In The Sims you can create your own households (and I always did) but some premade families are unforgettable, quirky or iconic that they were always my favourite ones. So this page is to talk all about my favourite families from The Sims (I also always play with the other premades too).
There isn't a lot of premade sims in The Sims. In the base game there are 2 families already living in the neighborhood and 3 households in the family bin, The Sims Livin' Large introduced only 1 new family in the new neighborhood and The Sims Unleashed 4 new families in the Old Town. The Maxis also created 5 new households, completed with their own houses, and put up to download in the old The Sims site (which doesn't exist any more but you can get them at Sim Echoes).
Contrary to the amount of premade sims, the base game had a lot of NPCs and each EP released a bunch more, so I'll also talk about them here.
The most
famous family of the series, after appearing in The Sims, also
appeared in five console games and in the sequels. Their
family tree
is huge and they also involved in mysteries like
what happened to Bella Goth?
and
who is Lolita Goth?. And they had an expanded family added in Livin' Large, but here I
am going to talk about the original Goths.
The Goth family (also called The Caixão family in the pt-br version of the game, caixão means coffin/casket) consists of 3 people: Mortimer (Vladimir) the dad, Bella (Laura) the mom, Cassandra (same name in pt-br) the daughter and their own private backyard's graveyard full of 8 unnamed family members (Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle, Auntie, Cousin, Vega, Bratty and Boy).
The Goth family is heavily inspired by the Addams family (if it wasn't obvious already lol) and each member has their own uniqueness, Mortimer likes insects (weird hobbies like Uncle Fester and Gomez), Cassandra is mysterious (like Wednesday) and Bella has her iconic red dress (just like Morticia's black dress). Their house also doesn't have any electronics apart from lamps, kitchen appliances and a telephone in the kitchen (the fact that they don't like modernity is also a nod to the Addams family, this, and the graveyard).
As a kid, I was a huge Addams family fan, so I naturally loved the Goths and loved that they had their own graveyard, even though the ghosts could scare my sims and I even tried to recreate their graveyard at one point. I also love Bella, which is the most famous sim ever (she even appeared in the now-defunct The Sims Social) and also my favourite sim ♥ Like I said before, her red dress is iconic and she is described as both athletic and elegant in her bio.
Unfortunately, the Mashugas aren't as famous as the Goths but
they're also unique in a different way. The only one family shipped
with Livin' Large in neighborhood 2, they didn't appear officially
in any other games (I mean officially, because of course you can
recreate them in other games! and there is a bunch of other peoples
recreations to download online, so at least they're popular with the
fans).
The Mashuga family consists of the couple Sylvia Marie (wife) and Frankie (husband) and they live in their awesome, rich, tacky, ugly, but pretty octagonal house with a backyard pool at 9 Sim Lane. Their house is full of the weird tacky Las Vegas (?) themed furniture/build mode items from the Livin' Large EP which is the best part about them, and also the reason I love this household. They have the legendary heart shaped vibrating bed and the David the Lux Sculpture, as a kid I thought that their decor was awesome and I still do.
I think that they were only created to promote the tacky items of the EP, but even then they have their own mysteries including, the theory that Sylvia Marie scammed Mama Hick. Mama Hick is another sim that lives in a poor trailer house with her son and 3 dogs (the Hick family was only released in the Unleashed EP, after Livin' Large) and her bio says that she won Miss SimCity but lost all her money to a psychic phone friend, and this job is a part of the new Paranormal career that was bundled with Livin' Large and Sylvia Marie's job! So I guess you could draw your own conclusions about this.
My top 1
favourite family because of the cats! The Kat family (also called
the Gatto family in the pt-br version) is a family that consists of
an old lady Ginia (Gertrudes) and her 4 cats: a male tabby grey cat,
Waggles (Miska), a female Siamese cat, Boots (Botas) though her bio
implies she is a male, a male calico cat, Scout (Cisco) and a female
brown cat, Maggie (Milu).
They didn't reappear in the other games of the series, but a sim named Tara Kat (possibly Ginia's daughter; she doesn't have a family tree, but her bio mentions that her mother left her two cats) and her 3 cats was shipped with The Sims 2 Pets. I think that they didn't add Ginia as an ancestor because Tara was added along with her house to the family bin, and since sims 2 is so fickle, they probably couldn't add her, understandable. But what I hated is that they added another cat lady in The Sims 3 that was just plain offensive, she is evil and hates/is hated by everyone, wears fugly clothing and lives in an old house vs Ginia a chill cat lady who is a schoolteacher and has gardening and painting as a hobby. I'll never get why they did this.
As a kid I really liked this family because I could see the cats interacting with each other (and sometimes they would give birth to kittens) so I'd play with them a lot. I also thought that their house was so cozy and still think that it is, it has a big yard with a pond, lots of trees, a garden and a small space for a vegetable garden. Also, it is the perfect place for the cats to hang out.
The only
maid in the whole game, and there is nothing special about her.
