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From the archives: Bugs Bunny is Jewish

October 23, 2008

Contributed by Krissy N.

Me and my friends were recently watching a Bugs Bunny cartoon, a take on the “Tortoise and the Hare”, when we began to notice some things about his behavior:

He was stereotypically Jewish.

It first came to notice at the beginning of the cartoon, when Bugs is reading a book. He reading it backwards, from right to left, turning the pages in that manner as well. Of course, one can read Hebrew or Japanese in this manner, and Bugs is definitely not Japanese.

We then begin to notice other things. Like Bugs’ Brooklyn accent. The stereotypical Jewish person always has a Brooklyn accent.

He kisses people a lot. My Jewish friends pointed this out as something their relatives do often, as well as people they just met. Bugs is awfully friendly…

He’s cheap. There’s a point in the cartoon where he has to cross a river, and instead of paying the bridge toll, he swims across the river.

Of course, being smart asses, we have to add that RABBIT - T = RABBI.

Not to say that Jewish people exhibit any of these characteristics, but they are common stereotypes.

COMMENT: Another thing altogether. In reference to what someone wrote about Bugs Bunny being stereotypically Jewish, one must also note that there is a Bugs Bunny cartoon showing Bugs reminiscing about when he was growing up (as a young rabbit either in the late thirties or early forties) in the Lower East Side. This also implies stereotype to being Jewish.
- Comment by Bugssbunni

COMMENT: Bugs does not have a Brooklyn accent. He has a Bronx accent. Just ask Mel Blanc. Oh wait, he’s dead. But I did hear him say that in an interview. As I long-time NYC area resident (not a native though), I must agree.
- Comment by JasonH2084

COMMENT: Just would like to comment on what someone said about Bugs Bunny have a Bronx accent, and not a Brooklyn one. I have read in several places that Bugs Bunny had a combination of a Brooklyn and Bronx accent.
- Comment by Mameshmeshuga

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Posted in Bugs Bunny, ethnicity, from the archives, stereotypes | 3 Comments »

From the archives: Meteorological Symbolism of the Plow

September 17, 2008

Nota bene: We apologize for the lack of updates lately. We are a bit short-staffed as a couple weeks ago one of our editors left for a weekend trip to visit her relatives in Innsmouth, Massachusetts, but she hasn’t returned yet. If you read this, please call or e-mail us: we are worried about you.

Contributed by E. Lewis

I own this cel! Booyah!

To sum up the plot of The Secret of NIMH, Mrs. Johnathan Brisby (we never learn her first name) is desperately trying to save her young son, Timothy, from death. Timothy, a sickly boy, had come down with pneumonia right before the plow comes. To be spared from the evil plow, the family must move but because Timmy’s so sick, he cannot leave the house–hence a plot.

In just that small summary, can you see a gapingly humongous plot hole? Just think, the plow comes year after year, it is nothing new, and yet year after year, all the animals get into an uproar. Now you’d think, if you have to move to a safe location each year because the plow is coming, you’d just relocate to the safe place. Wouldn’t that be so much simpler then packing up everything, getting into a tizzy and rushing about the place praying the plow doesn’t get you? They frankly deserve to die if they are that stupid. I know, I know, if common sense were being used, we wouldn’t have a movie.

To the animals the plow is a sort of Armageddon, an end-all dooms day where everything is destroyed and to save your life, you must heed the warnings and promptly leave. Those who linger will be destroyed. Period. Actually, Armageddon isn’t quite right, the plow is more of a hurricane. Meteorologists track the impending hurricane and warn the designated strike zone to leave the area. People go about boarding up their houses and they take their most precious belongings and family and get out. That is, they do if they’re smart. There are always some who make the news because they’ve seen hurricanes before and nothing’s made them leave and some little silly winds and rain sure ain’t gonna do it. And they sit in their houses until the wind blows the roof off and the rain drowns them all. The plow is that hurricane, there are specific seasons where hurricanes are prevalent and likewise, there are seasons in which the plow becomes active. The smart animals get out before they are destroyed, the stupid ones hang about until the last minute thinking maybe it won’t hit this year. If you are stupid enough to stick around year after year, don’t complain when everything is taken away. Hence you see I have no compassion for the Brisby family. With that many children, you’d think they wouldn’t live right in the path of the plow.

