In most adult cartoons, we explore the dynamics of the nuclear family. A married couple and their
children. We recently looked at the cartoon husbands, but today, we’re discussing the
wives. We want to know who the most truly good wife is, as well as who has the darkest heart,
I’m Brad with WickedBinge and this is Adult Cartoon Wives: Good to Evil.
For this list, we’ll be going over the most recognized wifes in adult animation. Women 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 in their relationship.
As usual, we'll be starting with the most pure and noble character
and working our way down. These characters are The Good.
It should be no surprise that Linda Belcher comes off as most good. Not only is she one of
the best mothers in animation, but her love for Bob is evident in everything she does.
She happily helps the family business, encouraging that it involves their children
as it’s important for her to be close with her husband and children. She made Bob spend time with
his father to mend their relationship while still acknowledging Bob didn’t have the best childhood.
And while Bob is vocal about how much he dislikes Linda’s sister and parents,
Linda doesn’t fight with him like most wives in animation do. She just reminds him that they are
family and she shows she appreciates the effort he puts forth trying to be friendly with them.
Marge Simpson is the wife who gets the Silver Medal. There’s no doubt that she’s been taken
advantage of by Homer more than a few times and is one of the most beloved mothers of animation.
Marge has stood by Homer in all the chaos he causes enough to deserve a high ranking
on our list. She chose to stand by Homer after the incident with Princess Cashmere,
chose to stay with him over Artie Ziff and Jaq, and always takes care of Homer through his many
injuries and ailments. She loves Homer because he makes her laugh
and treats her like a Queen. While Homer is an inconsiderate jerk a lot of the time, Marge
brings out the best in him. She believes in him when no one else does,
even becoming a pariah when his actions led to the city almost being blown up after quarantine.
We have to place another of the Simpsons cast next: Maude Flanders. While her approach on
life is a little questionable to some, she did clearly love Ned. She and Ned were seen to have
a perfect marriage. They rarely fought, any disputes they had were pretty small,
and Maude’s main argument with Ned was to insist Homer treat him better. In one of the earlier
seasons, when Ned was losing everything and they were almost homeless, Maude made sure Ned still
felt supported. She helped to list her children’s spirits and stood by him in his hour of need. Even
her last moments were her avoiding confrontation and doing something nice for her husband.
Luanne is next. Even before her marriage to Lucky, it’s easy to see how much she adores
the man. She encouraged him to get his GED and heard out the man’s advice on what to do with
the money they received. She pushed Lucky to be a productive member of society, and was always
seen treating Lucky as a partner rather than as someone to simply depend on. She made it clear
she wanted to raise their child and have their home together. While Lucky changed to help make
their lives better, Luanne also made an effort to get to know the way of life Lucky was used to,
even befriending his friends. If anyone could meet Lucky’s intensity, it would be Luanne.
Dr Mrs the Monarch was a major inspiration for Monarch’s whole image and career.
She left her family to join him and since then had been a key part of his plans.
She has a way of using her feminine touch to get others to let their guards down,
including Rusty Venture himself. She knew how to play good cop to Monarch’s bad cop,
tricking coordinates from a robot aide and when working for the Guild, she slipped information
to her husband. She even states herself that she admired her husband and liked that he needed her.
When the Monarch proposed, one of her first notes was she needed to be treated as a partner
and not as an escapade. She adored her husband, but wasn’t going to sacrifice
her own image and self-respect, which sets her apart from many others on this list.
Francine was initially worried about married life, but soon devoted herself to Stan and their family.
Now, she and Stan have plenty of disagreements. Fighting over how to raise their kids,
how to decorate the house, how to treat Roger...But there’s been plenty of times
where they came through to show how much they really care about one another. She keeps Stan
grounded and helps remind him of the value of family. She always makes an effort to
learn more about him, even begging Roger to help her sneak into the men’s club as Frank.
Manjula and Apu may have met due to an arranged marriage, but she wound up being a good match for
our favorite Kwik-E-Mart clerk. She’s not seen much in the show, but she is a devoted wife.