Since in The Sims you don't interact much with most NPCs, you can
just hire her from the phone or either fire or dismiss her
personally. But, being a maid she is an essential service NPC and I
think that her wages are way cheaper than the other games, plus her
outfit is cute. She also appeared in The Sims Bustin' Out and she is
the only human NPC to appear in another game of the series, I think.
The
original Servo! Bundled with The Sims Livin' Large, the Servo was
originally a buy mode object in the electronics section, it also
reappeared in The Sims 2 Open for Business and in The Sims 3
Ambitions (as an early, outdated robot, SimBot) and in The Sims 3
Into the Future (as a modern robot version, PlumBot, that since the
PlumBots are customizable in their create a bot screen, there is a
"skin" that looks like a servo).
In The Sims 2 it is a multitasking service NPC that replaces the gardener, the maid and the repairman and it even can create food out of nothing to feed your sims. The pro of the Servo is that it doesn't require a salary everyday, but the con is that it is an expensive robot after all, and it costs 15000 Simoleons. A fun thing about the Servo is that it wears a different hat in each job it's doing, a straw hat when gardening, a chef's hat when cooking and so on.
The Genie,
one of the NPCs of the game that I have a love/hate relationship
with. Another object NPC, the Antique lamp was added with Livin'
Large ep and to use it an adult sim can clean it once a day which
you'll summon the Genie that'll grant a wish to the sim.
The Genie you'll let you choose a wish between two opposite things: love and money, friends and family, work and fun, earth and air and water and fire. The option that he gives to a sim is random and he can either succeed or fail in granting the wish. E.g. if the wish for money is successful he'll summon a pot of gold but if it don't, he'll just summon a bunch of bills.
I think that the Genie summarize all the quirkiness and fun of The Sims, even when he don't grant your wish and just run away saying that it isn't his problem lol. So that's why I like him, but I still hate when he sets my house on fire or summon roaches, though.
Sunny is
iconic, he is the embodiment of the hardships while playing The
Sims, and he is the original tragic clown. He was also released in
the Livin' Large ep alongside with his painting, he would visit your
house if both your sims are depressed and you have the painting
decorating it. The problem is that he is a terrible clown and will
cry a lot while make your sims feel worse.
As a kid I hated him, probably because I was afraid of clowns at that time or maybe because he is really annoying and wouldn't leave my house and my sims alone lol (I didn't know how to make him leave back them). But now, I recognize how funny this scenario is: a ragged and dirty clown visiting someone's house to cheer them up but failing miserable is so stupid and weird that could work only in The Sims. He also appeared in The Sims 3, but he is dead and don't wear his costume.
Another
object related NPC, Chip and Bunny are both entertainers (which is a
tame word that The Sims uses for strippers actually) that emerge off
a giant birthday cake that came alongside The Sims House Party ep.
Your sim can choose either the male (Chip) or female (Bunny) entertainer at time and they will make a kind of sexy dance while everyone clap and cheers them (I mean adult sims, because if there is a kid sim on the room they'll just get shooed off). After the dance, they'll just leave and you can't interact with them.
As a kid I had no idea what "entertainer" meant and would always throw a party, buy the cake and hire Bunny because all sims like her and I thought that her clothing was cute. And for Chip, he has the same head, body type and name as Chip Snooty Patooty of one of the families downloadable by Maxis (though there isn't anything proven that they're the same sim).
An animal
NPC that was shipped of The Sims Unleashed, El Bandito is a raccoon
that randomly appears at your house at night and trash your garbage,
waking up your sims in the process. To kick him out your sim can
either try to shoo them or call animal control that you'll cost your
money (alternatively if there is a dog on your lot they might fight
him). I think that, even if this NPC makes a mess on my houses, I
love how he has a name and is written in broken Spanish and he has
the burglar theme and he mostly don't care if your sims shoo them,
so it's impossible to not like him.
Another
animal NPC that also came with The Unleashed, Henri Le Stanc, is a
skunk that'll randomly appear at your house when the sims have low
levels of hygiene and will spray your sims if they try to pet him. I
never knew how dangerous skunks are when I was a kid so I didn't get
why the game would send me a message to call the animal control to
remove him and why my sims would freak out when seeing him. Now, I
still love him though because I still think that skunks are cute and
he has a name and his name is a parody of Pepé le Pew (who I also
thought that was cute ngl) and he has the forbidden boop.
Her.
Bonehilda (also called Ossilda in the pt-br version) is yet another
one object NPC that can be summoned by the closet that came with The
Sims Makin' Magic ep. She is a skeleton maid/repairman/nanny and
will actually replace the maid because if Brigit sees her she'll
freak out and quit, but can be hired concomitant with the Servo.
I loved her since the first time I played Makin' Magic (I that they only made her as a pun/joke of the metaphor "having skeletons in the closet", but I still think how amazing it is to have a skeleton maid!). Some facts about her: besides Brigit, other sims without a magical wand will also freak out when seeing her, she'll drink something off your bar if you have one and leave a puddle on the ground, she'll try to take the Grim Reaper's autograph if he is visiting you because she is his fan ofc and there is a janitor (a maid/repairman of community lots) version of her in the Magic Town.