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Posted in The Secret of NIMH, death, from the archives | 2 Comments »

From the archives: A Discussion of the “Blasting the Arm Off” Incident in Gargoyles

August 30, 2008

  • Another cartoon in which characters have been seen to die is Gargoyles, although I only remember it happening once onscreen. In the episode “City of Stone”, Demona has turned everyone in the city into a stone statue. She then goes on a rampage, blasting the statues apart with vicious glee. It was one of the most disturbing images I’d ever seen in supposedly children’s television.
    - Contributed by Kender D.
  • The image of her viciously blasting the stone humans wasn’t nearly as disturbing as the way she blasted them. She shattered many of the ones she blasted, but one in particular caught my attention. She blasted the arm off a young woman! She didn’t take the time to shatter her, she just blasted the arm off! “So, Ms. Johnson, how did you lose your arm?” “A humanoid lizard with a hatred of humanity blew it off.” When she turns back to flesh, to her only a moment has passed, yet her arm is gone, leaving a bleeding stump.
    - Contributed by BlueNight
  • In reply to the whole “City of Stone” death business, Greg Weisman made it pretty clear that a major wound like losing an arm in statue form, would simply mean that the person simply never transmutes back into flesh.  Also, there was a significant character death at the end of “Avalon Pt. 3″: the Magus. After the fight with the Wyrd sisters, it’s pretty obvious that his little nap isn’t temporary. “Future Tense” also had a lot of fun killing off all the major characters. Broadway’s death, especially, was very well done.
    - Contributed by Jing-Jen Sun
  • OK, God forbid that Disney should actually make a teen-oriented show. Gargoyles was great and it handled its death sequences very well. Demona is a psycho killer. She doesn’t care about the lives of humans, so she shot some when they were statues. Big deal. Didn’t see anyone complaining that a whole clan of Gargoyles was killed in the beginning of the show. (oh, and the woman would have awaken to find she had no arms, but wouldn’t have any bleeding stumps, it would just be a stump.) Hey, stuff like that happens. Teens understand this and don’t appreciate all the sugar coating that goes on on teen-oriented shows. The Magus’s death was handled very well. It was tragic, but not pointless. And the deaths in “Future Tense” were all just a dream, made to put a little shock into Goliaths system.
    - Contributed by Brooke H.

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From the archives: Considerations of Laser-based Weaponry

August 20, 2008

Contributed by Russell P.

I’ve noticed quite a bit of talking about laser weaponry being used in cartoons where it quite obviously isn’t apt. It’s already been pointed out that G.I. Joe used hand-held laser weaponry in a late 20th century setting. Yet the rest of the Cobra/G.I. Joe armory is more conventional Tanks, boats and jets! The ability to create hand-held laser weapons is more in keeping with a civilisation capable of short-range space travel, and hypersonic Ramjet craft, and even then they’d be specialist weapons and not frontline rifles.

So why are they used? I have a theory that it’s something to do with making shows a little less violent. The guns don’t sound like machine guns, but lasers, which is something much more acceptable (for whatever reason) to the censors. (Star Wars has a U rating, despite people getting killed through out, yet The A-Team (on video) I believe gets a PG, because there are fist fights and real guns)

A really good example of this, is in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (or Hero Turtles in the UK- “ninja” was deemed too violent. Yet the Samurai Pizza Cats escaped this rampant Political Correctness, perhaps owing to the honouristic nature of the Samurai in old Edo Dynasty Japan, whereas the Ninja was an Assassin for hire, a reprehensible character in Ancient Japan.) In the very first episode of TMNT, after Rocksteady and Bebop have been mutated into rhino and boar respectively (both traditional “brute” animals) they are given guns by Shredder and Krang and told to smash up the Town to lure the turtles out of hiding.

Aha, Krang is an advanced sentient from another dimension, you say? That would explain why they use laser weapons? Wrong! Rocksteady and Bebop quite clearly use contemporary automatic weapons, despite the fact that Krang could probably supply them with energy weapons! Aside from the sound the guns made, they left bullet holes in the sides of cars and walls, as opposed to “splashing” as cartoon lasers tend to (obviously it is easier to draw the blast evaporating and leaving no damage). A pretty rare thing in cartoons!

In all other episodes of TMNT everybody uses laser weapons (including those gangsters who pop up every now and again, although they may have obtained them via their deal with Shredder).

