Zim!
(Originally posted on August 16, 2013. This is different than a standard villain question and I guess this gears more towards stories aimed at children. Kind of a shame because I think adults deserve more comical bad guys.)
Now, we’ve seen villains with a sense of humor in comics (Joker), cartoons (Hades), and comedies (Dark Helmet). You can obviously have a villain with a sense of humor that is goofy, sarcastic, or twisted. They can still be effective too depending on the genre. Not all comedic villains are bumbling idiots that would fail even if the heroes hadn’t gotten involved. I always got that sense that He-Man didn’t really have to work hard to thwart Skeletor at times. Don’t even get me started on Cobra Commander in the cartoon.
Effectiveness is a major challenge if you’re writing a villain that is funny. Looking that three examples, you can see what some of the choices are:
- Dark Helmet– From Spaceballs, Dark Helmet is powerful, but he’s rather accident prone and a goof. You lose a lot of effectiveness with him because funny stuff happens to him without his intent. This works in a comedy, but outside of a comedy, it makes for a weak main villain. A secondary villain could get away with it, but the main villain does need have some semblance of control.
- Hades– Cunning and in control of the situation, this type of villain is like an evil Grouch Marx. Many times this is the egotistical planner that is manipulating everyone around him or her. The humor comes from his wit and sarcasm, which is difficult to write. Not everyone has this ability, so you really need to get feedback on this kind of villain or watch sarcastic comments. This type of humor can improve the character’s effectiveness because it is a sign of intelligence.
- Joker– While Joker can be a catch-all at times, he is a twisted humor character. Victims with his smile, crazy traps, wild laugh, and murderous plots that you laugh at for some bizarre reason. It’s a delicate balance between crazy and effective here. Go too far and you have a raving psychotic that is merely disturbing. Don’t go far enough and you have a mildly humorous villain that seems to be phoning it in.
Personally, I like humorous villains that are effective. The goofy villain is great in comedies, but only comedies for me. A series story should have a seriously dangerous villain, but you can give them a sense of humor. Most people have that in some form and villains are people too. Unless they’re robots, aliens, animals, ghosts, zombies, possessed farm equipment, haunted house, lawyers, shparkly vampires, politicians, or a bio-engineered disease.
Legends of Windemere 
I do enjoy a good comedy villain.
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They need to be more common for adults.
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A mixture of 2 and 3 works for me – witty and sarcastic, with sudden and terrifying bursts of craziness. Stephen King does humorous villains really well.
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Keep forgetting he has non-monster villains.
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I definitely prefer a sense of humor with an evil villain! It seems like in “grown-up” movies, the bad guys are usually way too serious these days. That’s part of the problem with G.I. Joe (since you brought up Cobra Commander). In the live-action movies, he’s boring, Destro is mostly boring, etc. In the ’80s cartoon, they had a sense of humor — all the top villains did, including the Crimson Twins, The Baroness. They found humor in what they were doing, and they were creative in their pursuits, and they had a good evil laugh (can’t forget that!).
What I’d like to see happen, based on a running series at my blog, is a movie where there are two mad scientists trying to take over the world, and competing for it. The old one follows all the “rules” — must monologue, have a self-destruct button, etc. — while the young upstart tries to do it his way, and they fight over how it should be done. I think it has potential…
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That sounds like a great idea. I agree that adult villains always seem to be serious and dour. It’s like we aren’t allowed to get some laughs outside of a few comedies that appear from time to time.
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I like a villain who can see the humor in the situation and make light of shortcomings.
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Sounds like he or she would be mocking the heroes.
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Exactly. Lex Luther comes to mind.
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I’ve written villains that were unintentionally funny because they were immature and bratty — but still causing harm to others. (Or trying to cause harm.)
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Brat villains definitely come off as comical. More in a ‘I cannot believe they’re an adult’ kind of way.
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