Control Freak / Western Animation

Control Freaks in Western Animation.

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• Earl of Lemongrab of Adventure Time. He's a failed science experiment, how well would you EXPECT someone like that to rule a kingdom?! Also Goliad, as an evil (and scary) example.
  • Princess Bubblegum is a low-key example. Granted her kingdom is full of people who can barely take care of themselves. But she can be rather short-sighted in a few decisions and often go to questionable methods that border on this trope.
• Mechanicles in Aladdin: The Series, though he was more of an obsessive-compulsive flavour, with dashes of scheduling mania.
• In American Dad!, Stan Smith is such a Control Freak that the Almighty Himself called him out on it:
  God: Stop trying to control everything!
  God: Stan, you're holding a gun to God's head. I mean, I can't even think of a metaphor that's better than this, and I'm a published poet.
  • Though this can also be considered an aversion as Stan actually has very little control over his life. He doesn’t want Haley to date Jeff, he moves in. He doesn't want another baby, Francine tries to rape him. And while Hayley’s actions are usually given the excuse of his harsh rules, they’re usually things like don't come in past curfew, don’t drink while underage, don’t steal monkeys and keep them in the house. It's reached the point where the family does the complete opposite of what he says the moment he says it.
    • This is perfectly exemplified in “Wiener of Our Discontent” where the Aesop was that Stan doesn't have the right to deny Roger control over all human life just because he felt he didn't have any control over his.
    • A later episode implies that his control freakiness is a direct result of his lack of control, as a close brush with death resulted in him going on a miniatures craze that causes him to use a Shrink Ray to shrink down and live in the mini town he built.
• In the 2019 reboot of Animal Mechanicals, Komodo is noticeably more bossy than he was in the original series and often tells the others what to do.
• Frylock from Aqua Teen Hunger Force is usually the straight man and voice of reason, but some of his more pathetic moments approach a Control Freak (especially when he's trying to entertain anyone).
• Avatar: The Last Airbender has Fire Lord Ozai and Princess Azula. They both demand total obedience and subservience from their underlings, and the former permanently scarred and banished his son simply for speaking out of turn. The latter is an extreme perfectionist whose "friends" only follow her because they're terrified of disobeying her.
  • Councilman Tarrlok from The Legend of Korra
    • It's also Kuvira's core character trait in the final season. She genuinely wants to do what's best for her people, but her obsession with controlling everything causes her to turn into a villain.
    • Lin and Suyin both show shades of this as well.
• One showed up in the last Courage the Cowardly Dog episode. Courage defeats her when his imperfectness proves to be too much for her to handle.
• Dinosaur Train: Shiny is incredibly bossy to her siblings at times. She takes her bossiness to the extreme in "Hootin' Hadrosaurs", where she becomes 'mom' and micromanages the others nonstop.
• Mr. Herriman from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is very strict and proper when it comes to enforcing the rules in Foster's home. The one time he does become laid back in "Let Your Hare Down", the house eventually turns into chaos.
• Hermes Conrad, Futurama is a parody in two ways; first, he knows what he is and revels in it; second, he also has elements of the stereotypical laid-back Jamaican interspersed with his Obstructive Bureaucrat persona.
  Hermes: Labor Day? That phony-baloney holiday crammed down our throats by fat cat union gangsters?!
  Fry: That's the one.
  Hermes: Hot damn, a day off! (takes off his shirt and sits down to watch TV)
• Brendon in Home Movies when it comes to having to direct someone else's film. As explored when his musician, Dwanye, asked that he help make a rock opera based on Franz Kafka. You'd think he be honored by this. But nope, Brendon is just a sourpuss throughout the whole procedure because it wasn't his script.
• Kaeloo can sometimes be one of these to her friends.
  Kaeloo: (during a game she suggested that the others play) This is my game, and I'll do whatever I want!
• Miraculous Ladybug:
  • Gabriel Agreste obsessively micromanages his son Adrien's life, keeping him busy with lessons and photo shoots, while at the same time almost never spending any time with him. This goes a long way towards explaining Adrien's Extreme Doormat tendencies. And that's not even getting into his actions as Hawk Moth.
  • Tomoe Tsurugi, Kagami's mother, is even more controlling, at one point calling Gabriel overly permissive.
