Obnoxious In Laws / Live-Action TV

Obnoxious In-Laws in Live-Action TV series.

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• 90 Day Fiancé: Sometimes the couples live with one partner's parent/s, which will almost always be an additional hurdle. The foreign spouse has to contend with skepticism and disapproval, if not outright bigotry, from them.
  • Fernando and Carolina from season 3 faced racist comments against Carolina from Fernando's mother.
  • Larissa from season 6 had several onscreen screaming matches with her future mother-in-law Debbie, whom she felt had an awkward relationship with Larissa's fiance Colt.
• The Addams Family:
  • Brought up in Addams Family Reunion by Morticia: when Gomez asks if she's noticed anything strange about his grandparents, who are visiting, her response is:
    "Now, keep in mind that for me they are still in-laws. Tradition dictates that I must despise them. Regardless of my own personal feelings in the matter."
  • Averted in the same series as Morticia gets along well with Uncle Fester and Gomez is liked by Mama, who are both their in-laws in the film's universe. In the television series, it was the other way around- Fester was Morticia's relative and Mama was Gomez's mother, but the family still got along splendidly.
  • Also averted in the series with Morticia's family the Frumps, who Gomez seems to like and respect, although Played Straight to some degree with her twin sister Ophelia (also played by Caroline Jones) who seems to be eccentric (even for the Addams' standards).
• All of Samantha's family in Bewitched. With them around, Darrin is often on the receiving end of some curse. In fact, the only one of Sam's relatives who appears to treat Darrin with any kind of respect is Aunt Clara, and even her Inept Mage tendencies still cause the poor guy trouble. Conversely, Samantha had to deal with Darrin's mother Phyllis, who was resentful of Samantha's place in her son's life as well as disliking her family (without knowing what they really were).
• On Cheers, Frasier's mom Hester outright threatens to murder Diane when she finds she's engaged to her son. She eventually patches things up and they decide to try and get along better from then on, then she attempts to bribe Sam into stealing Diane back once the two of them are out of an earshot.
• Both sets of parents on Dharma & Greg tend to be intrusive, but Kitty (Greg's Rich Bitch mother) is the one who really fit the stereotype.
• Katherine's father on Doogie Howser, M.D. hates David for being 15 years older than Katherine and uses every get-together as a chance to remind everyone of this. The fact that he's a successful doctor who clearly loves his family is irrelevant.
• The Eternal Love: The empress dowager tries to poison her granddaughter-in-law Tan Er/Xiao Tan.
• Everybody Loves Raymond: Ray's mother Marie frequently came across the street to her son's home to make sure things were being run according to her style of housekeeping. She also didn't exactly approve of Debra and wasn't shy about showing it, though in fairness a lot of that could be chalked up to the fact that Marie sees how disdainful and bullying Debra is towards Ray, and wants Ray to realize this as well. Frank—Ray's father—also comes over frequently and tends to eat Ray's food and use his TV whenever he feels like it.
  • Debra's Bourgeois Bohemian parents also find the Barones to be somewhat difficult.
  • And Amy's family all find reasons for not wanting her to marry Robert Barone. Becoming relatives by marriage to Frank and Marie is no small part of it. The fault line between the WASP/Protestant McDougals and the Italian-American Catholic Barones is also a strain on the in-law relationship.
• First Kill has Davina Atwood, who never approved of Sebastian because he was a made vampire instead of a legacy like the rest of her family. Her daughter Margot's marriage to him would have gotten her excommunicated from legacy society if not solely because she was keeper in waiting for the Queen Serpent that they all draw power from.
• Niles Crane from Frasier was like this with Lillith in the first season, because Lillith sniggered at Maris' wedding vows. Considering how much worse Maris proved to be, this would make Niles a bit of a hypocrite.
  • All three Crane men are guilty of behaving this way towards each other's partners. Frasier and Niles have a particularly difficult time hiding their disdain for Martin's girlfriend Sherry. After Martin tells them off for not being welcoming towards someone he cares about Frasier retorts that Martin acted the same way towards every woman his sons brought home.
