YMMV / Fantozzi

• Adaptation Displacement: Many people know about the existence of the books, but the movies are more well-known.
• Adorkable:
  • Fantozzi is a cripplingly shy, clumsy, and socially awkward Nervous Wreck. He suffers so much, and behind his mediocrity, he's actually a good man.
  • Pina, especially when played by Liù Bosisio, is nervously awkward like her husband, other than sweet and well-meaning. She loses most of her awkwardness when she's played by Milena Vukotic who makes the character more stoic and less dorky, though she still has her moments (when she falls in love with Cecco the Baker, she's a total dork who pathetically tries to be attractive).
  • Filini, Fantozzi's enthusiastic but clueless sidekick with glasses, is one of the few likable characters.
• Broken Base: Pina was played by two actresses and fans can't decide who is the better one:
  • Some fans prefer Liù Bosisio because she is the original actress of the first two movies (which are considered the best ones by most people), is more believable to play the plain-looking Pina (to some, Milena Vukotic is too attractive for the role), and she also makes the character warmer and genuinely loving towards her husband.
  • Other fans prefer Milena Vukotic because she has a bigger presence in the saga (7 movies out of 10), is much more involved in the plot, gives the character Hidden Depths, and her Pina is definitely more developed than the submissive Satellite Character Pina played by Liù Bosisio.
• Contested Sequel: The first two movies are remembered as classic, but opinions about all the other 8 sequels may definitely vary. Some people say "only the first two movies are good, the rest is unwatchable", others say "only the first three are good", or even "the first five". Other people enjoy most of the saga, except the last two movies. The only movie that is universally considered terrible by everyone is the tenth and final one, Fantozzi 2000.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Many. Cecco the Baker from the third movie and Loris Batacchi from the fourth movie are both memorable due to their Refuge in Audacity. The former only appears in two scenes and the latter in one scene.
• Even Better Sequel: The second film, Il secondo tragico Fantozzi, is often considered even superior to the original.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • In the first movie, the employee whose hide was used for the Mega Director's chair is identified as Fonelli, who by some coincidence is the same name of the employee in the fourth film who is bullied even by Fantozzi (at least until he manages to trick his way into becoming a boss). Considering that in the final film the Galactic Mega Director clones Fantozzi, it's quite possible that the fourth film's Fonelli is a clone of the previous one - if nothing else it would explain his low status.
  • Fantozzi staying in the water during the launch ceremony isn't just to avoid being hit by the bottle: according to sailor lore failing to break the bottle is a horrible omen, and by staying in the water he was avoiding it being blamed on him. At the same time, the revised christening ceremony would have failed to bring good luck, as it lacked a ceremonial sacrifice... Except the countess cut the archbishop's finger with the pastoral ring, 'saving' the ceremony with a greater sacrifice than a simple bottle of champagne.
  • Miss Silvani doesn't appear in the third and fifth movies. While the fifth showed the life of the Fantozzis of various eras and didn't have space for her in the plot, the third has an in-universe explanation in that she and Fantozzi quit the Megaditta during the previous movie, and only Fantozzi is shown to be rehired by the end of the movie: she simply had become a stay-at-home wife, and didn't return to work until after breaking up with Calboni.
  • Fantozzi is subtly implied to be the Megaditta's best employee, with the Mega Director going out of his way to rehire him (and even cloning him in the last movie), so why do his colleagues and the bosses torment him so much? Because they're jerks: the other employees are jealous and enjoy keeping him down, also trying to pin on him their misdemeanours so they won't be punished, and the bosses, knowing he's too honest to become one of them and could lead a strike or a worker's rebellion, find easier to torment him into helplessness rather than shaping up their act and become Benevolent Bosses.
  • The fifth film, Superfantozzi, has the (mis)adventures of various incarnations of Fantozzi in various epochs, starting from the Biblical creation... And explains a lot:
    • Fantozzi is shown to be the actual first man, with Adam created on the eight day because Fantozzi was clearly defective and God decided to try again after a day of rest, with Pina made from his rib. This explains why Mariangela is ape-like: she's literally the daughter of the closest thing to apes humanity has to offer.
    • Fantozzi is the one who took the Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (though Eve talked him into it), and was promptly thrown out of Eden and cursed. This is why Fantozzi is so unlucky: he's under a literal divine curse. Adam and Eve were likely thrown out later, but got a lesser punishment (their reincarnations are constantly in a position of superiority over Fantozzi) because they had already a bad example.
    • During the episode in Roman Judaea, Jesus calling the children to himself results in them running over Fantozzi's vegetable garden, destroying his only way to feed himself and his family, and later doesn't revive Lazarus, Fantozzi's rich uncle, until Fantozzi arrives to claim the inheritance. Strangely dickish move from Jesus... Except Fantozzi is the one who took the Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, and Jesus, being around, added his own little punishments and set up a Secret Test of Character for Fantozzi. One he miserably failed when he didn't even pretend to be sad for his uncle's passing.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The saga became quite popular in Soviet Russia, with the popularity enduring long enough Paolo Villaggio received the Nikolaj Gogol' Award for the novels in 2011.