In an early season, she argues with Apu about how he is constantly choosing the Kwik-E-Mart
over her and their children, but is quickly delighted when he makes an effort to help her
feel loved. She forgives him after cheating on her after he completed a list of tasks to prove
his devotion to her, showing that while she loved him and wanted their marriage to work,
she refused to be a doormat. An admirable quality
that ultimately helped Apu become not only a better husband, but a better man.
Peggy Hill comes in second place as most good. While we’ve discussed that she can be hard to
deal with in our King of the Hill Good to Evil list, we have to give Peggy credit. She does love
Hank and isn’t afraid to show it. Peggy is more progressive than Hank is, though, so disputes did
come into play. She falls a bit because she was willing to paint Hank as a bad guy after they lost
track of time on their date night, but was also quick to make amends. When Bobby went a little
crazy with kicking his targets below the belt and went on to disrespect his father, Peggy was
the one to reel him in. When Hank fought for her honour against King Philip, she took the chance to
rise up and beat the misogynist at his own game. Although we’ve decided to give Peggy a lot of the
benefit of the doubt, there is no denying her narcissistic tendencies… Which is what drops her
to the lower end of our Good section. That said, her heart is often in the right place and a lot of
these problems stem from her own insecurity. Peggy does care deeply for Hank and Bobby.
With that said, we've arrived at the neutral territory. These characters fall in The Grey Area.
Donna Tubbs-Brown is next. She loses some points since she hides a lot from Cleveland
and gets caught up in petty arguments. She threatened to shoot him if he was unable to
win a dance competition with her, was still fixated on Robert and let him back into her
life at the slightest hint of Cleveland losing it, and has a hard time accepting Jr as her own.
She’s seen as the stable one in their relationship since she puts the most effort into the home,
but she also lies about her life just to be around her old girlfriends and faked having
multiple broken bones and being pregnant just to get even with Cleveland. It’s a weird relationship
that goes into toxic territory more than needed. But she at least fights for him,
refusing to let Cleveland get smacked around by anyone be it his father or some random woman.
Amy was not the best wife to Kif, but we give her some leniency due to her low intelligence,
sheltered life experience and Kif’s clinginess clashing with her more
laid back nature. She does love Kif, despite the long distance they often have to deal with
due to his job and his jealous nature. Though she had doubts about being a mother, she did return
to help Kif give birth to their children, unable to live with the idea of him enduring it alone.
Beth is next on our list. We give her a lot of credit for trying. And Jerry is
not an easy guy to put up with. She tried to be patient about him being unemployed,
tried to keep peace when he insisted on arguing with Rick, and tried to establish
an agreed upon system for the home with Jerry. She agrees to give their relationship another
chance after enduring divorce, though only time will tell if it’s the right call.
Mona Simpson falls lower on our list. While she had a different ranking for her as a
mother towards Homer, we have a split opinion on her as a wife. On the one hand, Abe was not
that good of a husband. He was stuck in a very traditional mindset where women were expected
to stay at home and take care of the children. Mona, while content with it to a certain degree,
also began to itch for something more. She sought out excitement and used that urge to help people,
eventually destroying a weapon of Mr Burns. But because of this, Mona had to leave her family
without much explanation. When Mona reunited with Homer the first time and she confronted Abe,
she revealed that Abe knew that she hadn’t died but was just on the run.
Lois Griffin falls far due to her recent actions in the show,
but is granted some leniency since she’s more sensible and stable in her marriage.
In the early seasons of Family Guy, she was the neglected housewife. Her days were overloaded
with housework and caring for her children. In the beginning of the show, she insists
on Peter helping more and tries to patiently lead him on how he can be a better husband.
But in the more recent episodes, she gives up and goes right to lashing out violently
or cheating on him. We aren’t saying Peter doesn’t have a few hits coming to him, but she
can be pretty awful in a lot of ways that aren’t warranted. In many ways, we rank her in the grey
because she and Peter have grown to dish out the poor behavior towards each other pretty equally.
Mama, Francine’s mother, loses major points for an episode in one of the more recent seasons.
