Animated sitcoms have been a trend since The Simpsons.
And they typically focus on the nuclear family unit, using the dynamic of a married couple
and their children.
But who among the husbands featured in these cartoons comes off as the most good?
And who is the most evil?
I’m Rachel from WickedBinge and this is Adult Cartoon Husbands: Good to Evil.
For this list, we’ll be going over the most recognized husbands of adult animation.
Those who are more fleshed out on their shows and show the partnership they have with their
spouses, good or bad.
We’ll be ranking based on how well they work as a team and how healthy they are for
one another and their family if they have one.
As usual, we'll be starting with the most pure and noble character and working our way
down.
These characters are The Good.
Bob Belcher is a family man through and through.
He’s not the best with dates such as birthdays or anniversaries, but since he forgets his
own birthday as easily as he forgets everyone else’s, we cut him some slack.
In most adult cartoons, you typically have the neglectful husband and the nagging housewife,
but with Bob and Linda, that isn’t the case.
Bob makes an effort to try and give Linda a spy day on her birthday, tries to give her
a real striptease on Valentine’s Day and takes up projects with her such as knitting,
building paper airplanes and making costumes for their kids.
He took up an art class so that his wife would see him as an artist and endures time with
Gale, even dragging the woman through the snow on a sled, because it’s important to
his wife.
Dale Gribble comes up next on our list.
He is one of the most dedicated husbands on this list.
Though an awkward guy, he puts his wife on a pedestal.
He praises her career, and even though his choices make their lives difficult both emotionally
and financially, he does all he can to make Nancy happy.
He begs John Redcorn to heal her migraines, he trains and teaches vocational classes to
help pay the bills and he hijacked a news van to try and boost her career.
Even after years of marriage, he makes sure to lavish her with compliments and brags about
how beautiful and wonderful she is.
When he was hit on by Sheila, the woman he admired as one of the best exterminators in
the game, he rejected her, stating he was married to the greatest woman in the world.
[use clip: Dale- “I’ve taken two vows in my life.
One to the NRA.
And the other to Nancy Hicks-Gribble.
Nay, Nancy Hicks.”]
A weird guy, but a loyal one.
Hank Hill is not the most romantic guy on the planet, but he does love his wife.
He gets knocked down a little for having to be reminded that he has to still treat his
wife out even though they are married, being practically scolded by his friends for his
embarrassment at showing emotion.
Hank is not the best in romantic settings, but does help Peggy feel more comfortable
with herself.
He offers to treat her to shoes when she’s worried about not being feminine enough.
He went to defend her honour when she was tricked by the owner of a smut website dedicated
to Peggy’s feet.
And while he isn’t comfortable with Luanne much of the time, he makes sure to help her
feel like family and encourage her, knowing she means a lot to Peggy.
Ned Flanders adored his wife Maude and it was one of the most tragic moments in Simpsons
history when she passed.
He was always loving with her, supporting her and their sons without fail.
Their biggest arguments revolved around Ned not unplugging the phone for Homer’s telemarketing
scam and Maude marking passages in his Bible rather than her own.
Kif is one of the more awkward men on this list.
Prone to jealousy, he ends up losing his temper with Amy a lot due to her unintentional flirting
with people.
He loses points to his constant need to make her happy and impress her, but we give him
credit when he’s able to save her after being kidnapped by the Native Martians.
He had a hard time accepting that she wasn’t ready to be tied down with marriage and kids,
but held the burden by himself, still going through with the ceremony for their children
on his own before Amy reappeared.
Jeff, while loving to his wife Hailey, is simply not a good husband.
He is content living off of his in-laws, staying in the bedroom his wife grew up in.
He’s not the only one at fault for that, since Hailey is letting him stay in the home,
but it dampens Jeff’s reputation.
We give him some credit for thinking of his spouse’s happiness.
He contacts her as he’s lost in space to tell her to move on with her life as he doesn’t
know when or if he’ll be able to return.
He fought to go back to Earth to be with her, claiming the aliens were keeping him from
true love.
Homer Simpson falls pretty low on our list for a number
of reasons.
While he’s pretty sweet and well-meaning most of the time, he’s had tons of selfish
moments.
Even in the very early seasons of the show, he ends up sneaking out to go fishing when
they’re meant to be on a marriage retreat, and that was after getting drunk and ogling
Maude during their party.
His dance with Princess Kashmir was one of the biggest scandals passed around Springfield
and he denied her going to therapy just so she wouldn’t be talked out of leaving him.
But Homer also adored his wife, refusing to cheat on her with Mindy, Lorlene and a number
of others just because Marge was his one and only.
He is short-sighted at times, but always makes sure to make up for his mistakes.
Lucky may not have been Peggy’s first choice for her niece, but he wound up being a sensible
and honourable man.
He went from being all about flash and racing with his buddies, living off his settlement,
to being a dedicated husband and father.
He encouraged Luanne to pursue being a children’s entertainer, staying home with their baby
Gracie.
He took Hank’s advice to be more of a stable figure, going through all the work of having
a credit card, a social security card, and even getting a down payment on an actual home
for their family.
The whole reason he wanted his GED was so he could consider himself good enough to marry
the girl, which is a romantic thought.
With that said, we've arrived at the neutral territory.
These characters fall in The Grey Area.
Hermes and Apu we’re ranking together due to their one shared flaw: putting work before
their wives.
Both Hermes and Apu would be more than happy to dedicate all their time to their jobs,
to the point that we barely see either of them interact with their wives or homelife.
Apu wound up having an affair with the Squishee woman and Hermes traded in almost all of his
body for robot parts despite Labarbara begging him to stop.
