"Hey, you know what this calls for? A PARTY!"
— Pinkie Pie, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
The character who's always fun and games, no matter what tone the story takes.
They're not necessarily the same as a comic relief since comedy is not really their point, but rather positivity as a whole. They do have a similar role though, acting as a mood-maker who shields others from feelings of despair or doom and generally prevents the plot from getting overly grim. Of course, if the story does start progressing towards an inevitable darker tone, then it might be necessary for them to take the backseat, leave or even die altogether.
Another aspect which often sets them apart from the comic relief is that they're unlikely to be a weak or cowardly side-character, and in fact may be a confident, leading figure that ties all other heroes together (or simply drags them along against their will). Thanks to this "bravery", rarely will they take things seriously, preferring to see the bright side of the dangerous situations they get themselves into. If they do get sad or angry, it definitely won't last long, although powerful enough moments of Break the Cutie may lead them to become a Sad Clown or The Pollyanna instead, which might take some more time to heal (or possibly never).
Those characters, just like the comic relief, have a tendency to become divisive, mostly depending on the sort of tone the work primarily focuses on. Beware, however, of trying to make them Darker and Edgier; it never works and only serves to make fans and haters alike angry.
See the Big Fun, Genki Girl and Life of the Party for specific examples of this. Contrast with Knight of Cerebus, the character who immediately brings a gloomier tone to an otherwise lighthearted work.
Examples:
Comic Books open/close all folders
Anime and Manga
- Baccano!: To wit: Episode 08: "Isaac and Miria Unintentionally Spread Happiness Around Them".
Miria: Hey, Isaac!
Isaac: What is it, Miria?
Miria: Why aren't we on this page?
Isaac: Why would we be? After all, dangerous rogues such as ourselves would never be so silly!
Miria: Right! We are serious! Super serious! Aaaaaamaaazingly serious! - Lloyd Asplund from Code Geass, the only character in the series who seems to not have a care in the world. He really does, of course. Milly Ashford, as well, though downplayed late in the series.
- Codename: Sailor V was a Fun Personified manga starring a Fun Personified character that slowly got more serious, but never to the level of its spinoff, Sailor Moon.
- Dragon Ball:
- At the beginning of the series, Goku was very much this. Since most of the early villains couldn't even harm him, the fights weren't serious and mostly slapstick with Goku goofing off the majority of the time. It also helps that Goku for all his power and cleverness was still a child. This gets downplayed as the series went on since the villains became more dangerous and powerful. By Z, Goku is much more serious, although he still has his silly moments like the time he fought the Ginyu force on Namek, especially in fillers or when he's around Vegeta.
- Majin Buu is a rare evil example, a godlike being with the mentality of a 5-year-old, He is by far the goofiest villain in the entire series. The fact that he looks like mutated bubblegum and has a beam that can turn people into candy and cookies really highlights this aspect of his personality. Despite all this, he is by far the most dangerous villain in all of the manga and the Z anime, especially his pure, original form.
- Gundam
- Chibodee Crocket and Sai Saici from Mobile Fighter G Gundam, with Chibodee's over-the-top Americanness, loves to party, drink, and generally have a good time and Sai being a happy-go-lucky Kid Hero, contrasting with the growling protagonist and their rival, Domon.
- The second generation of Mobile Suit Gundam AGE has rookie pilot Arisa Gunhale. She's upbeat, irreverent, and competitive, which does a lot to lighten Asemu's dad issues and romance issues, plus the War Is Hell thing.
- Philippines from Hetalia: Axis Powers is one, in contrast with his more laidback fellow Asean members.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- The Joestar group in Stardust Crusaders, especially Joseph Joestar (and except for Jotaro Kujo). The old dude is very upbeat and loud despite him being on an important journey to save his own daughter from a terminal illness by fighting a Humanoid Abomination and his waves of assassins.
- If you thought Joseph was fun in Stardust Crusaders, he's even better in his youth during Battle Tendency. He spends a good portion of his fights just screwing with his opponents' heads, and outside of battle is just an all-around goofball.
- Joseph's illegitimate son Josuke Higashikata from Diamond is Unbreakable is a pretty goofy guy himself, though not to his father's extent.
- Mako Mankanshoku from Kill la Kill, one of the genkiest girls of recent anime, and guaranteed to say or do something funny or crazy in pretty much every episode she's in.