    Frasier: I mean, since when has any of us ever, from Sherry to Lilith to Maris to Diane, has ever been able to pick one woman that the other two could stand the sight of?
• Friends:
  • Ross and Emily's parents are cordial enough at first, but the relationship quickly sours when they start arguing over how to split the bill for the wedding. They briefly call a truce for the ceremony that lasts until Ross says the wrong name in his vows.
  • At Monica's wedding her mother wishes that Monica's grandmother was still alive to see it.
    Monica: (points to the congregation) [Grandmother]'s right there.
    Judy: Not that old crow, my mother.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Catelyn to Talisa, initially. She's not at all happy about Robb marrying her instead of the Frey girl he was promised to, and for very good reason, as this slight against the Freys gets Robb, Catelyn, and Talisa and her unborn child all killed in The Red Wedding. In "The Rains of Castamere", she finally seems to warm up to her after overhearing Talisa say that she's going to name her and Robb's child, "Eddard", if it's a boy.
  • Robert Baratheon used to rub his father-in-law Tywin Lannister the wrong way by patting him on the back.
• Alicia Florrick in The Good Wife does not like her mother-in-law. This is demonstrated by the fact that the ring tone allocated to her on her cell phone is the music from The Twilight Zone.
• Tim has a somewhat hostile relationship with Jill's mother in Home Improvement, mostly involving him telling mother-in-law jokes on Tool Time and her being annoyed by his buffoonish behavior.
• On How I Met Your Mother, Marshall's mother hates Lily. It probably has something to do with the way Lily ran off on Marshall a couple of months before their wedding (as there was never any contention between them mentioned or shown prior to this). Though Marshall and Lily eventually made up, it would appear Marshall's mother never forgot. She also didn't like that Lily refused to be a "Mrs. Eriksen" by keeping her own name.
• Life With Lucy: Lucy is on good terms with her son-in-law Ted, but she doesn't get along well with Ted's father Curtis. To make things worse, they live in the same house and work together.
• On Modern Family, Jay tolerates Phil at best. Part of it is Phil tries too hard to get Jay to like him.
  • When Jay met Gloria’s mother she told him to his face she didn’t like him despite admitting there was nothing really wrong with him. Claire laughed at the similarities.
• Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace:
  • Zhen Huan starts out as this for Ruyi. She becomes less obnoxious over the course of the series.
  • Most of Hongli's wives are this for each other. They don't stop at being merely obnoxious and go as far as being murderous.
  • Yanwan's mother is this for Hongli.
• Scrubs:
  • Carla believes her brother can only speak Spanish, but he learned English some time ago. He deliberately only speaks English in front of Turk, so that Turk will look like an asshole when protesting he knows the language. After Turk manages to trick him into revealing he's bilingual, he gets no reprimand from his sister. Even after he punches her boyfriend in the face directly in front of her. Similarly, whenever Turk says something bad about Carla's mom, she makes him go to her grave and beg for forgiveness (he often comes back and says "She still hates me").
  • On the other hand, Carla was terrified at how great she and his mom got on, afraid that he was acting out some Oedipal issues. He explains that it's not like that, he was just raised to respect and admire strong, independent women (like his mother), so of course, he would end up with one.
• There's a Greek sitcom called Seven Deadly Mother-in-Laws running with much success for over three seasons; the author believes the theme is clear. They originally took stereotypical mothers-in-law from various regions of Greece, but it soon extended far beyond the original seven. The show REALLY jumped the shark with the Mother-in-Law from Space...
• In That '70s Show, Red Forman's mother, Bernice is incredibly obnoxious and rude to everyone, but especially to her daughter-in-law, Kitty. Kitty's own mother is not much better - however, she upsets Kitty more than Red.