Machine guns are to closer to real life weapons, and real violence; lasers are a fantasy weapon, and one that can “stun” as opposed to kill. This part becomes clear in Transformers, where in the The Movie, one blast from Galvatron’s gun is enough to disintegrate Starscream at his coronation, yet in subsequent episodes of Transformers, Galvatron’s gun at best can knock someone over and make them a little dazed.

The exact power of the laser gun is flexible, where as if you have guns that correspond to conventional weapons it becomes harder to avoid violence.

All this said, I notice that G.I. Joe, Transformers and other similar cartoons are never hesitant to use missile technology. Many Transformers had missile launchers strapped to their sides (Tracks, Ultra Magnus, Hound, to name but three) and many tanks and planes in G.I Joe had missiles. What tended to happen  would be that the missiles would miss, but the resultant explosion would be enough fling the target to safety, or collapse the entrance to a cave.

The usage of laser weapons fueled the techno-dreams of the 80’s youth and avoided over-violence. It also allowed for colour-coding of fire (orange for Autobot, purple for Decepticon, red for G.I. Joe blue for Cobra and so on) which made things clearer. Even Star Wars did this! (red Rebels, green Imperial, and blue for Ion cannon)

This still happens today in things like the revamped Marvel shows (X-Men, Spiderman, Ironman, etc.). I can’t think of many exceptions to the rule, I think maybe Batman the Animated Series may use conventional guns. The only one I know that did for sure is G-Force (AKA Battle of the Planets) where Galactor’s troopers had machines gun that were always easily dodged by the G-Force team.

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Posted in Batman, G-Force, G.I. Joe, Samurai Pizza Cats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, from the archives, villains, violence | 2 Comments »

From the archives: Symbolism in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast

August 8, 2008

Contributed by E. A. L.

A friend of mine wrote this for her English class and when I read it I thought of your page. This is actually not the entire paper, but these are the parts that I thought would apply. By the way, she got an A.

Beauty and the Beast is a movie about a girl who frees an enchanted prince from entrapment in the form of a beast. In the beginning of the movie, the prince is transformed into a beast to punish him for being “spoiled, selfish, and unkind,” to punish him for judging people based on appearances, and to teach him to love someone other than himself. Belle, the girl, is only able to free him from the enchantment if she can learn to love him in spite of his being a beast. The theme of this movie is that people who do not judge others based on appearances are often rewarded. Two sub-themes of this movie are that 1) people who make sacrifices out of love are often rewarded and 2) sometimes people don’t realize that they love someone until it is almost too late.

Symbolic elements are used often in the settings of this movie. When Belle’s father first stumbles upon the Beast’s castle, it is a dark and stormy night with lightning stabbing across the sky and rain pouring down, which represents the terror Belle’s father feels upon finding the castle. The inside of the castle is dark and gloomy, which symbolizes mystery and the way the Beast broods over both his fate and the shame he feels about his appearance, which makes him hide in the dark. Because the inside of the castle is full of gargoyles and hideous grimacing statues, which are thought to drive away evil spirits, it symbolizes that the Beast is not really evil, because if he were, he could not live in a castle full of gargoyles. Since the Beast uses the west wing for his sulking rooms, he is facing the sunset, or the end of the day, which symbolizes his waning hope for redemption. The west wing is full of old rubbish and dust, which symbolizes feelings of desolation and neglect, as well as the frustration and rage the Beast feels at his situation. Windows symbolize enlightenment, and allow people to look outside. In this movie, the windows grow progressively larger until the fill entire walls as Belle and the Beast get to know each other. This symbolizes that they are becoming enlightened about the other’s character, and that they are looking outside themselves and learning about someone else. After Belle and the Beast dance together in the ballroom, they go outside, where the sky is full of stars, which symbolize the hope that the enchantment might be broken. Wishes are made on falling stars, so the single falling star represents the chance that the Beast’s wish might be granted and Belle will break the spell. As the movie moves from that scene to the point where the Beast releases Belle, the sky progressively fills with clouds, until all the stars, and symbolically, all the Beast’s hopes, are blotted out. A candle flame can also symbolize hope, and when Belle runs away from the castle for the first time, she slams a door and extinguishes Lumiere’s flame, which symbolizes extinguished hope, because without her there is no hope for the enchantment to end.