- This is the default outlook and personality of Kotoura-san's Manabe. He lives in the moment, enjoys himself, seeks to humor and/or fluster others. However, he definitely knows when to be serious.
- Ladies and gentlemen, Arsene Lupin III. In Green vs. Red, Jigen says this trait specifically is why he hangs out with Lupin.
- My Hero Academia: The pro heroine Ms. Joke is an upbeat and energetic woman who is always trying to get a laugh out of people. Fittingly, her Quirk gives her the power to induce Contagious Laughter on her foes to incapacitate them.
- Nia Teppelin from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, after Kamina's death.
Comic Books (other)
- The Flea from PS238, being a bug-themed metahuman heavily inspired by Ambush Bug, Spider-Man at his most light-hearted and a little of The Tick. The comic has yet to have a situation to make him stop joking around for more than seconds at a time, and he mostly gets (tangentially) involved in the business of more important characters because of It Amused Me.
Fan Works
- In Incarnation of Legends, Amaterasu is this. She's described as warm and cuddly and constantly radiates warmth wherever she goes. She leads the Sun Faction, which wants the Far East to open its borders, support the weak, and spread happiness throughout the world. She's also doting and friendly toward Haruhime, insisting that she be liberated from her noble duties and be allowed to have fun as a child for once.
- Daisuke Saburo from ''One Piece: Parallel Works"" is this trope in shades. Even Word of God states that if Daisuke were real, he'd be very fun to hang out with.
- Lorelei of The Lorelei Chronicles. Justified in that her normal life is kind of depressing so when she universe-hops, she tries to cause as much non-destructive hilarity as possible. However, mess with her or her friends, and she will hunt you down.
- In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Tskymi, better known as Dark Shadow, is a relentlessly cheerful Fifth-Dimensional Genie. His idea of a Hero costume is a scuba diving outfit with a floatie and immediately celebrates a victory by throwing his owner, Tokoyami, into the air while chanting "And he's a jolly-good rookie!" The fact that he's a Reality Warper means he can pull sorts of hijinks on command, and he has to win by tapping the "bomb" while making a "boop" sound.
Films — Animation
- Olaf the Snowman in Frozen. Since he's basically Elsa's inner child, he's perky, friendly, and enjoys playing in the snow.
- Joy from Inside Out. She is the personification of Riley's happiness, after all.
- In Rise of the Guardians, Jack Frost is this, despite his winter nature. In fact, he is the Guardian of fun.
Films — Live-Action
- The title character in Arthur (1981). He's obscenely wealthy by way of inheritance and can afford to have all the fun and drink all the booze he wants, and he is constantly cracking jokes. But his old-money family, his fiance in an Arranged Marriage, and her family aren't having any of it, rendering him a middle-aged Lonely Rich Kid at heart. He finally is spurred on to Character Development and taking life more seriously (though not too much) when he falls in love with a working-class waitress who appreciates his lighthearted qualities, and risks his inheritance to be with her instead of the fiance.
- Beetlejuice provides a villainous example. Generally, it's a dark form of 'fun' that the other characters don't appreciate.
- The alarmingly flamboyant but still heterosexual Ruby Rhod from The Fifth Element.
- Rodney Skinner, the Chivalrous Pervert Invisible Streaker in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. A stark contrast to Hawley Griffin, his counterpart in the original comics.
- Darcy Lewis from Thor and Thor: The Dark World always has a funny remark to lighten things up.
Literature
- Miranda Fallow in Dr. Franklin's Island is not so much 'fun' as 'any kind of positivity' sense. While stranded on the Deserted Island she's always got her eyes open and keeps coming up with plans and games and projects to fill the castaways' time, some of which are immediately useful like making an A-frame hut and collecting supplies. Some are not, like 'the tomorrow game', which is exchanging silly predictions about good things that will happen 'tomorrow'. The situation worsens when they're captured by the owner of the Island Base, at which point Miranda starts grasping for even absurd and ridiculous hope to try and stave off despair. She acknowledges the seriousness of the issues at hand and that her hopes are ludicrous, but says that if they're going to die anyway, they don't have to die screaming and terrified. At a certain point her friend Semi goes from relying on Miranda's coping mechanism to finding it delusional, but it's definitely a bad sign when Miranda stops.
- Grandpa Gray: Grandpa Gray is stated to carry a big brown bag full of surprises and does tricks for people.