She’s been portrayed as a loving mother to Francine, though a little stubborn
and overbearing. For the most part, she supports her husband and stands by him.
She tells Francine that she still laughs at Baba’s jokes to make him feel good,
and tells Francine to let Stan know he’s still loved. But she caves and attempts cheating on her
husband with a much younger and more successful man after she decides not to set up Hailey.
Finally, we've reached the dark side. These characters are The Bad and The Evil.
Shari was Buckle’s wife after being lured by Roger on the internet. There isn’t much to
say about her. She pressed Buckle to convert for her, buy a house in town
rather than living on the mountain, and insisted he get rid of all his woodland
friends. She insists she does it out of love, but is always seen berating him.
DeeDee, Cotton’s second wife, falls hard from grace for her enabling behavior.
She loves Cotton but lets him do as he pleases, which only leads to an unhealthy home.
She’s not good at childcare and never really pushes or inspires Cotton to be a better person.
She’s more of a live-in caregiver than a partner.
Though Hailey Smith is a fun character, she’s hard to place as a partner.
She seems to be in a fantasy world when things are going good, building Jeff up far too much.
She adores his youthful wonder and celebrated his return to earth. While Jeff is a nice enough guy,
Hailey is a dominating person who is seen more than a few times
telling Jeff to sit in the closest and talking down to him.
Ms Liz had a lot against her being married to Buck Strickland,
but we’re knocking her down over her attempted affair with Buck’s closest colleague,
taking his business from him to spite him and dealing with his affairs and unhealthy
habits out of comfortability, only putting her foot down when it threatened her image.
Labarbara is Hermes wife on Futurama, and has to be low on our list for one particular reason:
her continuous affair with Hermes’ rival Barbados Slim. Any other time
she’s no nonsense and tries to comfort Hermes about his issues,
standing by him through his crisis and cheering him on when he tries to get back into limbo.
Babs, Carter’s wife, is next. While she’s not seen much in the show, we have managed to learn a lot
about her relationship with Carter. Especially in the later seasons. She accepted the abuse
as she was raised to think it was appropriate and only accepted Carter back after he was
caught cheating because she felt she was too old to date around. But the reason we drop her so low
is when she shows up and shoots Carter for giving away their money.
Bonnie, due to her antics in later seasons, earned a very low spot. When she was first introduced,
she was a supporting wife, happily bragging about her husband and son whenever she could.
She praised Joe for being an excellent officer and negotiator and was sensitive about him being angry
during the holidays due to it being the time he had his accident. But now she’s a bitter woman
who is tempted to murder Joe to be rid of him. She disregards him and makes it clear
she has no interest in him, even having multiple affairs between travel and meeting people online.
Nancy of course is low in this ranking. In fact,
she gets the Silver Medal of Evil. She cheated for fourteen years with John Redcorn,
lied about their son’s paternity, was tempted to cheat again when she was beginning to lose
her hair, tried to leave him behind to thrive in Dallas, and only treats Dale as her husband again
when they had a few romantic moments where Dale made her feel like a queen.
Dale has a lot of problems, but he’s treated terribly by one of the few people he truly loves.
Leeanne takes our gold medal of evil. We’ve already mentioned her in a past video,
going into detail when we talked about the parents of King of the Hill. But she isn’t just
a bad mother, but a bad wife. The whole reason she ends up in jail is because she attacked her
husband Hyot with a fork. Due to her crimes, she was court ordered not to drink alcohol,
but even when she’s somewhat pleasant-as seen when she first began dating Bill-she
still sees men as something to use, bleeding Bill dry of all his money.
When she is giving into her impulse to drink heavily, she becomes violent and lashes out,
covering the men she’s with in bruises and blood. Thankfully Peggy took her out.
But what do you think? Who are the most good and evil wives in adult animation? Let us know in
the comment section. Don't forget to hit that notification bell and binge our Good-to-Evil
playlist. Where we break down the morality of the characters in your favorite cartoons,
shows and movies. But most importantly, stay wicked!