Walter Willoughby and Helga Willoughby, better known as Father and Mother, are the titular main antagonists of Netflix Animation's 2020 feature film The Willoughbys, based on the 2008 book of the same name by Lois Lowry. They are the neglectful and idiotic parents of the Willoughby children who try to send them away to a far off place where they could orphan themselves.
Walter was voiced by Martin Short, while Helga was voiced by Jane Krakowski.
What Makes Them Pathetic?[]
- In stark contrast to nearly all of their ancestors who came before them, not only do these two squander the family's wealth and refuse to carry on the legacy by doing anything legendary or being noteworthy figures in history, they're also abysmal parents to Tim, Jane and the Barnaby twins. It's stated that while the parents had so much love for each other, there was none left over for any of their kids. Unlike most portrayals, their love for each other isn't portrayed as a redeeming quality.
- After the two of them give birth to a baby Tim, the father would callous dump him the hallway and abandon him without even trying to raise him, but not before saying the following to him: "I'm your father, and that sweet woman that you insulted with your rude birth is Mother. If you need love, I beg you, find it elsewhere. Thank you. Oh, you are Tim, and you are a Willoughby. Good day, sir."
- It was also stated that Tim's name was only thing they ever give him (aside from siblings). And while they aren't loving or supportive to any of their kids, Tim gets treated the worst out of them, being ignored, neglected, refused to play with, and constantly sent to the coal bin (usually by the father for the last one)
- They hated Jane's love of music and singing, constantly telling her to be quiet or shut up.
- They only provided the Barnaby twins with one sweater, which the twins had to repeatedly share by taking it off for the other to wear.
- They never even ate dinner with their kids, with the parents always cooking meals for themselves and refusing to let them sit at the giant table, which often forced the kids to steal food or eat the parents' leftovers, just so they wouldn't starve to death.
- It's also heavily implied the kids have never watched movies or TV either with or without them. The kids didn't even know what a hug was.
- Thanks to their neglect, their kids basically had to raise themselves, with Tim (the oldest) serving their father figure, and having insecurities over needing to have authority.
- In spite of how much they hate kids, they're disturbingly immature, self-absorbed and childish throughout the film to the point where actual kids are better composed than them. (For context: they go into tantrums when the children bother them, panic like frightened puppies when the brochure is dropped into their living room, among a number of other things)
- In one particular instance were Tim and the kids are starving, and noticed their parents eating meatloaf, Tim asks them for food and distracts them by talking, so the siblings could take it. And when the parents notice the food's gone, the mother claims the kids were "always wanting" and the father accuses Tim for it all and locks him in the coal bin for several days. And it's all but stated that he's locked Tim in the coal bin several times before.
- After the kids find an abandoned, orphaned baby and the parents learn about it, the parents freak out over the possibility of heaving to raise another child, decide it was the final straw for them, and gleefully kick all of the kids out of the house, refusing to let them back in until they got rid of the baby. (Tim's willing to get rid of it, but Jane insists on keeping and nurturing it, while the Barnaby twins don't know who's side to take)
- After the kids leave the baby to be raised by Commander Melanoff, Jane comes up with the idea to orphan themselves from their parents, which the rest of the kids go along with: creating a fake travel brochure for a super dangerous "vacation". They'd purposely leave the brochure for the parents to find it, and when the parents notice a "No Children Allowed" note in a corner, they instantly decide to ditch the kids for the "vacation"
- While they do hire a nanny to look after the kids while they're away, it's only because they're worried the kids will "ruin everything", rather than wanting to be responsible or keeping them safe. It should also be noted that they wanted a "not-good nanny for cheap", and refused to hire a good nanny since they were "expensive".
- After a while, they'd run out of money from all of their adventuring, and call a real estate agent to sell their house, not caring that their kids were still living in it, and would likely be homeless if the house got sold.
- The kids risk their lives to fly near the top of the Unclaimable Alp, find their parents and save them from nearly freezing to death on the Alp. Then the kids confess to the brochure being fake, hoping they can try to improve as a family, and the parents are seemingly grateful for the kids saving their lives, and want to at least try be better parents... only for them to literally shove their kids aside, steal their dirigible, and leave their kids to freeze to death near the top of the alp. Thus throwing away any hope of them ever being decent people. This is portrayed as the darkest, bleakest and saddest moment in the film.
What Makes Them Pinheads?[]
- Neither of them seem to have a job, and they're lazy ne'er-do-wells who are content to live off the family fortune.
- In the instance where Tim distracts the parents by talking so the siblings could take their food, the parents noticed the food was gone, and stupidly accused Tim of eating at all, despite Tim being nowhere NEAR the food to be able to eat it.
- When they first discovered the fake travel brochure, they easily fall for it and decide to go to the "adventure vacation", in spite of there being obvious red flags in the situation (not to mention several life-threatening locations including, Volcanic Island; some of the wettest; The Jungle of the Cannibals; potential freezing in glacial ice; Acid Hot Spring; a bear attack, and for the grand finale, the Unclimbable Alp in "Sveetzerlund")
- They're both completely insensitive and neglectful to their tour guides in numerous ways:
- When they first leave for the "vacation", they pack so many travel bags and equipment that most of it had to be stacked on top of the tour guide's cab, which weighs the car down, makes it very difficult for the tour guide to drive, and leads to some of the stuff falling off in the middle of the road.
- In spite of all of the lethal tourist locations -- which they barely manage to survive with a hare's neck -- both of them are completely oblivious to all the danger around them due to their love for each other, never get the memo that the tour was unsafe, and their carelessness gets all of their tour guides killed in painful ways, which they don't even care about.
- They'd carelessly spend all of their money from adventuring, and rather than going back home or trying to find a way to earn money, they'd use the internet (which they didn't even know about prior to being told about it) and call a real estate agent to sell their house, simply so they could keep adventuring.
- Even after finishing everything else, they still fail to take the hint and decide to climb the Unclimbable Alp in "Sveetzerlund", which nobody had ever made to the top and back down, and literally has the word "unclimbable" in it's name. The Cat/Narrator even wonders how such air-headed parents could give birth to smart, gifted children.
- The father also yodeled while walking on the railroad around the mountain, which causes a huge avalanche that knocks off the train, kills the tour guide driving it, and almost kills them as well with the two barely stepping aside in time. And yet they still insist on climbing up the alp.
- They also ignore a warning sign reading "HÄLT! UNCLEEMBÄBLE". Only when they have trouble feeling their parts, and nearly freeze solid do they finally realize that climbing the alp was a terrible idea.
- After stealing their kids' dirigible and trying to fly off in it and abandon them, the mother doesn't even try to pilot the dirigible, despite being in the pilot seat, proves to be completely inept in doing so, and she immediately pops it at the top of the alp, causing the dirigible to deflate until they crash in the middle of the ocean, where they're stranded, once again oblivious to their surroundings and presumably eaten alive by a shark.
- Not only was stealing their kids' dirigible and leaving them to freeze needlessly cruel, it was completely pointless. The kids had flown the dirigible to the alp to save him, and clearly knew how to fly it better than the parents did. The parents could have at least pretended to have reformed themselves, long enough for their kids fly to them to safety, and then go back to their awful parenting ways. Trying to fly it themselves only to crash it means they basically dug their own grave.