The Journal of Cartoon Over-analyzations

• Here’s a theory you might have missed behind “Casper the Friendly Ghost”.  It goes that Casper is symbolism of homosexuality and the struggle for gays in society.  Casper is a boy ghost or male who constantly seeks the company of other boys or other males.  The boys seem to think Casper is a nice fellow and find nothing wrong with his company. After a short while of cute playing, the friendship is ruined when grown ups, who represent the more “traditional” views of society, intervene. More than frowning on such relationships, they fear it terribly and steal the innocent boy and run away from poor Casper, who is left to seek out the next relationship.
  -Contributed by Dave R.
• In Tex Avery’s “King Size Canary,” a cat and canary compete by “growing” larger with the use a vitamin serum; the bigger one has the edge on the other.  It goes back and forth with no resolution other than running out of serum as they stand on a basketball sized earth.  This is all a metaphor for the US vs. USSR nuclear arms race!
  -Contributed by Dave R.
• There has been a great deal of speculation regarding the fact that Smurfette is the only female Smurf in the entire village. People automatically assume that Smurfette is responsible for the propagation of the entire Smurf population. This is an erroneous assumption, because this theory postulates that Smurfs reproduce sexually. I offer forth the idea that Smurfs reproduce asexually, much like amoebas. I believe that when a Smurf takes off his little white hat, the hat grows a new Smurf, and the old Smurf grows a new hat. In the case of Smurfette, well, there is at least one obviously homosexual Smurf in the village (that being Vanity), so why not two? I submit the idea that Smurfette is simply a cross-dressing male Smurf, and there are no real females in the village. No real female acts that over-the-top feminine. I have converted many unbelievers to this theory, based on the simple logic that it puts forth.
  -Contributed by Natalie.
• For me, the show that brought the whole anthropomorphic vs. realistic animals debate home for me was none other than The Get Along Gang. It struck me as weird to begin with; you stick a moose on his hind legs and he looses something fundamental about being a moose. And Montgomery has antlers, which brings up the issue of whether they could be considered a weapon in his society.
  But the episode that sealed it was the one in which the Gang ends up in a snowy town where they must search for an escaped elephant. A non-anthropomorphic elephant. From the zoo!
  I always thought that if you’re going to create a world of humanoid animals, you might as well go all out and populate your zoo with humans.
  -Contributed by Farnie6.

• “I don’t know if Disney has a house rule about which animals can speak and which cannot, but guidelines seem to be emerging. The rule is, if you are a predatory carnivore, you don’t talk, but if you are a pacifist, a vegetarian or cute, you do. In Tarzan, the apes spoke, but the leopards didn’t. In Dinosaur, all of the creatures speak, except for the vicious carnotaurs. A Faustian bargain seems to be at work: If you are an animal in a Disney picture, you can speak, but only if you are willing to sacrifice your essential nature.”
  -Quoted from Roger Ebert’s review of Dinosaur >Catena Ex Situ
• A black & white Betty Boop in Who Framed Roger Rabbit was employed a cigarette girl at the Ink & Paint Club circa 1947. She bemoaned how “work’s been kind of slow since cartoons went to color”. Perhaps Miss Boop forgot about her starring role in the 1934 Fleischer Color Classic “Poor Cinderella.”
  -Contributed by Brendan S.
• In Ratatouille, whether Remy walks on all-fours or on two feet depends on his mood:
  “If he feels exuberant, he tends to be more upright, and his hands pulled back. Later on, when he feels shame in front of his father, and [his dreams] have all turned into disaster, he folds back in again. It’s not just a mannerism. It’s a thing that helps tell the story.”
  -Quoted from an L.A. Times interview with Brad Bird >Catena Ex Situ

There’s a new feature here at J. Cart. Overanal., and it’s called Mini-Analyzations! We’ll throw these up a few at a time. These are all from the old archives.

Again, don’t hesitate to send in your own.

• I guess it’s worth mentioning that of the 101 dalmatians, the minority of them had blue collars. This has implications ranging from gender discrimination (the color of the collar is associated to the character’s gender) to socio-economic generalizations toward blue collar workers.
  - Contributed by Fawzi
• In Robotech, haven’t you noticed that the RDF is considered a defense force? Only Japan has a national defense force, and since the show was animated in Japan, it would be obvious that they would be a defense force. If the show was animated in the United States, they would be the Robotech Army.
  - Contributed by Seprihoth5
• If you will note at the beginning of The Simpsons, the “Simps” part is visible before the “ons” part. This is undoubtedly a reference to the word(s) “simpleton” or “simple-minded,” etc.
  - Contributed by Peter I.
• In Transformers, all the bad guys were some kind of flying object and the good guys were some type of vehicle.
  - Contributed by LUVMYHALEYBUG
• The native country of Boris Badunov and Natasha Fatale, Pottsylvania, is basically a combination of the extreme American stereotypes of World War II Germany and Cold War Russia.
  - Contributed by The Editor