• Of the four main adult characters from Yes, Dear, three of them have an in-law for each: Don (Kim and Christine's father) for Greg, Jenny (Kim and Christine's mother) for Jimmy, and Natalie (Greg's mother) for Kim. Christine doesn't have this problem, though. On the other hand, considering the tension that exists between brothers-in-law Greg and Jimmy, much of the show has this trope as its premise.
• In The Honeymooners, Ralph dreads the visits of his mother-in-law, because she constantly implies that Alice could've done better than him.
• Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers:
  • Master Vile (Rita's dad) and Lord Zedd don't get along. Hilariously.
  • Lord Zedd isn't too fond of Rito Revolto (Rita's brother) either. Justified in that Rito's an idiot who constantly gets on Zedd's nerves.
• An episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine involves Jadzia Dax trying to impress the matriarch of Worf's family, who does not like the idea of a Trill daughter-in-law. Jadzia's attitude doesn't help.
• And speaking of Trek, she doesn't become a formal in-law until Nemesis and the subsequent Expanded Universe novels, but Deanna Troi's mother definitely counts.
• One episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air had a plot too similar to the movie Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Even the way the African-American family found out she was dating a white man was the same. Most of the family warmed up to him quickly (though it was a rocky start), but Will's mother took a while. It should probably be noted that the remade Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (where the characters' races line up with this example) was made nine years after The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air ended production, as opposed to the original where it was a black man marrying a white woman
• Gilmore Girls:
  • Lorelai "Trix" Gilmore, Richard's mother and Lorelai's paternal grandmother takes this to an art form, being capable of inspiring terror in Emily the second it is announced that she's going to visit. In many ways, it mirrors the relationship between Emily and Lorelai, but Trix and Emily's relationship worsens each time. Her crowning moment would be when Emily discovers a secret letter that Trix wrote to Richard begging him not to marry Emily as she was not suitable for the Gilmore name while she handles Trix's funeral arrangements and will.
  • Emily follows this tradition and is absolutely horrible to Luke, Lorelai's boyfriend and later fiancé. She alienates and degrades him at every opportunity, going as far as to try and set Lorelai up with her ex-boyfriend Christopher in hopes she and Luke would break up. Her plan succeeds but leaves both of them so devastated that Lorelai refuses to talk to her ever again. Emily eventually backs down and accepts them together. Her main object is Lorelai is very much an Uptown Girl to working-class Luke, and Emily thinks he's unworthy to marry into the Gilmore family. (Considering what she suffered from Trix, it's hard to find a bigger hypocrite).
  • Luke views his brother-in-law TJ as this and only tolerates him for his sister Liz's sake. In an aversion, TJ is simply obliviously obnoxious as he does like Luke and treats him like a brother. (Jess flat out can't stand him because he's loud and because he already holds a dim view of his mother's taste in men.)
• Mild version on CSI Betty Grissom disapproving of Sara marrying her son. Thinks the long-distance aspect isn't good. Fortunately, she settles down and things are improved by the episode's end.
• Bob Duncan's mother-in-law of Good Luck Charlie thinks he's a pea-brained buffoon who's done a deplorable job of raising his kids.
• In Life with Derek, Nora's mother Felicia liked her first husband just fine, but doesn't care at all for her current husband George, mostly because she doesn't believe in divorce.
• An unusual variant occurs on Blossom between her father Nick Russo and her maternal grandfather Buzz Richman. Buzz doesn't really have anything against Nick, but Nick resents him for coming to the Russo house and sponging off them when he visits. The fact that Buzz's daughter abandoned Nick and the kids doesn't exactly help matters.
• Sylvie's mother in Un gars, une fille loathes Guy, who reminds her of her husband, who was unfaithful.
• On Sex and the City, Charlotte has to contend with her husband Trey's overbearing mother Bunny, who starts out relatively okay but ultimately tries to interfere in every decision the couple makes.
• Amen:
  • Reuben's mother, who criticizes everything about Thelma, until the couple finally tells her off.
  • Ernie is like this even though he likes Reuben, due to his overprotective ways.
  • Ernie's own father-in-law was like this to him, cutting his daughter off because he disapproved of her marrying Ernie.
