Gonzo enjoying the rack in The Muppet Show episode 323.
Masochism is the inverse side of sadism (taking pleasure in the suffering of others, sometimes for the purpose of selling coffee), as masochists derive enjoyment from their own pain, discomfort, humiliation, and other ordeals. Like sadism, it can take on sexual overtones in real life. In the realm of cartoons and comedy, from Looney Tunes to the original TV and print cartoons of The Addams Family, however, it's usually exaggerated and simply presented as something that offbeat or weird characters find to be a fun hobby, with the sexual side left at most to the audience's interpretation.
The Muppets have followed in that tradition on various occasions.
Muppets[]
- Gonzo is undoubtedly the most masochistic Muppet. While he suffers pain, humiliation, and disaster as part of his performance art pieces, it's also often shown that he genuinely enjoys it. This is made particularly clear in The Muppet Show episode 323, where he gets a little too into his role as the Sheriff of Nottingham demonstrating how Maid Marian could be tortured. He enjoys the thumb screws, the rack, and is dismayed when she leaves before he gets to the boiling oil. He clearly enjoys throwing himself in front of a cab in The Great Muppet Caper or being hurled from an airplane. He enjoys the rack again in Muppet Treasure Island, while in The Muppet Christmas Carol, he enjoys several mishaps which Rizzo the Rat finds painful or terrifying. When Rizzo lands on a flaming hot goose which painfully scorches his feet, Gonzo is envious.
- Animal is yet another Muppet with wild unrestrained habits in general. Although this often expresses itself in other desires or a general destructive energy, Frank Oz has described the character in masochistic terms: "You don't mess with Animal. He eats glass, man" and that his character can be boiled down to five needs: sex, sleep, food, drums, and pain.[1] Like Gonzo, he loves sleeping hung from a hanger at Grizzly Farm in A Muppet Family Christmas, while in episode 109 of The Muppet Show, he enjoys being violently dipped by his "At the Dance" partner: "Yeah! More! More!"
- Statler and Waldorf arguably, at least according to their lyrics in the theme song: "Why do we always come here?/I guess we'll never know/it's like a kind of torture/to have to watch this show." They do enjoy heckling the acts, but even when they claim the show is utter agony for them, they still show up every week.
Creatures[]
- Baby Sinclair on Dinosaurs, seemingly representing an uncontrolled gleefully destructive id in a diaper, enjoys distributing pain and annoyance on a regular basis, not just to his family, but even to himself. When others throw him or push him off, he gleefully cries, "Again!" In "The Mating Dance," he deliberately sets his own tail on fire. Gus Molehill, suspected of being Baby Sinclair's birth father in "Switched at Birth," is equally excited when Baby beats him with a pan. In a reversal, Earl Sinclair, Robbie, and Charlene, under the influence of the happy plant in "A New Leaf," all eagerly ask for Baby to inflict more kitchenware pain on them.
- The Fireys in Labyrinth, while it's unclear how painful the process is, take great delight in dismembering themselves and tossing their body parts around.
Note[]
- The culture of Grouches is complex, since they definitely enjoy unhappiness and anything which "nice" normal people do not. However, this seldom applies to inflicting actual pain on themselves. In Sesame Street Episode 2494, Oscar makes it clear he enjoys complaining but not actually suffering from a headache.