They have moments where they’re seen as sweet and attentive, but it’s few and far
between.
Stan Smith was a tricky one to place.
On the one hand, there have been episodes dedicated to Stan putting his needs and obsessions
first, such as when he was met with his cyborg future self and when he left to go on tour
with My Morning Jacket.
But we give Stan credit for doing what he thought was needed to keep his relationship.
He was the first to give in when they separated the house over renovation disputes.
He blinded himself thinking it would make him a more attentive husband.
He built a security system thinking he was protecting Francine.
While his tactics were questionable more than a few times, we can’t dispute his perfect
heaven being revolved around Francine.
Cleveland is much like Kif and Jeff in that he’s way too much of a pushover when it
comes to his wife.
But he’s also a horrible burden on her.
He barely makes any effort for her now that they’re married.
He pays off the therapist to take his side in arguments, gets her drunk right before
a debate and lies to her about his improved fitness just to be left alone.
But we give him a higher rank because he also makes an effort to help with her ex and his
relationship with the kids, treats her children like his own and makes a fake scenario to
get her friends to accept her again.
Joe Swanson falls far due to his relationship with his wife in later seasons.
In the beginning of Family Guy, Joe was a reliable and loving man, but as the show progressed
he was displayed as bitter and treated as sub-human.
Though he told his friends numerous times that his marriage was as strong as ever, it
is easy to see that he feels under-appreciated.
He went to Paris to try and stop Bonnie from cheating on him, but then wound up sleeping
with a female officer a short time later.
He accused his wife of not doing anything for him when she helped clean and take care
of him.
And we can’t forget the time he was able to get a leg transplant and tried to up and
leave Bonnie while she was still pregnant.
The Monarch was always bent with revenge, but much of his success and inspiration comes
from his wife.
His title, his henchmen, and many of his plans were due to his wife being a key player.
He falls pretty far due to many of the things he lied to her about and their relationship
began as just meeting in a hotel room every now and then.
But he respected her input, and always praised her for her help with gaining information
on Venture and playing both sides to get him a higher villain ranking.
Greg and Terri we are placing together, because while they seem like good partners at first,
they slowly reveal to be awful people in their own way.
Greg is incredibly demanding, He puts food restrictions on the home but refuses to cook
himself.
He’s a control freak that criticizes everything from furniture to personalities.
He wants everything to be perfect all the time.
Terri, on the other hand, puts up with Greg even though he’s miserable because it’s
comfortable.
He cares about Greg to some degree, but is more in it for the comfortable lifestyle.
He undermines Greg’s achievements, calling his local Emmy worthless when Stan tries to
steal it and uses a Smith antic to break the figurines Greg adored but Terri couldn’t
stand.
And let’s not forget how he tried to manipulate Greg when Roger was living with them as their
son Micheal, even resorting to trying to kill Roger to keep his darker side hidden.
Finally, we've reached the dark side.
These characters are The Bad and The Evil.
Jerry Smith is one of the most toxic husbands in animation.
While one can argue that he does love Beth and that it’s a good marriage, we have to
look at all the evidence that says otherwise.
No partnership is perfect, but when an alien marriage counselor is telling you you are
not right for one another and that your relationship defies logic, that’s a pretty big pill to
swallow.
Jerry’s issues always revolve around either seeing Beth as a goddess or being resentful
that she was smarter and more capable than him.
Neither of those views are healthy and it makes him act out in horrible ways.
Peter Griffin has fallen from grace since Family Guy started.
He went from being a clueless guy who took his wife for granted to being a horrible and
inconsiderate jerk who took his wife for granted.
He lies to her continuously, makes a mess of everything he touches, and uses holding
her loved items hostage such as her wedding dress to try and negotiate.
When he became smarter for an episode, he constantly mocked her low intelligence and
quizzes her on vocabulary.
When he thought he fell for a phone sex operator, he took the chance to cheat on his wife, not
realizing it was Lois he had been talking to.
Avery Bullock and Buck Stickland are two more we have to place together due to their similarities.
Both neglect their wives to live a life full of drinking, questionable enhancements, and
reckless brawling.
Avery wound up leaving his wife in a terrorist hold simply because he refused to come as
weak by negotiating.
He refused to be a part of her recovery when she was brought home and didn’t seem to
care at all when she was killed by Ricky Spanish.
Buck also wanted to play the field while still having a ring on his finger.
He framed Hank to save Ms Liz from murder charges, but he also had no issue flaunting
his dates in front of their shared friends.
Carter is
the standard rich guy, thinking that everything
in his life has to be perfect and easy and anything that doesn’t fit can be handled
with money.
He frequently cheated on his wife and would leave her in a heartbeat for someone younger.
When he left Babs for Trisha, he had Babs committed in an asylum for “freaking out
for no reason.”
He made her hide the fact that she was Jewish so he could join more exclusive clubs without
hassle, and even their first meeting was one of violence.
Carter believed that domestic abuse was acceptable and taught his wife that it was appropriate
which is downright sickening and manipulative.
Cotton takes the gold medal of worst husband.
He’s loud, sexist, and emotionally abusive.
He goes into fits of rage at the drop of a hat, breaking dishes and shouting derogatory
names.
He openly mocks his first wife whenever he can and treats his second wife like a walking
sex toy who is only good for cooking, cleaning and taking care of his second child.
Cotton doesn’t see women as anything more than a thing he can use to amuse himself and
that transferred into all of his relationships.
But what do you think?
Who are the most good and evil husbands in adult animation?
Let us know in the comment section.
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