- Harry Potter: Fred and George Weasley. Their goal in life is seemingly to make people laugh. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, their goal becomes making Sadist Teacher Dolores Umbridge suffer. Which also makes people laugh.
- The Hunger Games: Implied to be Finnick Odair's natural personality, when he's not in the midst of crippling depression or otherwise wearing one of his other masks. He's easygoing, likes to tease and play little jokes on people, but also prone to cracking jokes at his own expense, such as when he says he can't leave Mags because she actually likes him.
- Winnie the Pooh: Tigger is extremely energetic, always happy and is always looking for fun and bouncing around the 100 Acre Woods.
Live-Action TV
- American Idol contestant Nick Mitchell/Normund Gentle, especially with his semifinal performance of "And I Am Telling You" from Dreamgirls.
- The emerald-skinned crooner, Lorne (no relation to Greene), on Angel. As often happens in anything tangentially connected with Joss Whedon, the character was deconstructed into an alcoholic, emotionally-repressed mess. How did he leave the series? By firing an execution bullet into an unarmed man (ending a lifetime of ardent pacifism), watching him writhe around and die, and slinking off into the shadows never to return.
- Eric of Boy Meets World. You never know what you're going to get caught up in with him but you know that at the end of the (very long) day you're going to look back and say "That was fun!"
- Doctor Who:
- Subverted by the Seventh Doctor, who was originally Enforced into this character type as a Lighter and Softer reaction against just how much Bloodier and Gorier the show had got during the Sixth Doctor's run. He spent the first season playing the spoons, doing magic tricks, being a figure of delight and whimsy and battling Camptacular comedy enemies with the loosest continuity yet. After the manic rush of making his first season, both the actor and script editor had the opportunity to think about what they actually wanted to do with him, which resulted in things such as introducing 'comedy' monsters but playing their effects in a dark and serious way (like the Kandyman and the Killer Clowns) and revealing the Doctor's apparent silliness was Obfuscating Stupidity, making Seven one of the most alien, manipulative, and dark Doctors of the lot. When the series got cancelled the Expanded Universe picked him up and used him to codify all of the "Dark Doctor" tropes that the revival series later handled on-screen — like a serious examination of the Omniscient Morality License, Angst? What Angst? and the psychological profile of someone who'd do that much Dirty Business. In the New Adventures books, there's even a line that he doesn't play the spoons any more because he's too busy toppling empires.
- The Expanded Universe gives us the loopy lady time-traveller Iris Wildthyme, an in-universe parody of the Doctor with a time machine that's smaller on the inside, a happily sexual personality to contrast with the Doctor's Chaste Hero status, a tendency to take on handsome young male companions, and a deadly rivalry with legendarily pathetic-looking monsters the Zarbi. She occasionally crosses over with the Doctor in stories that frequently combine silliness and magic realism.
- Big Finish Doctor Who often uses Mel like this — the Sixth Doctor's relationship with Peri (and Evelyn) and the Seventh Doctor's relationship with Ace are both extremely complicated. Mel is played by an over-the-top actress who did mostly musicals and Panto, and has a sillier relationship with both her Doctors and Timey-Wimey Ball writing that means her entire character makes no sense at all, so audios featuring her are usually Breather Episodes between grittier storylines featuring Peri or Ace.
- Hiro Nakamura of Heroes was originally written because the creator's wife pointed out that none of the heroes created so far actually enjoyed their powers. Since Heroes has tons of characters, that means loads and loads of "Having powers is AWESOME!" meant to be spread over a dozen or so people ended up condensed into one happy little Japanese man.
- Subverted in a sketch on Important Things with Demetri Martin. "Bruce the Funny Dog" gives a glimpse of what it might be like to actually live with Fun Personified. Every time the camera cuts to Bruce the basset hound, he's wearing a different wacky outfit. This doesn't go over so well while his owners are dealing with a family tragedy.
- Kamen Rider Drive: Contrasting the hero, who is a by-the-book cop, Shijima Gou is a carefree guy who performed first transformation with pyrotechnics and even a stage set up. Then the daddy issues kicked in at the worst time and he lost his cheerful personality.
- Ray Palmer from Legends of Tomorrow (post-Season 1, anyway). Almost everyone takes note of his relentlessly positive attitude, his friendliness, his wholesomeness, and the joy he takes in all the Legends' adventures. Even when he's sent to Hell to be tortured by his Arch-Enemy, his sunny disposition ends up winning his torturer over, and they spend their time playing Jenga together instead.
