YMMV / Happy!

The Grant Morrison Comic

• Complete Monster: Mr. Blue is a mob boss looking to get his hands on the previous Don's load of cash, and will do anything to complete this mission. Employing torturers and murderers as well as cops he forces into service, notably threatening to have one's mother raped if she resists his orders, Mr. Blue orders a hit out on Nick Sax, one of his top enforcers, when Sax accidentally kills the only man who knows the password to the previous Don's safe. He orders a hit on his nephew's because he doesn't agree with their style. While sending his Torture Technician Mr. Smoothie after Sax to torture the password out of him, Mr. Blue simultaneously has half a dozen children kidnapped and plans to run a live stream of them being raped then likely killed to turn a profit on child pornography sites, and in the end tries to force Sax to watch the children's fate as revenge for making Blue exhaust so many resources looking for him.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: A common complaint about this miniseries is that Nick Sax is so awful, and Mr. Blue is so repugnant, that there's not really a compelling reason to want to read the series, especially when it's centered around a child pornography ring.

The Syfy Series

• Awesome Music:
  • "Ultraviolence" by Lee Palmer, the theme for the trailer for the first season, is an frantic, maniacal electronic dance track reminiscent of The Prodigy, and serves as a fitting theme for the show.
  • The end of the second episode features "Mountain Song" by Jane's Addiction.
  • "19 Hours and 13 Minutes" has some cool songs that play while Nick is tripping. It starts off with the Jamaican drum 'n' bass rap blend "Move All the Time'' by Benjamin Brooke, then "Everyone I Hate Should Be Killed" by Chicago thrash metal band Oozing Wound briefly playing while he's running through New York. Later on, when he hallucinates getting a gift for Hayley, Joe "Bean" Esposito's "You're The Best" from The Karate Kid plays to match Nick's happiness as he hallucinates himself getting praised by random people, including Amanda and the three thugs he killed as Le Dic's card game.

• Dancing Bear: It’s a known fact this show is undoubtedly one of the weirdest shows ever put to television, and it’s impossible to explain the premise without cracking a smirk or thinking WTF: a drunk hitman must team up with the imaginary friend of his kidnapped daughter to rescue her from a psychopath dressed as Santa Claus. However, this is all a part of its appeal, with detractors considering it Audience-Alienating Premise while viewers and critics who enjoyed it say it’s Better Than It Sounds.
• Genius Bonus: Those versed in Classical Mythology are likely to guess ahead of time that Raspberry, the disarmingly colorful and cute-looking cartoon bulldog that Happy befriends, is actually a villain, considering he has three heads just like Cerberus, the dog who guarded the entrance to the Greek underworld.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the second episode Nick hallucinates that he's appearing on The Jerry Springer Show and snarks that he didn't realise the show was still running. Six months after the episode aired the Jerry Springer Show was cancelled.
• Heartwarming Moments: Hailey's biggest wish? To finally meet her dad. Also, when all of the Jerkass passengers of the subway station go against their typical New Yorker hate-thy-neighbor disposition and help Sax to his feet when he suddenly decides to stay alive once Happy disappeared because of him.
• Nightmare Fuel: Now with its own page.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Merry's mother's death
  • Very Bad Santa gets one, oddly enough, in the first season finale. He has a moment of clarity when he realizes the kind of monster he's become, but then accepts that he's done too many terrible things to ever make up for it:
    Very Bad Santa: They tried to make me grow up. I didn't want to. I... I never wanted to be scary.
    Hailey: You don't have to be.
    Very Bad Santa: It's too late now.
  • Upon Very Bad Santa's death, his former imaginary friend comes back to rest on his hand in sorrow.
  • In "Tallahassee", Nick makes a genuine effort to bond with Hailey, and almost succeeds when it turns out that she likes watching horse races. But then he loses his temper when they try to actually bet on a race... and then he gets blackmailed into getting involved with a fight between two brothers, one of whom threatens Hailey, forcing him to go back on his promise not to kill anyone, and Hailey hears the whole thing.
  • A meta example. The show getting sadly cancelled after two seasons, especially with the way season 2 ended. Despite hopes that it would be picked up by Netflix (who carry the show internationally) or Hulu it appears the show will be forever left hanging.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: The series is about a man and a cute animated horse, but contains violence, drug use, and cursing.
• The Woobie: Very Bad Santa's imaginary former friend, the sock puppet. Like all the other NotSoImaginaryFriends in New York, his appearance and voice are adorable, but he's still visibly suffering decades later from seeing the traumatized human child who was once his only friend grow up to be a Psychopathic Manchild, and the way he nuzzles the hanged body of Very Bad Santa is simply heartbreaking.

The Novel

• Badass Decay: The goblins. The Affinity race for Air Magic, they were once Elves who found a means to bind themselves to a dungeon. This rendered them capable of respawning like Travelers but also The Ageless and infertile, becoming stagnated and their minds decayed over time. Over the next century, they would mutate and devolve into the creatures they are today retaining their craftiness but lower intelligence and a vague sense memory of how to make and maintain their equipment and fort.