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For some characters, one of the scariest or things in the world is a bath. This is most commonly seen in young characters (especially boys), who often have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the bath tub. For adult characters it is usually a man whose wife forces him to take a bath. Other species, such as cats and dogs, are often commonly depicted as disliking baths. However, this trope could apply to any age, gender or species.
This trope is related to The Pig Pen, however a character who Hates Baths need not necessarily be unusually filthy or smelly. Compare with Cats Hate Water for feline oriented examples.
Examples of Hates Baths include:
Anime & Manga
- Negi Springfield in Mahou Sensei Negima. He gets it from his father.
- Miata in Claymore.
- Alice in Kamisama no Memochou.
- Tetsuro in Galaxy Express 999.
Comic Books
- Dennis in Dennis the Menace UK.
- Most characters in The Beano.
- Smudge from Monica's Gang is such an Egregious example, it seems like he has an atomic allergy to any water that may touch him outside of his mouth. He gets around it in the sequel series, but he still dislikes bathing.
- In the Lanfeust series and its spin-off Troll de Troy, every member of the troll species hates water with a passion. It goes into Weaksauce Weakness level, as any human with a magic power over water disposes of a great weapon against trolls.
Fanfic
- Tails in Bath Time. It seems like Sonic would have been a more logical choice due to his dislike bordering on irrational terror of water being almost a defining element of his character.
Films -- Animation
- In Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Dr. Sweet is able to drive Mole away from Milo after Milo accidentally sat in Mole's precious dirtpiles by threatening him with soap.
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Sweet: I've got soap, and I'm not afraid to use it! |
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Films -- Live-Action
- In the live-action version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Mr. Beaver refers to bath day as the worst day of the year.
- In the live-action version of Peter Pan, Nana the dog has to hoist Michael onto her back and throw him in every day.
- Life Is Beautiful. Little Giosue hides when his mom tells him it's time for his shower. Giosue's dislike of showers saves him later after he and his father are deported to a concentration camp.
Literature
- Discworld
- Werewolves are very dog-like, to the point of flinching whenever someone even mentions the word "bath."
- The Nac Mac Feegle also have an aversion to washing, to the point where some believe it's their skin that comes off upon contact with soap and water, not grime.
- Witches don't necessarily hate baths, but seldom find time out of their busy schedules to take them. Granny Weatherwax dislikes them because she can't be havin' with nudity, and settles for washing "all the bits", as and when they become available.
- Shogun. Blackthorne was afraid of baths at the begining of the story. Notably, Blackthorne is an adult, but comes from 17th-century England where a bath a month was considered overdoing things.
- Running Gag with the Dibbuns (baby animals) and vermin (Always Chaotic Evil species) in Redwall. The vermin actually have a comic song about how dangerous bathing is, about a young ferret who washed himself entirely out of existence.
- One of the stories in the first Mrs. Piggle Wiggle book deals with a little girl named Patsy who suddenly doesn't want to take a bath, which makes her an oddity among the town since apparently all the other children love bathing. The titular character prescribes the "radish cure," in which Patsy is no longer required to bathe and when enough dirt builds up, her parents plant radishes on her. This causes the girl to eventually crack and take the longest shower ever.
Live Action TV
- Leave It to Beaver. Both Beaver and Wally on sometimes display this attitude, at least until they get older. In the first episode, they fake taking a bath by rumpling towels and putting dirt in the bath tub.
- The Brady Bunch. The dog Tiger hates baths. Bobby also doesn't mind the prospect of skipping them either, at least when he's younger.
- An All That sketch parodies The Wizard of Oz, with Dorothy wanting to run away from home because she doesn't want to take a shower. When she ends up in Oz, she immediately finds herself wanting a shower after all.
Newspaper Comics
- Calvin in Calvin and Hobbes.
- Dennis in Dennis the Menace US.
- Hagar the Horrible takes his bath once a year.
- In one of the early strips of Peanuts, Charlie Brown tries to stall taking a bath using tactics that would latter be imitated by Calvin. However, this aspect to his character never got the same level of attention as Calvin got and was eventually forgotten. Presumably he grew out of it.
- Wellington's dog Boot in The Perishers. His aversion to being bathed (in an old tin bath) turns bathtimes into epic battles.
- The water-hating Wiley from BC.
- Garfield, being a cat, does not enjoy baths. This doesn't stop Jon from trying to bathe him, even tricking him into getting into the tub on a few occasions.
Theater
- Buddy Layman from The Diviners hated to be in water.
Video Games
- A PC Dark Sun game had, as one of its villains, an Evil Sorcerer who was fond of cruel irony. One of the first of his "experiments" the Player Party discovers is a bronze statue under an ever-running showerhead, body frozen in twisted agony. A sign nearby reveals that this used to be one of his assistants, who disliked baths.
- Okami. Amaterasu hates getting wet and tries to avoid water (as does Issun, who dubs her "No-Bath Ammy").
- In The Sims 2, dogs can end up becoming this if they're not praised for behaving in the bath, or if they are praised for jumping out.
Web Comics
- Lardee from My Milk Toof who hides and says "I don't wanna".
- The Cyantian Chronicles: King Laish's son Sar, to the point of throwing a screaming fit and calling for his mother, Queen Mirand.
- Faen Val'Sullisinrune of Drowtales after the 15 year timeskip, and with very good reason given what she witnessed earlier in the story.
Western Animation
- Looney Tunes. Elmer Fudd's dog in the short An Itch in Time.
- The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Tigger tries to hide Roo from Kanga to keep from taking a bath. Tigger seems to hate baths even more than Roo does, as he keeps claiming they lead to "The End!"
- Rugrats. Phil and Lil hate taking baths, so much that in one episode dealing with swear words, the babies surmise that bad words are "words that no one wants to hear" and Phil offers "bath" as such a word.
- Chuckie's not too fond of them either sometimes. In the episode where he freaks out about germs only to end up playing in the organic garbage pile with the babies afterwards, all four end up in the tub, and Chuckie grumbles to Tommy "you said nothing bad would happen."
- The Powerpuff Girls. In one episode, Buttercup keeps getting dirty after a fight and refuses to bathe. This escalates as more dirt gets layered on her until she eventually run out of town for her smell. The final straw comes when a monster refuses to continue to fight her due to the stink, resulting in her giving in and taking a bath.
- Ka Blam! In one "Life With Loopy" segment, Loopy refuses to bathe because she'll "just get messy again."
- Muppet Babies. Rowlf's dislike of baths is the focus of one of the episodes.
- The Simpsons. One of the shorts on The Tracy Ullman Show concerned Bart being forced to take a bath. He doesn't want to initially (even hiding from Homer to avoid it) but once he's in and used to the cold water he has fun, eventually flooding the house.
- Taz-Mania. A running theme is "TAZ HATE WATER!!!!" This applied to any thing that involved getting wet. Baths just made it ten times worse.
- Tommy Gilligan from Codename: Kids Next Door. The episode "Operation: DUCKY" is all about this trope.
- Gary, SpongeBob SquarePants snail refuses to let Spongebob bathe him in one episode even resorting to TELEPORTATION to avoid getting in the bath. Strange, as they live underwater ....
- Martha on Martha Speaks
- In some episodes, Mickey's mention of baths would make Pluto scurry off in a hurry for someplace to hide.
- Krypto the Superdog: Streaky the Supercat would often try to avoid a bath from his owner as much as possible. Although this could have more to do with the fact that his owner's a little kid who treats him a bit too roughly than him being a cat disliking baths in general.