- Vala of Stargate SG-1. Any angst she shows about anything (tragic past, constant danger, evil daughter) is within an episode trumped by her sense of humour and lack of attention span.
- Who Wants to Be a Superhero?
- Season 1 had Major Victory, a flamboyant, over-the-top Flying Brick type of character, who was eventually eliminated for not taking heroics seriously enough... oh, and for having once been a male stripper.
- Season 2 had Hyper-Strike, a hilariously endearing young man who was prone to doing martial arts (and circus) movements at random, not to mention over-the-top acting.
Music
- Daft Punk. They take the enjoyment of their fans VERY seriously. Their iconic robot look is a way for fans to immerse themselves into the music and its themes.
- Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins. So very much, and you don't need to do more than watch any of their videos to understand why.
- Christina Grimmie's youtube channel is full of adorable and humorous videos of her.
- *NSYNC were noted for frequently poking fun at themselves, and their music videos and concerts were seen as more fun, especially since their chart rivals the Backstreet Boys were more often portrayed as quite stoic and Perpetual Frowners.
- Buckethead is usually this to his fans. He's always masked and in character, wearing a fried chicken bucket on his head and acting in a childish, slightly creepy manner. He also decorates his rooms and stages in a spooky-silly sort of way, frequently does robotic dances and nunchaku demonstrations when performing, and trades toys with the audience.
- Public Enemy: Flavor Flav is the only light-hearted member of the conscious group, and the only reason he is part of Public Enemy is to be their hypeman (he created the Hip Hop hypeman), yelling out ad-libs and saying his catchphrase in the beginning and middle of every song, but this has worked in his favor, as he's turned out to be the most recognized member of the group, even making a hit song by himself.
- LilJon is another rap hypeman; his music consists of him yelling and screaming "Yeah" and "Okay" in the beginning of most songs and he's known for making Hip Hop songs only about partying which are in fact big hits.
- James Brown is a legend who's known for making songs with meaning but many of his biggest hits are about having a good time and dancing like Feel Good and SuperBad. We also can't forget his good dance moves — he liked to dance a lot, and he influenced many past and present great artists to do the same while they perform.
- Fats Waller was known for his lively personality on the stage.
Mythology and Religion
Professional Wrestling
- Quite possibly the original "traveling face enforcer", the show off but largely non malicious Haystacks Calhoun.
- Koko B. Ware, who danced around with his pet bird, wore bright colors, and was generally a happy-go-lucky guy.
- The Blue Meanie, Stevie Richards and Super Nova in ECW nWo parody group, the Blue World Order. They later reunited in WWE riding big wheels to the ring.
- The relentlessly optimistic WCW wrestler Disco Inferno.
- Rikishi, since joining Too Cool, and becoming a hip hop dancing sumo wrestler best known for his stink face.
- Kenny Omega, amongst the serious business that generally goes along with Canadian wrestling, here is a guy in leather coming out to Dr. Wily's theme going by the red baron "Destiny Flower".
- The Pink Ladies Jessie McKay and Madison Eagles as well as Shazza McKenzie, though the former two's fun often involved ruining the latter's. Though McKay would make up with McKenzie and form Team Australia, which was fun enough to make Kellie Skater clean up.
- LuFisto, from at least her ARSION debut and continuously onward. She'll celebrate as if she's won a match after a few successful take downs even.
- Once you looked past the fact many wrestlers found Boogeyman even when he wasn't popping up out of nowhere to assault people and was officially banned from OVW's premises, you couldn't help but notice how much fun he was having with the whole thing.
- Geeky superhero Leva Bates, who unfortunately get too carried away dancing and what not to remember the match at hand.
- Su Yung's basic gimmick, before things got really bad. It took a lot of effort to make her unhappy and she would often imitate whatever it was her opponents were doing, having a very laid back approach to matches.
- This is more or less the gimmick for Percy Watson of WWE NXT Season 2. He constantly dances, moves, laughs, poses and generally looks like he's out there to have a blast.
- Adam Rose has now taken up the mantle, traveling the country with a troupe of party animals in colorful costumes as he cheerfully cries, "It's party time, ALL THE TIME!"
- No Way Jose, who started out just dancing but now has almost an exact copy of Adam Rose's gimmick.
- The New Day, who are very close buddies and enjoy having fun and being silly.