• According to Jim:
  • Jim's Sitcom Archnemesis is his sister-in-law Dana. However, they don't hate each other that much and do many things together or are sometimes nice to each other.
  • Sometimes, Jim has some big arguments with his brother-in-law and best friend Andy.
  • Jim's youngest daughter, Gracie, is the Sitcom Archnemesis to Andy, her uncle.
  • Inverted with Maggy, the mother-in-law of both Jim and Ryan. They both love her and she loves everyone in her family.
    Jim: You know someone like you is a gift. Someone you don't want to argue with, but about.
• In Rodney, Rodney is hated by his father-in-law Carl because he thinks that Rodney is a no-good who has stolen his daughter. On the other hand, Rodney has a good relationship with his sister-in-law Charlie.
• A tradition of Brazilian comedy series, especially when the son-in-law is deserving. Of note is sitcom Sai de Baixo, where Caco Antibes called his mother-in-law Cassandra 'Cascacu' (a mix between "cascavel", rattlesnake, and surucucu) and frequently hazed her hair, clothes and supposed lewd behavior - and the actor loved to improvise by adding an Actor Allusion to her career or even kiss her!
• All over the place on The Golden Girls.
  • Sophia was extremely obnoxious to her son Phil's wife. She couldn't even be nice to her at his funeral. It ultimately wasn't that Sophia disliked her, but that she needed someone to redirect the blame to over Phil's cross-dressing. She's also implied to have been no less obnoxious to Dorothy's ex-husband Stan before the divorce than she was after, having never forgiven him for getting Dorothy pregnant at seventeen and cheating on her multiple times after their Shotgun Wedding. The only one of her children's spouses she wasn't obnoxious towards was Gloria's very wealthy husband.
  • Dorothy's ex-mother-in-law was an odd example. She actually liked Dorothy, yet it was Stan whom she didn't like. The only reason she was mean to Dorothy was that if Stan thought she liked Dorothy he'd be around her place all the time asking for money.
  • Blanche's mother-in-law would always introduce her as her son's first wife, while they were still married, and wished on her deathbed for Blanche to have the disease that was killing her. Blanche's only response to hearing that she died was to say that she hoped the old witch went slowly. Blanche herself is implied to be obnoxious to her own unseen son-in-law, derisively referring to him as "the Yankee".
  • Furthermore, Sophia said there was a tradition in Sicily that someone performs when their mother-in-law dies: they're supposed to wear a hair shirt, eat dirt, and pound their head on a rock... anything to keep you from laughing.
• Inverted on The George Lopez Show; George has issues with his biological mom, but gets along very well with his brother- and father-in-law, although initially, Angie's prominent cardiologist parents weren't too fond of George, feeling that Angie was "slumming it" and should have married somebody much more well-off.
• On Roseanne, Roseanne and Dan despised Becky's greaser boyfriend Mark. This case is somewhat Justified, as Mark doesn't treat Becky exceptionally well initially, being really selfish and obnoxious. When Mark confronts Roseanne about this, she says she would have treated him like a king if she felt like he'd treated Becky with any kind of respect. Darlene's steady boyfriend David fared quite a bit better. Initially, they dislike David for being Mark's brother and assume he's just like him. However, when they realize he was almost his exact opposite, they warm up, allowing him to live with them to escape his abusive mother; Roseanne even tries to shove David and Darlene back together after they break up.
• Ethyl to Earl on Dinosaurs. She thinks he's a no-good bum with no ambition.
• Never shown onscreen, but Roy seems to view his this way on Emergency!. She apparently saw him as having the brains to be a doctor but not wanting to do it, settling for paramedic instead.
• On Martin, Martin's mother ^note who, like Martin, is played by Martin Lawrence) despises her son's girlfriend (and later, wife) Gina. She believes that Gina is unworthy of her son because she doesn't take care of Martin the same way she does. Gina is a career woman who doesn't have the time or the patience to baby her husband. Mama Payne is a nasty example, too; she regularly and openly threatens to kill her hapless daughter-in-law!
