Top 10 Likable Jerk Characters

 If there was an architect of character personalities I would never get tired of, the "jerk with the heart of gold" character-type is one of them (if done right).
Because at first you might've hate the character because of the way they act toward others, but once you get to know them & saw their sympathetic side, you actually feel sorry for them & end up liking them in the end.

In no particular order, here's 10 entries/examples of jerky-to-likable characters.

*(four-way tie) Stretch, Stinkie, Fatso (The Ghostly Trio), and Spooky from the "Casper" media: Even though I like Casper & I feel sorry for him, but I can not deny that some of his cartoons were all the same & there are some occasions where the friendly ghost is (dare I say it) too sappy/goody-goody it's annoying like in the Hanna-Barbera cartoons.  Heck, in the 90's cartoon, "The Spooktacular Adventures of Casper," he was sort of portrayed as jerk & rather dull....

His uncles & cousins on the other hand, even though they pick on Casper, but they are surprisingly not full-fledged jerks.

As seen in several episodes of TSNAoC, they did reveal that Stretch, Stinkie, and Fatso actually had bad childhoods, always being tormented & tortured all of their lives, including by their family members dead & alive.
And their reasons for being so abusive to their nephew and hatred of humans is because of the impacts that happened to them when they were kids (thus imprinting the idea of abusement is the way to treat family members) & they are jealous of Casper's ability to make friends so easily (and how cute he is, while they were labeled as "ugly" children).
But underneath all of that, they actually do care about Casper, they just have a hard way of showing it because of (again) their horrible past experiences and how they are shunned from humanity even to this day.
If they didn't care, than why are they so concerned about Casper not having the ability to scare the humans that rejected them or losing him, or even help him (or anyone else, like a goldfish) on occasions?

 Same thing can go for Spooky as well, but he's reason for not liking Casper is because he doesn't want to look like a total "wimp" for hanging out with a goody-two-sheets & he just wants to be all macho in front of everyone (instead of being a non-threatening cute-looking ghost most people view him as).
But it's not just with Casper that Spooky tried to act all "Mr. Tough Guy" around, his girlfriend Pearl (Poil) is not helping by constantly baby-talking to him & pointing out how cute he is.
So Spooky is trying to hide the fact that he loves Pearl (heck, if he didn't love her, he wouldn't have saved her from her abusive mother), and even blushes when she embarrasses him.


*Grouchy Smurf from "The Smurf"

*Grumpy Bear from "Care Bears": If he represents a negative & bad mood/personality, than how come he's a Care Bear?  

*Buttercup from "The Powerpuff Girls"

*Rocket Raccoon from "Guardians of the Galaxy"

*Grumpy Dwarf from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"

*Bowser from the Mario Bros. media: For caring for his children (I'm still gonna call the Koopalings his kids)

*Templeton the Rat from "Charlotte's Web"

*Godzilla: He maybe a destructive, but there were times where he's actually a good lizard & you wanna root for him to win.

*Pandaba from the "Badtzu Maru" series: Eats your heart out Helga Pataki, Pandaba was the original rude hopeless romantic girl (since Pandaba secretly has a huge crush on Badtzu, even though she ridicules him for his behavior)

*Raphael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles media: Oh you Raph Roses (Rapahel fangirls) know why he's on there.  Raph is cute when tries to hide his soft-side. 

*The Beast/Prince Adam from Disney's "Beauty and the Beast": Now lately I have seen people placing him on the "Hated Characters" list, which it is understandable due to his bad behavior  and the direct-to-video movies.
But you must understand/remember, Beast/Adam may have been a spoiled child at one-point, but then again weren't we all too?

Even during the scene, when Belle sacrifices her freedom for the sack of her father & even started crying; you can clearly see that Beast looked really regretful for being so rude to her, and he was having a hard time to socialize with anyone outside of the palace because it's been so long since Beast saw an actual person & many people judged him by only his appearances.


*Sam & Max: They are crude, brash, and total smart-mouths, but yet they are still likable.

*Knuckles the Echidna from the "Sonic the Hedgehog" media

*Impmon from "Digimon Tamers" : As described in my "Villains I Sympathize " meme.


Honorable mentions:
Squidward Tentacles & Plankton from "Spongebob Squarepants"
Cat & Winslow from "CatDog"
Alexandra from "Josie and the Pussycats"
Peter Vankman from "Ghostbusters"
Vegeta from the Dragon Ball media
The Grinch from the Dr. Seuss media
Alvin from "Alvin and the Chipmunks"
Rudy from "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids"
George from "Of Mice & Men"
Batman
Phil from Disney's "Hercules"
Grim & Hildy Gloom from "The 7D"

Meme belongs to