Tabletop Games
- Champions attempts to emulate just about every comic trope there is (even destroying Detroit to make room for their Super City), and this trope is no exception. The most obvious example is Foxbat, an underpowered "super-normal" who seems to know he's living in a comic book and determines to live each cliche to the fullest. (Strangely, he thinks he's in a comic book but has no clue he's a non-player character in a roleplaying game.) Oh, and remember — there is no CLOWN. There was never CLOWN.
- Paranoia has been a darkly humorous game since its inception, though the degree of zaniness tends to vary with the specific GM involved. In the latest version of the game, however, this is codified with the "Zap" game style, which specifically caters to Fun Personified players.
- Toon: The Cartoon Role-Playing Game is this trope in game form. It's hard to stay serious when your character has just suffered "smacked in the face from a giant ceramic narwhale flying through the car window damage". Exaggerated in some of the supplements, most particularly the Tooniversal Tour Guide and its parodies of other (more serious) RPG genres.
- Warhammer 40K: In the grim dark future, there is only war...so basically, the Orks are having the time of their lives in what can only be called a never-ending party.
Video Games
- BlazBlue:
- Taokaka is, despite her fearsome face, utterly adorable and possibly the only character without a hint of angst and tragedy. Her voice helps too. Not to mention the extra-strength Ho Yay with "Boobie Lady".
- Makoto Nanaya seems to fill this role, being a Genki Girl with a cute voice and a propensity to utter completely silly things during a fight such as The Tick's catchphrase "SPOOOON!!" It helps that she happens to be an expy of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.
- Maria Renard of Castlevania is usually this, only being serious in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, in Castlevania: Rondo of Blood she refers to Dracula as the "Bad Man", and basically treats defeating a man who rules Death as a walk in the park. In Castlevania: Judgment she's a Pettanko obsessed with breasts, and considers having large breasts a sacred gift.
- Felicia from Dark Stalkers is the only genuinely good character on the entire cast, and this is best reflected with her character design being presented as less muscular and feral after the first game. While every character has their problems and baggage to carry, Felicia just wants to make the world a better place with her singing and dancing. She even opens an orphanage to take care of kids.
- In Dragon Age II, Hawke with the Sarcastic Personality is a nigh-unstoppable screwball in charge of protecting Kirkwall, cheerfully snarking at everyone and everything in the game. Of course, we later see that this is mostly an act designed to cover up the fact they're really just a Sad Clown, particularly after their mother's murder.
- The Elder Scrolls series has Sanguine, the Daedric Prince of Debauchery and Hedonism. Given the nature of most deities in the ES universe, Sanguine is literally this trope. His sphere includes both the good and bad aspects of debauchery, hedonism, revelry, and passion. He can most commonly be found trying to tempt mortals into sin using various vices. Additionally, his thousands of realms of Oblivion reform to cater to the needs of whoever visits.
- Final Fantasy:
- Gilgamesh. A Large Ham Boisterous Bruiser with a ridiculous Noh theatre theme, multiple arms and high-top sneakers, he started out as a Goldfish Poop Gang boss in Final Fantasy V but was banished to the Void between universes by the Big Bad. Ever since, he's been popping up for silly cameos in other FF games, often as an Optional Boss or Hidden Character.
- Bartz Klauser is used as this in Dissidia NT, with a significantly more goofy-looking fighting style based on taking RPG game mechanics and battle animations 1) literally, and 2) into the fighting genre.
- Freedom Force vs The Third Reich has the Green Genie, who manages the impressive feat of being Fun Personified by comedy Silver Age Pastiche standards. She zooms around on a magic carpet, turning Nazis into flowerpots.
- May and Faust from Guilty Gear both have a little bit of angst revolving around May's Japanese heritage (the Japanese being incredibly rare in the game's setting) and Faust being a reformed Serial Killer, but are both the least serious characters in the series, with May regularly fighting with cartoonish dolphins and constantly pining after Johnny, while Faust is a living, reality-bending cartoon character with an Overdrive where he kanchos his opponent and an Instant Kill where he gives them impromptu plastic surgery. By -STRIVE- however, he drops the act for good.
- For every badass monster in Pokémon, there is at least one other monster that's meant to be just cute or silly or have a "gimmick" to them. They usually end up as Joke Characters or maybe as Lethal Joke Characters if they are lucky. Baby Pokémon are a great example. Perhaps the straightest example is Ludicolo: it's a big pineapple-looking duck thing with a lilypad sombrero that's known for Dance Battling (at least when used by Miror B, who's an example himself).