  • Marinette Dupain-Cheng has a tendency to try to control all aspects of a situation, especially when stressed or afraid of uncertainty. In "Glaciator 2", she admits that when things are really important to her, she gets so scared that it won't work out that she can't help trying to control every possible outcome.
• Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic though a low-key one at best. Princess Celestia had sent her to Ponyville in the hopes of easing her off of this as well as learning the meaning of friendship. Though it was mostly successful, the other ponies still sometimes have to deal with Twilight's obsessive-compulsive tendencies and occasionally pious attitude.
• The Owl House: Emperor Belos is generally obsessed with controlling every and anything within his field of view, as demonstrated by the Coven System he established over the Isles. But his obsession reaches an all-time when it comes to the Grimwalkers and to a lesser extent, humans. Belos creates Grimwalkers to be a more loyal Caleb, but ends up killing all but one Grimwalker for the crime of "disobedience." He even goes as far as to literally possess the last Grimwalker, Hunter, and molding him into the Caleb he wants. Belos also tries to force other humans, especially Luz, into accepting his worldviews and wouldn't hesitate to use lethal methods to do so.
• Principal Skinner on The Simpsons has shades of this, though his war stories are never to impress anyone, more to traumatise them. This is the main reason he'll never impress his boss, the more laid-back Superintendent Chalmers, since he gets on Chalmers's nerves.
• Jen from 6teen, being pretty obviously the Monica of the Friends-based group, gets accused of being this fairly often.
• Downplayed by Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. He was genuinely a loving Big Brother Mentor to his apprentice Ahsoka, but the entire reason she was assigned to him was because Yoda hoped she would help him learn to let go of his worldly attachments. Instead, the exact opposite happened and he became terrified of losing her like he did his mother and surrogate father Qui-Gon Jinn, which colors their final interactions.
  • When they're reunited in the final season, we see that he's been obsessively maintaining her lightsabers in the hopes she'd come back to him and replaced their color crystals with blue ones like his own. While this was Played for Laughs, according to Word of God this was done out of a subconscious desire for her to be more like him. Additionally, he's insistent on knowing what she's been up to without him even in the middle of a war meeting.
  • When they reunite again in Star Wars Rebels, Anakin is so far gone at this point that he has few qualms about trying to kill her for refusing his We Can Rule Together offer. Granted, the fact she even got that offer compared to his usual thought process towards any Jedi save for his son Luke is notable.
• Lapis Lazuli from Steven Universe is afraid of being powerless, having been branded a traitor and trapped within a mirror for thousands of years. In the present, this manifests in a lot of controlling behavior, be it with regards to Jasper and trapping her in a fusion or even in regards to Peridot who admits that she often lets Lapis have her way for fear of upsetting her.
• One could interpret the Warden from Superjail! as being this. Despite his Psychopathic Manchild personality and propensity for ridiculous schemes, one should remember that he is still a totalitarian dictator who runs every nook and cranny of his domain with complete disregard for its imprisoned inhabitants. Anyone who disobeys his orders or even question his ideas (I'm looking at you Jared) is either completely ignored, bullied until they comply, or even outright killed if they hinder his "controlled chaos".
  • Also happens when he replaces his faithful robot, Jailbot, with a more advanced model named Jailbot 2.0. Said robot was completely dedicated to organizing the prison as much as possible, sterilizing its rowdy and chaotic environment, and even disobeying its own creator for the sake of cold-hard efficiency.
• Played with in TaleSpin with Rebecca Cunningham, the boss of Higher for Hire. While she has a rather shrill attitude and frequently manipulates or bullies Baloo and the others into following her schemes, she fails to have much intimidation over them or take much action against their own incompetent or obnoxious habits, leading her to come off more as a bossy friend than a domineering boss.
• Third season Big Bad of Teen Titans (2003) Brother Blood has this, big time. Put bluntly, Blood has mind-control powers and doesn't like it when his targets break free or resist. This is what leads to his obsession with Cyborg, as noted by the creators on the DVD commentary; Brother Blood has finally met someone who can't be controlled, and it gets under his skin so much that Blood goes to extremes to find out what's causing that.

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