Books are a repeated symbol in this movie. For Belle, they symbolize a way of escape from a life she does not want, and they are her only source of adventure and romance. Each time there is a room full of books in this movie, there is also a globe, symbolizing the way books allow Belle to travel and have experiences she would never have otherwise. Books are also likened to and associated with water. When Lumiere and Cogsworth are attempting to lead Belle away from the west wing, they mention the library and speak metaphorically of “fountains of books, cascades of books,’ and other comparisons of books to water, or the source of life. For Belle, they are the only means by which she can escape from the little town and they provide her with the adventure and romance she feels she needs to live. In the opening town scene, Belle is reading a book by a fountain, once again connecting books with water, and a herd of sheep walk past, all going the same direction. These sheep could symbolize the townspeople, who are all the same and who are all going in the same direction. One of the sheep takes a bite out of a page of Belle’s book, which symbolizes the way the townspeople have no use or appreciation for books, which consequently represents the little use or liking Belle has for the townspeople. Additionally, books are associated with the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” which is the theme of this movie.

Mirrors and reflections are also a repeated symbol in this movie, and they symbolize the action of seeing oneself as others do, and again this shows the emphasis on appearance in this movie. For instance, Gaston is obsessed with himself and he is always looking in the mirror, but he fails, like all the other townspeople except Belle, to see what he really is. However, the Beast shatters a mirror in his rooms, which shows that he is aware of how others see him.

Gaston is always associated with mud, which is a contextual symbol showing Belle’s dislike for him and symbolizing what he really is inside. Characters as symbols are prevalent in this movie. For example, Lumiere is supposed to be a Frenchman, and he represents passion and romance. Cogsworth, the clock, is supposed to be an Englishman, and he symbolizes fuss and bother and caution. The cupids on the ceiling of the ballroom are an allusion to the god of budding love, which is the situation Belle and the Beast find themselves in. After the wolf fight, Belle washes the Beast’s wounds, which symbolizes and foreshadows that she will be the one to heal him from his despair. When Belle wears a yellow dress, the color symbolizes their growing love that is dazzling, inextinguishable, young, and strong. Later, when the Beast is transformed back into a prince, he glows with a golden light, again symbolizing the strength and inextinguishable love that they share.

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Posted in Beauty and the Beast, from the archives, villains | 1 Comment »

From the archives: When Bugs Bunny Loses

July 14, 2008

Contributed by BugssBunni.

Usually, Bugs Bunny is always the good guy and he triumphs in the end. Yet there are a few exceptions. I wish to discuss the cartoons in which Bugs Bunny is defeated in a race by a turtle. I know that one of them is “Tortoise Beats Hare,” the other I’m not sure what it is called.

In these two cartoons, Bugs Bunny is pictured as an arrogant rabbit who has TOO much confidence in himself. He is outraged by the thought that a turtle can beat him in a race. He finds it insulting and embarrassing to all rabbits. We see a side of Bugs Bunny hardly ever shown — it seems in this cartoon that he is slightly conceited and over-sensitive. These two character traits are inferred in Bugs Bunny’s character only once before, in the Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde episode. When Dr. Jekyll/Hyde asks Bugs if he drank the formula, Bugs Bunny become overly defensive and has the attitude of “how can you think of such a thing about me.”

In “Tortoise Beats Hare,” we all cannot help being slightly upset with Bugs Bunny. We are not used to him acting arrogant and we are disappointed. I think it is the only cartoon in which Bugs appears to be “the bad guy.”

I noticed another thing. In most cartoons, we all feel triumphant for Bugs when he defeats a “maroon” such as Yosemite Sam or Daffy Duck or Elmer Fudd. And yet we never actually are upset with the “maroons” even though they are the bad guys. Honestly, how many of you out there hate Elmer Fudd? It doesn’t seem like Bugs Bunny himself actually hates Elmer, just loves playing tricks on him. I don’t think anyone hates Elmer, despite that on numerous occasions he has actually tried to murder or heroic rabbit. But even though no one hates the bad guys, we still feel that it is justice when Bugs Bunny defeats him. No one ever feel mad at Bugs for being nasty to Elmer Fudd. We always feel triumph for the victor and sort of an affectionate feeling for the antagonist. No one feels upset at the bad guy.

However, in “Tortoise Beats Hare,” the theme is entirely different. Bugs Bunny seems like the antagonist, and we cannot help feeling slightly disgusted with him. We are not used to his arrogance and we are annoyed — we all know that he knows better. It is one of the only times where we are upset with the antagonist.