- Punch-Out!! has Disco Kid, who's always wearing an upbeat grin and doesn't seem to be totally serious about boxing (including jumping jacks in the middle of his matches!). There's also the huge, goofy, but ultimately quite friendly Bear Hugger, the game's Big Fun, who interrupts his rounds occasionally to dance and shout random things related to fishing and hockey.
- In Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, Marle is a dark take on this trope. She constantly wants to have fun and forces the other characters to fight her and each other to this end. Her actions are actually from being mind controlled by Squares; once she's brought back to normal, it's revealed that, as a personification of the Will of the Worlds, she governs fun.
- Saints Row 2:
- One of the Saints, token girl Shaundi, fulfills this role. Really Gets Around combined with Cloud Cuckoo Lander combined with a New Age Hippy style set of interests makes her one of the most entertaining characters in the game. This characterization isn't kept in the next game.
- Johnny Gat takes the form of a Dark Humor styled one. Almost everything he does is either act like a lovable psychopath or do something inhumanly badass.
- Sonic The Hedgehog:
- Sonic himself. Being a free and adventurous thrill seeker, he rarely ever gets truly serious. This tends to irritate his more serious rivals, Knuckles and Shadow.
- Despite being the Big Bad, Doctor Eggman has a fondness for building goofy robots that tend to be shaped after animals and may even have cartoony personalities, and as well as casinos and amusement parks.
- The Inklings from Splatoon are an entire society based around this. While there are several who serve as secret agents defending Inkopolis, for the most part, they just want to relax, have fun, stay fresh, look fashionable, and participate in Splatfests. Their sister species, Octolings, are more serious in nature, but aren't entirely above kicking it back and doing the same: the realization that there's more to life than diligent military service is what leads to Octolings defecting from the Octarian military in waves and joining Inkling society on the surface during the events of the second game.
- Star Fox: Panther Caroso is somewhat showing characteristics of this, at least when compared to Wolf or Leon. In fact, he's usually the subject used in various Japanese meme vids.
- Dee Jay and Rufus from the Street Fighter series. The former is a perpetually-grinning, perpetually-cheerful Dance Battler, and the latter being a rotund loon who learned how to fight by watching martial arts movies and has a tendency to launch into Motor-Mouthed rants.
- Super Mario Bros.: Everyone in the upbeat Mushroom Kingdom is this. The honorable mention goes to Mario, as he is such a cheerful, happy-go-lucky and energetic guy; he manages to see the fun in things, even in dangerous situations where he mostly sees the world as his personal playground as he jumps around happily pulling off all kinds of acrobatic moves while giving off excitable whoops of joy. He spends most of his time throwing the occasional community get-together, whether it's building a life-sized board game and participating in wacky games, sporting events or racing with karts. He is also pretty much game for any activity, no matter how childish they seem.
Web Animation
- A Day With Bowser Jr: Lemmy Koopa, like in the games, is carefree and boisterous.
- DSBT InsaniT: Andy makes light of even the most serious of situations.
- Breeze Rider from Dusk's Dawn cracks (bad) jokes many times in the short and tends to be a daredevil... if flying through a forest counts.
- Both Yang Xiao Long and Nora Valkyrie of RWBY are light-hearted, rough-and-tumble party girls who happen to hunt monsters, and boy do they love their jobs. As the show goes on, however, they demonstrate Hidden Depths and gradually deconstruct their role.
- Yang hides her pain with jokes in order to provide a strong face for her sister after their mother vanished, which she keeps up even for the rest of her team. After going through a Trauma Conga Line at the end of the third volume, she has to take time to recover emotionally; when she returns to the team, she's more open about her actual feelings.
- Nora, meanwhile, shows emotional intelligence and observation even from the beginning of the show; she will channel righteous fury just as passionately as her intense glee, and dial it back whenever she needs to make a point. It's eventually revealed that she was saved by her Love Interest Lie Ren as a child, and she's spent so long helping him that she doesn't feel a sense of identity for herself.
Webcomics
- The Cyantian Chronicles: Quinn, who (almost) never ceases smiling and trying to cheer everyone else up. Darius shows some of the requisite traits, though he's more prone to the not-happy side of emotions.
- Lord Ikarion Daryil in Project Future
, a DMFA fancomic. In the current arc (strip 170 and 171 ) he celebrates his ascension to tri-winghood by cosplaying as Jesus based on Ruling Class.