• Inverted on Last Man Standing. Mike hates Vanessa's sister April because she a) still acts like a teenager even though she's 40 b) always borrows money from them and never pays it back and c) is a terrible influence on the kids (especially Mandy).
• London's Burning: George ends up punching out both his wife Kelly's brothers at the wedding reception. This sets the tone for every time they're on screen together until Kelly leaves him. (He gets on alright with his sister's hubby though.) And then there's Colin's mum...
• Growing Pains. Maggie's father hated her husband Jason, despite Jason being the kind of son-in-law you'd order from a catalog and has always been a good husband to Maggie and a good father to their children. His anger stems from the couple running off and eloping 20-something years ago. It's especially bad considering that Maggie's mother adores Jason and Jason's mother and Maggie get along beautifully.
  • Jason himself is this to his mother's new husband.
• A Different World: Angered by Whitley mistaking her for a maid, Dwayne's mother is relentlessly nasty to Whitley throughout their relationship, despite her repeated, sincere attempts at making amends for this. It gets cranked up to eleven after Dwayne and Whitley marry, with her sending them a funeral wreath with a note that says, "Call me when you divorce her", then apparently holding firm to this, as Dwayne mentions that she hangs up on him every time he calls.
• Murray Goldberg from The Goldbergs didn't get along with his father-in-law at first, though he eventually warms up to him. It's his biological father that he's on poorer terms with, however.
• In The Munsters Herman has a somewhat conflictive relationship with his father-in-law Sam Dracula "Grandpa", albeit they are often a comedic duo with Grandpa as the Straight Man. He does seem to have a good relationship with his niece-in-law Marilyn who he probably adopted (as she has the Munster surname) but the fact that she's considered strange (as she's a normal human) comes into play in some episodes.
• Chespirito's characters Los Caquitos a.k.a Chómpiras and Botija are based on The Honeymooners. Chimoltrufia's mother and Botija's mother-in-law has a deep hatred for the latter, which is mutual. Botija's mother also appears in some episodes (also played by Edgar Vivar in drag) and is reveal that Botija comes from a very wealthy family, probably the reason why her mother never accepted Chimoltrufia. Needless to say, both mothers hate each other.
• Mad About You: Paul's mother constantly takes subtle and not-so-subtle potshots at Jamie. Especially bad as Paul's father adores her, and Jamie's parents (despite their own smothering and manipulative ways) like Paul.
• In Oshin, Ryuuzo's parents Daigoro and Kiyo detest their daughter-in-law since she's a mere country girl whereas they have a higher standing. Daigoro more or less gives in when Ryuuzo says that he'll marry Oshin but will refuse to have a mistress at the same time, but Kiyo keeps interfering and making Oshin's life harder — especially when she and Ryuuzo are forced to live with them after the 1923 Kanto Earthquake. When Oshin leaves to work in another city and communicates with Ryuuzo through letters, Kiyo hides the correspondence to trick Oshin into thinking that Ryuuzo has ditched her — but the deception is ultimately undone and Ryuuzo is, understandably, furious.
• On Good Eats, Alton gets caught in the middle of a conflict between his mother and his (now ex) mother-in-law, concerning the "right" way to make chicken and dumplings. He is reluctant to do the recipe, because as soon as he announces it, he gets calls about it from both of them, each wanting him to do it "their" way on his show. (His mother makes them the "Northern" way, where the dumplings are similar to choux-pastry, and his mother-in-law makes them the "Southern" way, where the dumplings are more noodle-like.) To appease them, he makes both types of dumplings, letting the audience decide for themselves which way they'd like to follow along with. (More time is dedicated to the "Southern" way because it takes longer to make from scratch.) When he sits down to eat (with boxing puppets representing his mother and mother-in-law, both of which beat on him earlier in the episode), they start fighting again, this time over which one Alton and his then-wife should spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with.
