early 70s spinoff The Pebbles and Bamm Bamm Show where Fred Flintstone's daughter Pebbles is now a teenager.
  • Amalia and her dad, from Wakfu
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