- Grace in El Goonish Shive. Bubbly to the extreme, she is insanely happy for someone who was made in a lab and witnessed the entire research staff being murdered by someone who physically and emotionally abused her for several years before she ran away. She is capable of being serious (especially whenever any of those things are brought up), but for the most part she exists to be cute and funny, which is what makes her so endearing.
- The Jaegermonsters from Girl Genius, especially Maxim and Ognian. Being virtually indestructible Super Soldiers removes a lot of worries.
- Dr. Randy Disaster of Gunnerkrigg Court counts both because he teaches the most popular class in the school, and because of his fantastic entrance: He busts into a classroom (and into the story!) with no prior warning whatsoever, and drags everyone off into a ridiculous Space Opera simulator.
- Nobody in Homestuck is safe from drama (how can you be when even the main characters have died at least once?), but:
- Nepeta has the least amount of drama or emotional baggage, and pretty much exists to be fun and goofy while having little impact on the plot.
- Jade played this role, being fun and bouncy, having game-based fetch modi, and being designed as a Parody Sue. Would engage in wacky antics like fake-fighting her grandfather and dog respectively, mess around with time and space like it was nothing special, and be generally dorkily cute. Then she accidentally brought back her dead and severely traumatised dreamself, started talking to Karkat, and got stalked by Jack Noir. The fun, shall we say, toned down quite a bit.
- Molly the Peanut Butter Monster from The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! A fuzzy pink girl-thing with a peppermint-striped tail, and pom-poms growing out of her head. Cheerful and childlike, she enjoys building impossible machines and writing crack fanfics. She revels in the fact that she can run around naked because she's furry.
- Lisa of Penny and Aggie and QUILTBAG. She actively considers it her duty to play this role to her friends, particularly Aggie and Sara, and briefly has a Heroic BSoD when she meets someone who is not positively affected by her attitude.
- While Super Mega Comics has never been serious, it does poke fun at this trope with "Everybody Man".
- Spam from Zoophobia is this. He's silly, wacky, and lively, and is never serious.
Web Original
- The8BitDrummer’s friends won't deny that 8-Bit has naturally good energy that never turns off. It's hard to find a video where the guy isn't smiling or laughing.
- Regular True Capitalist Radio caller 213 AKA Ghetto Capitalist. He often calls in the middle of a party and brags about how they're eating ribs and drinking beer. Knowing how he funded the party, this angers TCR's host Ghost.
- Whateley Universe:
- Chaka really fits this too. She's anti-Wangst, and constantly getting into silly adventures (being attacked by Tigger while trying to go on a date?). In the serious adventures, she's one of the ones constantly throwing out one-liners.
- Beltane (Kendall Forbes) and Thorn (Bob Rose, not the other Thorn) are in it for the wacky antics. Both have the power of creating and controlling ectoplasm, and both use it mainly for practical jokes. They seem to have a big joke-war going on off-camera now, and innocent bystanders keep getting turned into Pokemon or Easter eggs or things like that.
Western Animation
- James Baxter the Horse from Adventure Time has the uncanny ability to cheer up anyone by dancing on top of a beachball while neighing his name. Finn and Jake try to imitate his act and fail horribly, so it seems only he can pull it off properly.
- From Avatar: The Last Airbender, Aang started out as this — an interesting case, since he's the protagonist. He was bubbly fun personified — of course, as the series progressed, and the guilt mounted, this began to diminish.
- AQUAMAN in Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Boisterous Bruiser, Gentleman Adventurer and all-around life of the party.
- Chris, Liv Amara's assistant from Big Hero 6: The Series. He compliments just about everybody he meets, it's almost impossible to see him not smiling and he's adamant about being referred to as Liv's 'Chris-sistant'.
- Pepper Potts from Iron Man: Armored Adventures thinks that being a superhero is this and thus really wants to be one because of how fun it is; even when Rhodey tells her that Tony was almost killed last week, Pepper responds with 'See?!'
- The Flash mostly takes this role for the Justice League, even in his (very, very slightly) serious moments.
- Kaeloo loves jokes, games and anything fun, even when nobody else is enthusiastic about it.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Pinkie Pie is the literal personification (ponyfication?) of the Element of Laughter, which is about as literal as the title of this trope gets. Her solution to every problem is to throw a party, and she won't hesitate to throw a party even if there's no reason to do so. Even in the episodes where she has real character development, she will readily defy reason and reality for the sake of a gag. Justified in that her motivation for almost everything is to make her friends smile — and she considers everyone to be a friend.