Yet, even stranger, we cannot help feeling even more disgusted with the tortoise. We all feel contempt to him and that it was unfair the way he tricked Bugs Bunny, and we are upset when Bugs loses the race. Yet when Bugs Bunny tricks people and the bad guy loses, we are not upset with Bugs, and we don’t say, “I wish Elmer won!” Why in this case are we upset with the protagonist?

The answer is that even though we are annoyed with Bugs Bunny in this animated short, we easily forgive him. We know that it is not usual of Bugs, so even though he acted conceitedly, we are biased towards him because we all like him. Even though we all know he deserves to lose the race, we can’t help thinking that he should win anyway. Why should he win? Because he’s Bugs, Bugs our favorite rabbit, and he always wins. We can’t help feeling that he should win just because he’s Bugs. We expect him to be the good guy, so we are upset that he isn’t, but we still wish he was.

This is also why we are mad at the tortoise. We feel that Bugs Bunny should have won, and the tortoise stole that position. That is the difference between this cartoon and others. We never want Elmer to defeat Bugs Bunny, so we don’t mind when Bugs defeats him. That doesn’t mean we always want the protagonist to win, because here the protagonist is the tortoise, but we want Bugs Bunny to win. We feel Bugs has the right to win, and we all can’t help loathing the tortoise for grabbing the limelight.

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Posted in Bugs Bunny, from the archives, villains | 1 Comment »

From the archives: Style Shifts at Kids’ WB

June 25, 2008

Contributed by Panu V.

Some cartoons have gone through a noticeable change in style when entering on their second or later season on TV. By this I don’t mean simple altering of the opening theme or introductions of new characters - there are many examples of a show being turned in a whole new direction, often into what almost seems like a different series. The reasons for this can vary: the producers may want to simply boost the ratings by changing what didn’t seem to them like a good style into something that would attract viewers better, but it also might be the show’s creators placing their characters into new situations/scenarios simply because they want a change of pace from the previous ones and/or they think it would indeed fit better with the show and its characters. It also could be both. Of course, this change is sometimes good, sometimes bad.

One of the best examples I can think of about this are the three WB cartoons produced simultaneously in the mid-90’s: Animaniacs, Pinky and The Brain, and Freakazoid!. Animaniacs, in its first and second seasons (with the 2nd season in fact being “leftover” cartoons from the 1st season), was the only show produced by WB Animation at the time, and pretty much alike to Tiny Toon Adventures, which of course originated from having the same production staff. However, along with its third season came a change. The show basically turned from a slapstick humor series with a few cultural references in each episode into a culture & media satire series with a only bit of slapstick per episode. In detail, while it previously made fun of some older movies and TV series, especially those considered “classics”, it was now completely filled with references to new and latest media happenings. All of these episodes contained at least one parody of some sort, including parodies of the series itself, resulting in quite a lot of metahumor. I think the humor also went into an increasingly darker direction, making several blatant jokes based on death. Seems like the show creators really let their imaginations and wild ideas loose during this time, and quite surely also tried altering the target audience in older direction.

Simultaneously with this third season, WB Animation begun the production of several other cartoons at the same time. These included Pinky and The Brain and Freakazoid!, with the first one leaning almost completely on sophisticated and vocal humor with lots of satire of today’s society, and the second one being more nutty and original in surreal slapstick humor than even Animaniacs on its first seasons. However, after a while of going along with the structure that was successful since its introduction much earlier, Pinky and The Brain’s style also changed. It appears that instead of being centered on the different plots of two laboratory mice to take over the world, the show in later seasons featured several detailed explanations about their past, their families, feelings and motivations. There now was several cases of self-parodying as in Animaniacs as well. In this change’s case, the authors maybe had run out of original world domination plans, and/or wanted to deepen the characters’ personalities from the flat “genius and insane” scenario.

Now, Freakazoid! may had been canceled after its two seasons without any major changes in it, but it probably launched what could be described as Animaniacs‘ third style change. To put it simply, at the time of Freakazoid!’s cancellation, Animaniacs gained many “Freakazoidesque” elements that remained for its final seasons, such as those surreal and almost nonexistent plots and single scenes that didn’t make much sense. At this time the series also reverted back into its first seasons’ style for the most part, including the return of animation studios that hadn’t done work for the show since that time.

Another case of wanting a change of pace, and the will to keep the style of Freakazoid! alive, I guess.

