- I’m surprised no one has mentioned this: the lack of biological parents in cartoon shows. Think of all the characters who live with someone other than their parents: Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby living with Uncle Donald then Uncle Scrooge in DuckTales. Gosalyn and Darkwing Duck in Darkwing Duck, Robin and Nightwing living with Batman. Also, Penny and Uncle Gadget. No explanation is given about their parents’ whereabouts. When I was a kid I wondered where they were. I think if cartoon creators have a handle enough to show orphans, they should go the full monty and explain where mom and dad are.
- Contributed by Mark P.
- Yet another common device that cartoon manufacturers use is to add a character to a show that is there solely for the purpose of comic relief (usually, it backfires, though). This character is quite frequently of some other species, &c. than the main character(s). Examples are Slimer in The Real Ghostbusters, Snarf in ThunderCats, Alexander in Josie and The Pussycats, Blip in Space Ghost, Orko in He-Man, Chim-Chim in Speed Racer, Godzuki in Godzilla, and Needler in The Pirates of Dark Water.
- Contributed by The Editor
- What’s the nature of ghosts in The Real Ghostbusters? Are they extra-dimensional critters, traumatic psychic residue, or is the team actually capturing the souls of the deceased with proton lightning and cramming them in a basement nuclear reactor? That seems awfully blasphemous. Perhaps it’s symbolic of people’s willingness to ignore their past, or maybe a commentary on modern urban life being “soulless.”
- Contributed by Blake
This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 7:30 pm and is filed under Batman, Darkwing Duck, DuckTales, Godzilla, He-Man, Inspector Gadget, Josie and The Pussycats, Mini-Analyzations, Space Ghost, Speed Racer, The Pirates of Dark Water, The Real Ghostbusters, Thundercats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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I always assumed that the nephew/niece syndrome (HDL on Duck Tales, Penny in Inspector Gadget, Scott Trakker (adopted) in MASK, etc) was there to avoid any complicated discussions with viewer’s parents. To give Gadget a daughter without being married would imply that he had had sex out of wedlock at some point or another, or would at least have to explain where Mommy had gone.
I wouldn’t say that Batman really falls into that trope. At least if you’re talking the 1992-1995 Animated Series and the New Batman Adventures. In the Emmy-award winning two parter, “Robin’s Reckoning”, Dick Grayson’s story is explained in full. As for Tim Drake, the adoption was shown in “Sins of the Father”. Bruce Wayne takes Dick Grayson in because of their loss being similar to his own, giving the boy someone who could relate to him. Tim Drake is adopted by Wayne in order to protect him from Two Face, and keep his own secret safe. In both cases, it is pretty clear what happened to the parental units.
I think nephews and nieces are added to established characters either because the authors want to show cutesy versions of the same character like Donald but not burden the swinging single character with a spouse. Plus an uncle is someone you can hang out with, play, get spoiled by, not necessarily a role of disciplinarian like a parent.
Could it be a matter of virginity too? If they’ve never been married, then Batman, Donald, Darkwing Duck and all the other uncles might never have lost those essential fluids that the crazy officer in Dr. Strangelove warned us about.
actualy…w/ darkwing duck i believe they mention gosalyn’s parents in the first episode…or…at least her father
…I always thought Gosalyn’s biological dad WAS Darkwing, actually. Huh. (In any case, I certainly recall her calling him “dad” all the time, so she can’t be too tork up over it if not.) And half-assumed Duck Tales’s Webbigail (however it’s spelled) was the daughter of Mrs. Beakly…
According to Wikipedia, anyway, Webby is Beasly’s granddaughter though. And Gosalyn is indeed adopted… though now I want to know where all of this is ever stated in-show, lol.
Lilo & Stitch comes to mind where they DO explicitly say how Lilo’s parents were killed, though. But that’s more modern, too, of course.
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