• On I Love Lucy, Lucy's kooky mother is utterly awful to Ricky, who hates her just as much in return. She even insists on always calling him "Micky", no matter how many times she's corrected. She get's Little Ricky's name right, though.
• In the The Big Bang Theory now that they are married, Dr. Hoffstader is this way to Penny. Not that she behaved any better towards Leonard anyway.
  • Lampshaded in the episode where she finds out that Penny and Leonard eloped:
    [Seeing Dr. Hofftader having a friendly chat with Amy]
    Penny: I don't get it, how come she gets along so well with Amy but not me?
    Bernadette: Well Penny, you have to understand that Amy's with Sheldon, whom Leonard's mother loves like a son. While you're with Leonard, whom she...doesn't.
  • Touched on with Howard and Bernadette. Howard was initially worried his Jewish Mother would dislike him marrying a Catholic girl, but she turns out to adore her. Bernadette's parents, specifically her father Mike, are not particularly happy with Howard at first, thinking he was a prank to torture them (she is noticeably much more attractive and sociable than him), but Howard getting a chance to be an astronaut in combination with having Disappeared Dad issues eventually lets Mike warm up to him a little.
• In Innocent, Tarık's mother Nermin not only dismisses Emel's concerns about his mental health but rags on her for not being an ideal housewife as though it's the source of all his troubles.
• The Slap has this in the form of Hector's parents, who do not approve of his marriage to his wife Aisha at all for the simple "crime" of her not being Greek, to the point of hijacking their honeymoon to take place in Greece with "family" instead with the not-at-all-subtle implication that if she were Greek, she probably wouldn't think of it as an issue.
• On 227, Mary and Lester's respective parents actually adore their children-in-law. It's each other they can't stand.
• There have been several examples of killers having strained relationships with in-laws on Columbo, with the results ranging from someone killing their rich mother-in-law to someone killing someone to keep a secret from their rich mother-in-law.
• The Red Green Show: During a round of the Possum Lodge Word Game, Red has to get Dalton Humphrey to say the word "wolves", but no matter what he gives as a hint, Dalton's answer is always the same: "My wife's side of the family." At the last second, Red finally catches on and scores a win with the hint "Your wife's side of the family eating."
• On The Jeffersons, George Jefferson's wife Louise is always at odds with her mother-in-law, Olivia "Mother" Jefferson, due to her constantly putting her down and telling her son George he could have done better in in his choice of wife.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: A more serious example is Carisi who has understandably some beef with his sister's fiancé Tommy who is a former drug addict. When Tommy reveals to Carisi on the spot that his (female) parole officer raped him, Carisi initially doesn't believe him and thinks he is cheating on his sister Bella, but thanks to Tommy's earnest reaction and Carisi's chief Olivia having experience with female-on-male rape cases before, Carisi eventually believes Tommy and even defends him when Bella thinks that he's cheating on her instead.
• Gilmore Girls:
  • Liz's husband TJ is this to Luke, her older brother. TJ is a fairly obnoxious character to begin with, doing things like starting a fist fight with his soon-to-be-stepson at his own bachelor party, but after he marries Liz, he continually finds ways to get on Luke's nerves. In the 2016 reboot, he and Liz have joined a vegetable cult and require Luke and Jess to bail them out—which turns out to be unnecessary, because the cult kicks them out for being too weird.
  • This concept is discussed in season 3's "Swan Song," when Jess is invited over to the elder Gilmore's for Friday Night Dinner, which ends with him and Rory getting into an argument and him storming out. He tells Luke he's happy to have that event behind him, only for Luke to burst his bubble and inform him that he will have more nights like that in his future as long as he keeps dating Rory. Jess tries to make the point that he's dating Rory and not her family, and Luke points out that Rory and her mother and her grandparents come as a package deal, so he'll have to deal if he actually wants to be with her. A conversation that is Hilarious in Hindsight, since it's Luke who marries into the Gilmore clan and they become his in-laws. Not as obnoxious as TJ, but Emily and Luke have their fair share of tension.

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