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From the archives: The Great Smurf Height Debate

June 11, 2008

With the recent celebrated announcement of a The Smurfs movie in the works, we thought it would be a good time to revisit one of the most heated over-analyzation debates from the old archives. Now, some snarky sites like Derober like to use ironic scorn tactics to deride the presumably family-friendly entertainment event, without the appropriate gravitas obviously required. Here at J. Cart. Overanal., however, we think such a motion picture will be fantastic grist for our mind-mills. So, we now proudly present The Great Smurf Height Debate. Most of the arguments below were written before Y2K, back when computers ran on coke-fired Stirling engines (processing speeds in excess of 2.2 kilobits/pound!) and well before Napster bankrupted spectacularly after investing too heavily in The South Sea Company. Since then, great strides have been made in Smurf Height Science, with the current prevailing theory being that a Smurf’s height and momentum cannot both be precisely measured simultaneously, given by the expression ΔpΔH=h/2πε, where h is, of course, Planck’s Constant, and ε is, of course, the Snorkittivity of Free Space.

  • How tall are Smurfs really? I mean, they live in mushrooms, so how big can they be? Most people I ask think they are over a foot tall. But I think they must be less than two inches. Sure, the smurfs look pretty large compared to Gargamel, but you have to remember the perspective of the camera is often from the Smurf’s point of view, and therefore sizes are disorted. Furthermore, Gargamel is the only human I can recall seeing so we have nothing to compare his size with. Perhaps Gargamel is just a little-wee man. As a final thought, if the smurfs were over a foot tall, their mushroom houses would have to be at least the size of a Le car or maybe a player piano.
    - Contributed by Tyler C.
  • As a response to the article about the height of a Smurf, I would like to mention that on The Smurfs’ Christmas Special (with the song “Goodness Makes the Badness Go Away”), there were several other humans to compare to Gargamel’s height. I would say, because the average Middle-Ages male was about 5′6″ (app.), this means that Gargamel was a stooping 5′ (app.). My guess, then, is that Smurfs are about 4-5 inches tall, and therefore have big mushroom houses. This is further supported by the fact that the Smurfs were an alchemist race (who knows what Papa Smurf was really making?), and probably need a lot of mushroom in their “spells.” However, 1 foot tall mushrooms have been known to exist (just look at a fallen tree, and you just might see one). Again, the Smurfs are in a fantastic world, and for all we know, they might be bigger than us (and all the humans that have appeared are giants!). Will we ever truly know?
    - Contributed by Stephen G.
  • Talking about the Smurfs’ size-I recall a few episodes where OK, I haven’t watched many cartoons for a long time, but reading all these comments on them is bringing back my old observations. In regards to the Smurf issue, it’s always seemed interesting to me that Gargamel’s cat was named Azrael, which is the name of the Angel of Death. Also, everyone’sAzrael would chase the Smurfs for some reason, and he was quite a bit larger than them. I think they’re about mouse-size. People are talking about Gargamel’s size, and traditionally bad characters tend to be misshapen in some way,and I think he is very short because that would fit in with the personality stereotype they are trying to produce (wily, crafty, sneaky, also he is hunched over all the time). And to add to the mushroom symbolism in The Smurfs, Papa Smurf seems to represent the Amanita muscaria mushroom, the red capped mushroom so often portrayed in “innocent fairytales” or any illustration using a mushroom at all. He even wears a red cap. This would add to his sort of father figure/shaman/leader of the tribe image. Does anyone remember those vampire Smurfs? I think they were “gnats”, with the g pronounced (guhnats). They turned purple and when they bit another smurf, they would turn them into a vampire, too. Although, they didn’t actually drink blood. I’d like to hear someone’s opinion on this.
    -Contributed by George H.
  • I remember seeing The Smurfs when I grew up, and I remember hearing in an early opening that the Smurfs were “three apples tall”. Many years later, I saw a Smurf T-shirt showing one of the little blue creatures exactly as tall as three apples next to him labelled “I Measure Up.” Since an apple is about 3 or 4 inches tall, I think 9 inches to a foot would be a good measure for a Smurf’s height.
    -Contributed by Darrel J.
  • Just a minor note, the Smurfs were created by the Germans. They are definitly supposed to be ‘three apples high’. They are supposedly created when depressed people (’blue’ people) go sit in the Black Forest. Forest fairies feel sorry for the ‘blue’ people and change them into tiny sprites. The only trace of their depression is their blue skin.
    - Contributed by Althea6302
  • The Smurfs were NOT created by the Germans. The Smurfs were created by a man named Peyo who was born in Belgium.
    - Contributed by KyleWestern
  • If you watch the episode where Gargamel makes a giant, you will see that smurfs make their houses, not grow them like regular mushrooms. This shows that the mushroom houses can be any size so they have no effect on the Smurf’s size. Also, apples only reach 4 inches when planters use fertilizer and such. Naturally apples are much smaller, and therefore I think Smurfs would only be 7-8 inches tall.
    - Contributed by siletren
  • Remember the old commercials for The Smurfs said they were 3 apples high? Put 3 apples on top of one another. These Smurfs were huge! Think about the ratio here. Imagine the size of the mushrooms these things live in. Gargamel must have been blind not to find them. In the opening credits the smurfs run underneath Azrael’s legs. Given the “3 apples high” ratio this makes Azrael the size of a mountain lion, and thusly makes Gargamel out to be roughly 20 feet high.
    - Contributed by Dante W.
  • Whatever the t-shirts showed notwithstanding, I think we’re all missing the point about what “three apples high” means. I think they were some magic apples in the forest, and the Smurfs ate them, and well, it’s like someone saying that they’re “six cups drunk.”
    - Contributed by Michael W.

