Basic Trope: This character (usually a main character) is unlikable, but the audience puts up with them because they are funny.
- Straight: Bob is an asshole to his so called friends. The audience loves him because of his antics.
- Exaggerated:
- Laughably Evil Villain Protagonist
- Bob feels hatred towards the entire world. He is the most popular character in the show.
- Bob is an Omnicidal Maniac Serial Killer in a Black Comedy. The fans think he is one of the funniest characters on the show.
- Downplayed: While he can be harsh and judgmental, Bob is, for the most part, a Good Is Not Soft Nice Guy who's Innocently Insensitive at worst.
- Justified:
- Bob is very grumpy.
- He is Surrounded by Idiots.
- He is the Butt-Monkey of the show.
- Inverted:
- Bob is the All-Loving Hero and his friends always want to hang out with him, and the audience hates him.
- Sympathetic Drama Antagonist
- Subverted: Bob is a completely and horribly awful person, and the audience hates him.
- Double Subverted: But he later starts doing funny things and rescues himself from the scrappy heap.
- Parodied: In a Show Within a Show, Bob says "fuck" and the whole cast loves him.
- Zig Zagged: Depending on the Writer, Bob can either be an All-Loving Hero Nice Guy, or a Heroic Comedic Sociopath protagonist.
- Averted: Bob is a nice guy, and has a modest sized fanbase.
- Enforced: "The audience wants a character they can laugh with when he does bad things to people, and laugh against when things don't go his way. Let's make Bob a dick."
- Lampshaded: "It's amazing how can people love Bob even if he is an asshole."
- Invoked and Exploited: Bob intentionally peppers his unsavory moments with bits of stupidity and comeuppance so his friends grow conditioned to his attitude and actually miss it if it goes away.
- Implied: Jim and Alice watch an episode of Bob in one scene and, while everybody else in the room is laughing uproariously, Jim looks disturbed and Alice is visibly one second away from beginning a screaming tirade about how dare they watch this crap in front of the kid. Five scenes later, Alice also has to go to the principal's office to deal with something Jim did imitating Bob… and that it's gonna get him expelled.
- Defied: Bob doesn't want to be a jerk, so he makes a conscious effort to be likeable.
- Discussed: "People just tolerate Bob's antics because he is funny."
- Conversed: "How can people like someone as horrible as him?"
- Deconstructed:
- The writers of Bob made Bob (and the other members of the cast with the same mentality as Bob) too unsympathetic.
- Status Quo Is God is not in play in this comedy, which becomes more of a drama as Bob's jerkassery repeatedly blows up in his face.
Back to Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist to see the poodle poking protagonist suffer from Amusing Injuries.