"Too Many Pinkies" deconstructs this when Pinkie uses a magic pond to create copies of herself to spend time with all of her friends. The copies lack all of Pinkie's traits outside of being Fun Personified and are wholly committed to having fun. Worse, they are so dedicated to having fun that they bother everyone around them. The real Pinkie is driven to tears by her copies' antics. - "Weird Al" Yankovic guest-starred on one Season 4 episode as a party planner named Cheese Sandwich. His passions and Pinkie's cause them to butt heads a bit over who could create the greatest party before deciding to work together instead.
- Spike, although he gets more development beyond the traditional sidekick.
- Pinkie Pie is the literal personification (ponyfication?) of the Element of Laughter, which is about as literal as the title of this trope gets. Her solution to every problem is to throw a party, and she won't hesitate to throw a party even if there's no reason to do so. Even in the episodes where she has real character development, she will readily defy reason and reality for the sake of a gag. Justified in that her motivation for almost everything is to make her friends smile — and she considers everyone to be a friend.
- SpongeBob SquarePants lives and breathes this. From jellyfishing, to grilling, to bubble-blowing, to even the most mundane tasks, SpongeBob can and will make anything fun without really trying. Hell, he even has a song about "F.U.N."
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil has the eponymous Star Butterfly, who is all about fun, weather it's going to parties, to fighting monsters.
- Sardonyx from Steven Universe . She's flashy, dramatic, and an overall entertainer. Even her hammer has a little bounce in its handle.
- Owen from Total Drama combines this with Big Fun who is always in a good mood and always tries to see the best in people even if he knows they're not good people. He is always eager for parties as his plans for the prize money is to throw the biggest party he can and invite all of his friends.
- From the 1980s The Transformers cartoon, there's Warpath, the Autobots' only tank, who happens to be a big, jolly guy and always ready to laugh. He's almost the Big Fun as well, except he's not designed with a 'fat' physique. He's also a bit of a Blood Knight because he loves giving the Decepticons a hard time.
Real Life
- Adam Savage of MythBusters gives off this vibe.
"I like to live my life as part action hero and part cartoon character."
- BRIAN BLESSED also has this feeling about him: Brian Blessed is Odin in disguise. He's wearing a fake eye. Seriously.
- Robin Williams, though overlapping with Sad Clown (particularly later in his life leading up to his suicide):
- Steven Spielberg called Robin Williams from Poland to cheer himself up when filming Schindler's List got too depressing for him.
- Following Christopher Reeve's paralyzing horseback riding accident, Williams, his former classmate at Julliard, cheered him up by pretending to be an eccentric Russian doctor, saying he was there to perform a colonoscopy. Reeve stated that he laughed for the first time since the accident and knew that life was going to be okay.
- Michael Jackson wanted to be this; always trying to find ways to entertain people. He spent a ton of money converting his house into an amusement park, but unfortunately for him it wasn't fun for long because of allegations and other controversy made him unable to keep the amusement park open for a long time and it also made him not want him to keep his amusement park open either.
- Rapper Desiigner is always seen very happy and full of energy in every interview or video clip he is in.
- Come on, we all know at least one person who is this trope in real life. Chances are, we are that person.
- Jim Carrey's rise to stardom in The '90s after a decade-plus struggling in show business partially stemmed from invoking this trope: Realizing that his audiences wanted to be "free from concern", he adopted a stand-up stage persona of carefree confidence that also became his default mode in public appearances, and largely defined his breakthrough movie character Ace Ventura. However, by the end of the decade he was exhausted having to maintain that attitude, realizing that he was becoming desperate to be liked and wishing he could express the darker sides of himself again. As explored in the documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, he used the opportunity to play Andy Kaufman — a legendary proto-performance artist/Trolling Creator who, while a gentle soul at heart, famously didn't care about whether he and his work were liked so long as they received a legitimate emotional response — in the Dramedy Man on the Moon to break down this public image by staying in character as Kaufman and his personas for the entirety of the shoot, only dropping character at home, and then reconstructing who he really was as a person afterward. While he still can make merry in his public appearances, in the years since Carrey is just as likely to be philosophical and sensitive rather than this trope all the time.