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From the archives: A Response to Sexual Ambiguity in The Brave Little Toaster

June 6, 2008

This article was originally written as a response to Sexual Ambiguity in The Brave Little Toaster. Alas, the name of the original author has been lost to the mists of time. And my poor organizational skills of ten years ago. Also: we apologize for the lack of updates this week. We take our update schedule very seriously.

I hope you were referring to The Brave Little Toaster (a 1987 Disney-affiliated cartoon movie) and not its parody, “The Brave Little Trailer” (a 1994 ten minute short on Animaniacs). The latter I know for sure starred a male cartoon character because at the end you see the Trailer as a grandparent with a white beard and the Pooh-bear voice of cartoon vocal-master Jim Cummings. But at any rate the first film does fail to meet your criteria for deducing the gender on cartoons for a number of reasons.

First off, you’re talking about appliances here. They have no clothes either way. In fact, going over the movie several more times I found no instance where the animators hinted of clothing on any of those characters; possibly to keep them subliminally apart from the human characters. And supporting my theory. (Yes there was that Hawaiian projection scene during that song but I’m talking about hints of clothing that was actually fused onto the characters kind of like Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast.)

Then you’d probably like to discuss color coding. Alas, it holds all too true for the stereotypically (hot pink) female examples, but remember- out of a million billion cartoons, I’m only evaluating the Toaster. Subliminally, I didn’t notice gender because the Toaster has chrome silver and black (those aren’t even really colors) which are exactly what all classic toasters are like. Hence, this character has passed the color coding test by avoiding it altogether.

Let’s see, the Toaster is seen dutifully and enthusiastically tidying up the cottage and minutes later is replacing burnt fuses and hot-wiring a car battery for a chair. Two opposing stereotypes=nothing.

The eye-detail doesn’t lead you much in any direction here. The Toaster has got the dinner plates thing but that’s because, being a toaster, it’s whole face is also it’s body (it’s sort of a verbal to visual pun). Absent are the eyelashes and that ever-alluring white glare found endlessly in Japanimation. To top it off, the Toaster has dark brown irises which not only transcends gender-specifications but ethnicity as well.

In dealing with the voice-issue, that one is totally arbitrary. In my case, I sit next to this student in my Algebra 2 class I would’ve sworn, for the rest of my like, was a full-fledged tomboy had I not heard someone speak his name.

Moving onto emotional status, examples grow increasingly murkier (as I would expect). The Toaster does briefly display what could be conceived as maternal instincts toward Blankie halfway into the movie- though by the end doesn’t mind sitting flat on him like a frat boy on a beanbag chair. Personally, I think that electric blanket is gay for several obscure reasons as well as those flagrant one (a scene where Curby “unloads” his bag of dirt, the Toaster wants Blankie not to gawk- my take on it is the Toaster also has a form of “unloading” like with breadcrumbs on the real appliance and since Blankie has none, he isn’t allowed to intrude this sacred act- it’s almost like a third gender! But now I’m really going off).

How about suggestive hints? If you want to think dirty you could say the Toaster has those slots on its head suggesting female genitalia (and the bread to toast process as pregnancy) but you will also notice the Toaster is the one with the inserting mechanism for those baked goods and, most obviously, it has a nice long power cord sticking out. Do you suppose that represents male genitalia? But rather than go off on a tangent rant of why this cartoon is suggesting of a hermaphrodite, it would be far better to just say “Hey, it’s toaster that happens to talk, okay?”

