You know the character, the wound up, by-the-book character who has no flexibility or sense of humor. Tends to be a Straight Man or a Butt-Monkey at times.
See also: Neat Freak, Nervous Wreck.
Compare: The Perfectionist, Obstructive Bureaucrat.
Examples:
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Advertising
- A long-running series of commercials for 9 Lives brand cat food featured Morris, an extremely finicky cat who would only eat 9 Lives.
Anime and Manga
- Chiri Kitsu from Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei must have everything done properly, even if it it's just for cutting a cake in equal slices.
Fan Works
- In the Peggy Sue Naruto fic For Love, Hinata realises that her bodyguard Hyuuga Ko is actually excessively uptight and stuffy, strongly disapproving of her friendship with Naruto and insistent that even people she's close to address her as "Hinata-sama", despite her openly telling them not to (something she never really noticed her first time around).
Films — Animation
- The Lion King (1994): Zazu is stuffy, straight-laced and serious.
Films — Live-Action
- Jason in Couples Retreat, who actually gives his friends a PowerPoint presentation to discuss the possibility of divorcing his wife.
Live-Action TV
- In Alien Nation, George is offended by the fact that he's called Obsessive-Compulsive. "Another word for that is anal retentiveness. I don't have an anus!"
- Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory has a thing for making people sign written agreements, is something of a germaphobe and is very picky about where he sits.
- Wes Mitchell from Common Law, as stated by Travis Marks: "You're anal retentive".
- CSI: NY: Mac Taylor, who once tells a scheming reporter, "I am a big fan of the rules," has been accused of this. Danny says to Lindsay, when she's the victim of an office prank, that the word "joke" isn't in Mac's vocabulary. It isn't as pronounced later on as in the first few seasons, though. He loosens slightly after a couple of near-death experiences and beginning a romance with an old friend.
- Death in Paradise has Detective Inspector Richard Poole, who is considered stuffy and uptight even by his fellow Englishmen.
- Friends: Monica is obsessed with cleanliness, controlling over even the most simple of past times and known to fits of neurotics when the slightest thing is out of place.
- Detective Frank Pembleton from Homicide: Life on the Street is a rigid, uptight snob who does not react well to being pushed out of his comfort zone. When the detectives are forced to work out of an abandoned bank for a few episodes, Pembleton spends the entire time having a meltdown (albeit partially because of his stress over his wife's pregnancy).
Bayliss: Frank, go home. You're, I dunno, discombobulated.
Pembleton: OF COURSE I'M DISCOMBOBULATED! I WORK OUT IN A GODDAMN SAFETY DEPOSIT BOX, FOR GOD'S SAKE! [Pembleton walks over to a phlegmatic tube canister] LOOK AT THIS! [pulls it down] WHAT IS IT?! - Monk: The lovable neurotic Adrian Monk, who has turned his obsessive penchant for detail into a helpmate rather than a liability.
- Phil Hartman had a character on Saturday Night Live that never got a project done because he was so fussy about neatness that he completely forgot what he was doing to stop and tidy up his workstation.
Theatre
- Felix Unger from The Odd Couple (and the 70s series) is the anal retentive poster child due to his obsessiveness with neatness.
- Joanne from RENT admits to making to-do lists in her sleep.
Web Original
- Dice Funk: Roland from "Ilium" is extremely serious and straight-laced, which is Played for Laughs when he acts as the Straight Man to his much more rowdy teammates. Downplayed somewhat as he does loosen up a bit at times and is an expert Pungeon Master.
- Douchey McNitpick from The Nostalgia Critic, who lives up to his name by picking apart even the smaller mistakes that the Critic makes. This is enough for him to be one with the Plot Hole in the Critic's place.
Western Animation
- Edd from Ed, Edd n Eddy. In the early days, he was more relaxed and willing to go along with the boys' plans, but over time, he becomes more stressed and acts as the group's Only Sane Man.
- Dipper Pines from Gravity Falls can border on this often. He's pretty sensitive to criticism, stresses easily and has very little patience for his sister's Cloud Cuckoolander antics, as well as very easily worked-up. Naturally the other characters derive a fair bit of humour from playing off this tendency of his.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Twilight Sparkle has been know to start riots and rips in time due to her anal retentiveness.
- Rarity due to her perfectionism, Neat Freak moments, and neuroses.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM): Princess Sally Acorn, to foil the reckless, fun-loving Sonic. Though she is played more primarily as The Straight Man than other examples, her neuroses are a large source of comedy for her character. She starts off this way in the comic adaptation as well, though by later comics, she is more laid back.
- Steven Universe gives us Pearl, the constantly stressed Team Mom, an extreme Neat Freak with an aversion to chaos and a tendency to nitpick her less precise and proper team members, particularly the more messy and fun-loving Amethyst, whose jokes are almost never funny to Pearl.
- Thomas & Friends's two passenger coaches, Annie and Clarabel are this. They nitpick Thomas' behavior constantly and fuss over the speed he travels (he has a lot of fun with this one in "Not So Slow Coaches"). Gordon found them unbearable to work with after a mishap left them his substitute Express coaches.
- Archibald Asparagus from VeggieTales is often portrayed this way. One time, he cancelled "Silly Songs With Larry", due to Larry's silly song "Song Of The Cebu" not making any sense, and another time, he took over the show from Bob and Larry in an attempt to add culture and class to the show.
