Aging Characters: Good or Bad?

[Drtooth]

And it's not even new, either. Who could forget the Pebbles and Bam Bam show?

Someone with one HECK of a repressed memory, that's who!

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Snuffy was one of the few occasions when a Muppet character aged. Apparently he was only one when he first appeared, because he had his second birthday sometime during that season. Currently he's 4 and a half.

I always thought it was insulting to the audience when sitcoms or other shows rapidly aged young children. The biggest example I can think of is Growing Pains, where the youngest girl was seemingly five two episodes after she was introduced. I was seven years old watching reruns and I knew something was up. I know older kids are supposed to be "funnier", but the audience deserves a little more credit than thinking they won't notice the gap in time.

I know this is just a kids show and 80 percent of the audience probably didn't even notice this but, Gabi on Sesame Street did this. Sonia's real daughter who played her was no older than four or five when she left the show. But just the following season, she was replaced by Desiree Casado, who was eight when she joined the show. Although, given some of the story lines they gave her, I think the character might have been a bit younger than the actor.

Here's the deal with ol' Sparky. He says he didn't want to age characters? He actually did, but in a weird and inconsistent "don't check the earlier installments" kinda way. Lucy was introduced as a precocious toddler. As was Schroeder. Now, these characters did age, while Charlie Brown managed to stay more or less the same age. It would be impossible to think of those two characters as anything but the characters we know today, but that's because Schulz aged them instead of just creating new characters.
So technically he broke his own rule, but it was early enough for people not to notice.

Also, I noticed, when Sally was first born, Linus was already at least four years old. But now they both seem to be about the same age. And I don't think Charlie has aged much since than either.

Oh, and just for the heck of it, here's the first time we get to see Schroeder play the piano:



September 25, 1951

September 26, 1951

September 27, 1951

 

[mr3urious]

Looking back, I really think that aging up Max Goof for A Goofy Movie really worked for the character. In Goof Troop, he was a bit of a prick, especially toward his best friend. But as a teen, it really worked as a coming-of-age story and to help Goofy re-connect with his son.

 

[D'Snowth]

I liked that about Max as well, and interestingly enough, I was just thinking about that very thing the other day.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

I think Max was just generally a much nicer character on anything that wasn't "Goof Troop". For instance, he seemed like a good kid on "Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas".

 

[Collgoff]

I think some times characters age can be a good thing and some times it's not.

 

[D'Snowth]

ALVINNN has evidently aged the characters up as high schoolers (could be to share some sort of continuity with the CGI movies since they were in high school), but at times, you wouldn't be able to tell since they still engage in certain kinds of activities and passtimes normally associated with younger kids (like when they were eight in the 80s cartoon), such as Theodore playing with stuffed animals (in this case, his Talking Teddy doll), or Alvin playing cowboy (but then again, we know even Bert likes to play cowboy at times). Sadly, in Theodore's case, he seems to be suffering from Flanderization: he's increasingly become the naive little baby of the family, and that seems to be his defining characteristic now.