There was one scene that really, really had my gears turning and that was the otherwise meaningless encounter the Toaster has with a flower in a secluded, almost romantic setting. Well, my thoughts (as I’m writing this) are that the flower softly throwing itself at the Toaster symbolizes someone giving away their virginity- often associated with girls. But, then the flower seems to go into despair and wilt when it is told it was looking at a reflection (the Toaster clearly doesn’t want to get involved in anything here). Does this mean the flower was basically trapped in this romantic setting all alone and believed it found true love in the form of a reflection… or just a companion at all? Comments are welcome- either way, it still keeps the intrigue of my claim alive and well.

I was so convinced of my theory that I decided to view that sequel The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars. I shuddered when I heard it existed and I shuddered more at each passing minute of seeing it- this is the marriage of mediocrity and bribery at its worst, folks. But in the end, I got just what I wanted- more proof the Toaster has no gender. There is yet again a scene where they were supposed to refer to it by third person (by some gigantic refrigerator?) but it could have very well also been referring to the Radio or Lampey. I know it gets rather cumbersome to dissect a movie so thoroughly but to me, it’s increasingly obvious that the animators took great lengths to avoid the issue (and possibly the children’s book this was all based on). The simple fact of the issue is they refuse to give the audience any definite truth on the Toaster. However another totally different possibility is they’re letting you chose the specific gender of this utterly neutral character with an utterly flawless design. I choose neither side for all those reasons stated above. Of course, you can still choose male… if you want to believe that.

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Posted in Animaniacs, Beauty and the Beast, The Brave Little Toaster, ethnicity, from the archives, gender, homosexuality, stereotypes, the female gender, the male gender | No Comments »

From the archives: Stone-age Inconsistencies

May 29, 2008

The following was contributed by Brendan S.

The original Flintstones TV series, enjoyable as it’s always been, was rife with a number of inconsistencies- Fred’s car seating anywhere from two people to both his family and the Rubbles, the five distinctly different designs for supporting character Joe Rockhead, whether Wilma’s maiden name was “Pebble” or “Slaghoople” and so on- but they were small potatoes compared to what would follow in the subsequent spinoffs that managed to throw everything out of whack: pretty much trashing the continuity of its flagship program in the process! (The Frankenstone/Shmoo episodes immediately come to mind.)

How is it that a teenage Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm were members of a band that played early ’70s ‘bubblegum’ music, while pre-adolescent versions ‘kiddie’ versions of Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty (their parents, mind you!) could have fun with such ’80s pastimes as Walkmans & personal computers? Equally ludicrous- Dino as a puppy and making the future Mr. Slate the same age as Fred and the gang!

Okay, they were following the ever-changing trends of Saturday morning television respectively aping both The Archie Show and Muppet Babies, but the whole Flintstones aging and de-aging thing continues to this very day!

Now, granted, there were two episodes from the old show in which Fred dreamed he was an elderly codger and they worked. Adding to the confusion, however, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm were adult newlyweds in a pair of ’90s tv specials. On the current Post Cereal commercials, they’re infants again! (The Pebbles ads, at least, being a little closer in spirit to vintage Flintstones in that many of that show’s obscure supporting characters occasionally turn up!)

Could that alien being the Great Gazoo have possibly thrown the entire Bedrock universe off-kilter with his magic out of revenge for being stranded in the Stone Age? It’s certainly a much more believable explanation for all these latter-day discrepancies, wouldn’t you say?

The following was contributed by Brian B.

Why does Fred wear a tie? He works for a construction company, he drives the bulldozer. I don’t know any construction workers that wear ties. Perhaps if Fred was a foreman or a supervisor (foremen are usually covered with dirt hence no tie, but I’m giving the benefit of the doubt here) perhaps then he might have use for a tie. As near as I can figure, it was because Ralph Cramden wore a tie. Ralph drove a bus, not a bulldozer. If Ralph was going to dig dirt all day I doubt he’d wear a tie. Perhaps Wilma made him wear it, maybe she thought it looked sexy. But when he came home from work he was probably covered with dirt, and probably bathed immediately (I hope). So then he would have had a chance to change into something sexy for Wilma.

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Posted in Muppet Babies, The Archie Show, The Flintstones, from the archives, knock-offery | 4 Comments »

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