The "You know what?" thread

[minor muppetz]

Bill Watterson refused to license Calvin and Hobbes merchandise because he thought licensing would ruin the comic strip, thinking it'd ruin the integrity and that when characters are licensed the creators tend to find making them marketable/profitable a bigger priority than making them funny or well-written.

But considering Calvin and Hobbes ended in 1995, couldn't Bill Watterson have licensed the characters since then? He wasn't making the comic strip anymore, so he wouldn't have to worry about ruining the quality of the strip. One might think that it'd be pointless to make Calvin and Hobbes merchandise when there's no new activity with the characters, but the books are still in print (and according to TV Tropes, the books sell very well), so it's not like people buying Calvin and Hobbes merchandise can't see the old strips.

Also, in the tenth anniversary book, Watterson points out that humor is often used to make a serious point about something, and states that one can't be taken seriously with their humor when they also license characters for boxer shorts. But whenever a cartoon, comic, or anything with licenseable characters does something to make a point, do the viewers/readers really think about the merchandise, particularly merchandise like underwear or weird merchandise? I thought it was weird that there's official Muppet nail polish promoting The Muppets and Muppets Most Wanted, but never think about the nail polish when watching The Muppets or any of the MMW trailers.

 

[Drtooth]

Obviously, Bill was nuts, stubborn and overprotective. That's what made the strip great. Now, I understand the whole uber-artistic viewpoint about how selling yourself out is like a billion little deaths or something... and how Garfield and Snoopy being plastered on everything is tantamount to some...I dunno... Godwin's law-y bad thing... even when the art in question appeals to kids and said selly outy stuff specifically is kid friendly.

Now, I wouldn't doubt that Bill didn't want to see his characters cheaply animated, but why does it have to be cheaply animated? It's not like we were going to get DIC's Adventures of Calvin and Hobbs. There's a HUGE difference between having a poorly written cartoon series with the network breathing down your neck and an independently animated film short. Doonsbury got an animated feature done by the Hubleys! A classy T-shirt with a single panel is not a box of super sugary cereal. And because we never got said shirts, we're flooded with cheap white things with black print of Calvin taking a leak on a sports logo that he can't even do anything about.

Nice Job breaking it, Hero indeed!

 

[charlietheowl]

I've never understood why Bill Watterston is so revered for not marketing his characters at all. Maybe he didn't have to stick Hobbes on everything like Jim Davis and Garfield, but there's nothing wrong with a small plush line and a TV special or to. You don't have to entirely shut down in the face of marketing. Look at Berkeley Breathed; he's protective of his characters, but that didn't mean that you couldn't get Bloom County stuff.

 

[Drtooth]

Plush Opuses were pretty ubiquitous during the 80's, and that was far from a kid's strip.

I can see why he didn't want a lot of what other comic strip characters were plastered to, but what about tasteful collectibles like small statues and limited edition replica plush of Hobbs?

 

[minor muppetz]

I'd like to know what the most uneccessary pieces of Garfield and Peanuts merchandise are.

These days I don't really see much Garfield merchandise in stores (mainly books at my local Books-A-Million). I think I only vaguely seeing a lot of Garfield stuff in gift shops in the past. Though I recall the anniversary books having photos of stores that were filled with Garfield merchandise.

And it seems like the amount of Peanuts merchandise has gotten bigger since Charles Schultz' death. The Complete Peanuts Vol. 1 has an interview with Schultz where he says he had no problem licensing the characters as long as the merchandise wasn't unnecessary. I don't know if his estate feels the same way about unnecessary merchandise. In the past decade I've seen a lot of Peanuts merchandise at Hallmark, which seems to look good (a lot of it seems to have a rather vintage look, and I think I've seen merchandise there of the "early Peanuts" characters). Of course, the recent Metlife commercials with the characters aren't really that funny (and I feel the "Linus and Lucy" theme used in current commercials sounds too "serious").

 

[D'Snowth]

Even though I'm not Jewish, sometimes I consider letting my hair grow out into a Jewfro... my hair kind of gettings big and "poofy" when I go without a haircut for a while, I kind of like it myself... kind of makes me look all the more eccentric, though I've just never let it get to the point where it's big enough to accomplish such a style.

 

[minor muppetz]

Yesterday, I was watching an episode of Family Guy, which had a scene where Stewie was reading the first Garfield book, Garfield at Large, and he mentions that Garfield hates Nermal, as if that's part of the book. But Nermal doesn't appear in Garfield at Large. In fact, his first appearance doesn't appear until the third Garfield book.

 

[minor muppetz]

So to swallow your pride means to do something you feel is below your standards. But how is that "swallowing your pride"? Shouldn't swallowing our pride make you more proud and less humble? Shouldn't it be called something like "spitting out your pride"?

 

[CensoredAlso]

Well it can also mean you're chewing up your pride and allowing it to be broken down by gastric juices.

 

[minor muppetz]

The other day, I saw the episode of Family Guy with the cut-away where Cookie Monster is in rehab.

The orderlies find cookies nearby, asking Cookie Monster who they got there, which Cookie Monster unconvincingly denies knowing how they got there.

It's obvious that Cookie Monster was aware of them there and was hiding them, but then if Cookie Monster knew, then why were there still full cookies there? Shouldn't Cookie Monster have eaten them all before the doctors got there? It's not often Cookie Monster doesn't eat cookies just because he's not hungry. Okay, so the gag required that they found the cookies, but I think it would have been just as effective if they had just found the crumbs.