• Hollywood Homely: Fantozzi's "ugly" wife Pina. Especially when played by Milena Vukotic, who was and still is a good-looking woman. Averted with Mariangela (who is played by a man and looks genuinely ghastly) and inverted with Miss Silvani (who is never called ugly and is considered attractive by Fantozzi, despite not being exactly a looker).
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • The movies make it clear that Fantozzi is a mediocre person (he has his good moments though), but he doesn't deserve all the horrible and humiliating things that happen to him every second. He's like a disgrace magnet in a Crapsack World.
  • Mariangela is just The Woobie in almost all the movies, until the 8th movie Fantozzi in Paradiso where she is a total Jerkass. But her horrible behavior as an adult is understandable, if you consider that she Used to Be a Sweet Kid who was horribly mistreated by everyone her whole life.
  • Fonelli from the fourth movie Fantozzi subisce ancora. The only one of Fantozzi's Bad Bosses who has a somewhat sympathetic backstory, as before his promotion, he spent 20 years as a pitiable Butt-Monkey employee who is picked on by everyone, even Fantozzi himself.
• Love to Hate:
  • Slimy Arch-Enemy Calboni is one of the most popular characters in the saga, despite being a Hate Sink. Fans love to watch how much of a shameless asshole he is, and the late Giuseppe Anatrelli portrayed him perfectly.
  • All of Fantozzi's Laughably Evil bosses are iconic for their Comedic Sociopathy, memorable lines, Overly Long Names, and how they are treated like Gods by their employees.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "18 reels"^note The stated length of The Battleship Kotiomkin. At 15 minutes per reel of silent film, it's four hours and half. This explains why the employees hate being forced to watch and then praise it
  • "NINETY-TWO MINUTES OF APPLAUSE!"^note How Fantozzi's fellow employees reacted to him shouting what everyone thought of The Battleship Kotiomkin, namely that "it's incredible shit"
• Moment of Awesome: Both The Dog Bites Back moments listed in the main page (the billiards scene and the Battleship Kotiomkin scene) are awesome moments because Fantozzi finally stands up to his bosses and is able to humiliate them, if only for a brief moment. Especially the latter ("92 minutes of applause!").
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Liù Bosisio, who plays Pina Fantozzi in the first, second, and fifth films, will later become the Italian voice of Marge Simpson, another long-suffering wife, for the first 22 seasons.
  • Milena Vukotic, who plays Pina in all the other films, will later be known for her other famous role, the snobbish Grandma Enrica in the Italian TV series Un Medico In Famiglia.
  • Michele Mirabella, who played Butt-Monkey turned Bad Boss Fonelli in Fantozzi Subisce Ancora, will later become the creator and presenter of the successful TV Documentary Elisir from 1996 to 2017.
• Sequelitis: Except with the second film, the subsequent eight movies get progressively worse. The tenth and final film is universally considered the worst of the saga.
• Tear Jerker: Quite a few moments. The most famous is the Christmas scene in the first movie when Fantozzi's "superiors" cruelly make fun of the ugly Mariangela (who was just a child) after she reads a Christmas poem, so much that they make her cry. Fantozzi, realizing what is happening, leads his daughter away and just by looking at his supposed "superiors", he manages to make them stare down in shame.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Despite being a comedy, the Cosmic Plaything of these movies is very mean-spirited and pessimistic. Some people find it too cruel to be funny.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Ugo Fantozzi is one of the most iconic Italian examples. He's the biggest loser ever mistreated by everyone around him, and that's a big part of the saga's popularity with many people.
• Values Dissonance:
  • There are obviously many sexist and politically incorrect jokes of all kinds, which were common in the Italian comedies before "political correctness" became dominant. Even rape and physical abuse are Played for Laughs a few times.
  • A particularly tasteless joke comes from Fantozzi alla Riscossa. Fantozzi wants his ugly granddaughter to become a child actress and mentions "Arnold" (Diff'rent Strokes was popular in Italy in the '80s) as an example of a kid becoming a child star despite being a "dwarf", and his wife makes it worse, outright saying that Arnold is a "monster". Pina's line was supposed to be funny Hypocritical Humor because her own granddaughter is actually considered a "monster" by everyone, but it comes off as very tasteless since Arnold's actor Gary Coleman suffered from multiple health issues, including a congenital kidney disease that stopped his growth at an early age.
• The Woobie: Fantozzi and his family. Especially Mariangela. Just because she looks like a monster doesn't mean she should be treated as one, as the aforementioned scene makes painfully clear.

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