History Main / PunchClockVillain

The trope used to be an odd plot device, but it has become increasingly frequent due to the popularity of the superhero parody genre, where the supposedly EvilMinions are portrayed as sympathetic employees for unreasonable bosses. In addition, nearly all anime series featuring a comedic villain usually have these type of minions, who are frequently cute characters like the PerkyFemaleMinion.

** All four members of I.M.P. are this to varying degrees. Blitzo outright revels in killing people and puts up a facade of extreme misanthropy, but is shown in ''C.H.E.R.U.B.'' to show at least some level of concern for the ""why" of their clients paying his company to kill someone, even if he won't necessarily say "no" to a job on the grounds that they've done nothing wrong. Moxxie plays this trope perfectly straight, having a panic attack when he was asked to kill people who he perceived as innocent. Millie borders on this trope and AffablyEvil, but it's because she's a StepfordSmiler raised in an environment where your value as a person is primarily determined by how good you are at killing things, and when she discovers that she's good at things ''outside'' of killing it causes her to have an identity crisis because all of her self-worth was tied into that one thing. Loona doesn't even like working for I.M.P. or even join the other members out on missions that often. She just works there as a secretary because Blitzo is her dad and he owns the company.
** Stolas is introduced as a perverted AbhorrentAdmirer to Blitzo and is actively working to help the leaders of Hell TakeOverTheWorld. However, he doesn't help them out of malice and doesn't do more than is expected of him as a Prince of the Goetia Family (except in the pilot where he orders a hit on an anti-climate change politician to cause more people to die from global warming, [[CanonDiscontinuity but that doesn't count]]). Even his perverted behavior towards Blitzo is far more sympathetic than it initially appears, being a well-meaning, but emotionally stunted manchild coercing Blitzo (who, to be fair, let Stolas believe he was fine with it until almost the end of Season One) into being an outlet to cope with his failed arranged marriage and having a MyGodWhatHaveIDone moment when Blitzo tells him point blank that he feels objectified and there was never anything between them other than transactional sex.

** All four members of I.M.P. are this to varying degrees. Blitzo outright revels in killing people and puts up a facade of extreme misanthropy, but is shown in C.H.E.R.U.B. to show at least some level of concern for the ""why" of their clients paying his company to kill someone, even if he won't necessarily say "no" to a job on the grounds that they've done nothing wrong. Moxxie plays this trope perfectly straight, having a panic attack when he was asked to kill people who he perceived as innocent. Millie borders on this trope and AffablyEvil, but it's because she's a StepfordSmiler raised in an environment where your value as a person is primarily determined by how good you are at killing things, and when she discovers that she's good at things ''outside'' of killing it causes her to have an identity crisis because all of her self-worth was tied into that one thing. Loona doesn't even like working for I.M.P. or even join the other members out on missions that often. She just works there as a secretary because Blitzo is her dad and he owns the company.

* Stolas from ''WebAnimation/HelluvaBoss'' seems, after the beginning of the second season, to be a sort of executive level version. He's a demon prince who's initially introduced as ordering a hit on a human politician to advance the cause of evil. And being a huge pervert towards Blitzo. However, after the first episode of the second season, he looks more like a NiceGuy who advances the cause of evil from a distance because it's the job his family expects him to do. And that pervert thing may just be a misunderstanding, because Blitzo had accidentally given him the impression he's into stuff like that.

%%%
%%
%% This trope is represented in the Pantheon/TropePantheons by Ralph of ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'', in the House of Pantheon/{{Ambiguity}}.
%%
%%%

* PunchClockVillain/VisualNovels

----

* The music video for "Genghis Khan" features Miike Snow as one of these. The unnamed mastermind postpones killing a dapper spy with a laser beam because at precisely 5 o'clock, the lights go low and it's time for him to go home to his perfectly normal wife and kids.

* Taken quite literally in "9 to 5 Barbarian" by Music/{{Bill Sutton}}