You Ever Notice...and What's the Deal...

[D'Snowth]

Hi-C, Kool-Aid, orange drink are all considered soft.

But none of them are carbonated either.

I guess it's yet another case of being a regional thing, because where I'm from, "soft drink" is basically another term for soda.

 

[minor muppetz]

Why did The Wonder Years have the same opening for most of its run? The opening was a montage that appeared in the first episode, which showed Winnie looking different than she would after that scene, with her having pigtails and glasses. It'd be weird for those familiar with the series who didn't start with that episode (and I thought that was odd before I first saw the first episode). Additionally, Paul grew significantly taller within a couple of seasons, while they still showed that opening where he was shorter. They did update the theme in season 5 to include new footage where the cast was now older, and only changed the opening completly after Karen left.

In fact, Karen was only in three episodes in the fifth season. Why was she still billed as a main cast member? The previous season she and Jack had a falling-out, but they made up for it in her first episode of the season, only for her to still appear very scarcely. I know, I believe I asked a similar question about how when Tommy Chong was promoted to appearing in the opening for That '70s Show Leo started appearing a lot less.

And in the first episode of The Wonder Years, after Winnie switches to her more familiar look, she tells Kevin and Paul that she now wants to be called Gwendolyn. In fact at one point the narrator corrects himself when referring to her by that name. But then she goes back to being called Winnie. I can't remember if 12-year-old Kevin called her Winnie later in the episode, but there was at least one later instance where the narrator called her Winnie without correcting himself. Are we supposed to believe that she went back to her nickname because her brother died? Or too many people weren't accepting of the change? Or was this perhaps a change decided by the staff after making the pilot?

 

[minor muppetz]

When Warner Bros. sold the rights to its black and white shorts in 1955, the classic WB openings and closings had to be replaced until Warner got the rights back (and they also had to remove instances where the logo appears in the cartoons itself, the only ones I know of being in Porky in Wackyland and You Ought to Be in Pictures).

But then when the rest of WB's pre-1948 package was sold, it seems they never had to remove the Warner Bros. opening and closing, though an "A.A.P." title card was added to the shorts. What's up with that?

And after Warner Bros. merged with Ted Turner and got back the rights to all the shorts, they also got the MGM cartoons and Popeye cartoons, so how come a Warner Bros. logo was never added to those shorts? I think the Warner Bros. logo was later added to all the live-action films from MGM that Warner owns.

And I don't exactly know how to phrase this next part, so.... In the 1980s, Ted Turner got the rights to everything MGM owned before 1983, while MGM remains a company not owned by Ted Turner or Time Warner, and the MGM logo sequence remains in its older works... Yeah, I don't think I'll figure out how to properly word what I'm asking. Hopefully you can figure out what I'm supposed to be saying.

 

[D'Snowth]

So, what's the deal with hanging homosexual labels on cartoon characters these days? Granted, I remember when David Ogden Stiers came out several years ago, he said it was fairly easy to voice characters, such as Cogsworth, not only because Disney is a (relatively) gay-friendly studio, but because animated characters tend to have a natural, flamboyant streak to them.

I don't know about Cogsworth persay (I will say that Cogsworth is a lot like DOS's M*A*S*H character Charles, both uptight and snooty), but like, TV Tropes seems to really delve to almost ridiculous depths for TIME SQUAD, and have come to the conclusion that Larry 3000 is gay because he's neat, fastidious, prissy, and bickers with Tudrussell like they're a married couple. SEINFELD even played with that very stereotype in that episode where Elaine joked Jerry and George were a couple, Jerry even admits that people assume he's gay because he's really neat and fastidious, and I know George has joked before that Jerry tends to be prissy, and they do tend to bicker from time to time, but we know that they're straight. Heck, Frank Burns is neat, fastidious, extremely prissy, yet he was constantly fooling around with Margaret, and got insanely jealous when she ended up getting engaged.

Similarly, I just spent the better part of the last half-hour reading this dissection of TMNT, saying that the reason Irma is constantly chasing after men is to cover up her being a closeted lesbian.

And where do people get the idea that Heffer from ROCKO'S MODERN LIFE is gay? I've honestly never seen any indication or implications from that show that even remotely suggest that he is.

I don't know... either my mind just isn't in the gutter like other people's is, or I just don't see how these kind of traits make cartoon characters gay. I'm kind of like Jerry myself: I tend to be a real neat freak, alway making sure things are organized, and yes I'll also admit I'm a bit of a metro (though I'm certainly no fashionista by any stretch of the imagination, but I also don't want to look like some sort of lazy slob who doesn't even find the time to put actual clothes on)... of course, then again, there was a period of time here at MC when people were convinced I was female, but that's mainly because of my Snowth avatars (with Snowths being pink and all).

 

[mr3urious]

As long as it isn't being used to further any agendas, then it's just stupid, but harmless fun.

 

[Drtooth]

S
Similarly, I just spent the better part of the last half-hour reading this dissection of TMNT, saying that the reason Irma is constantly chasing after men is to cover up her being a closeted lesbian.

That's a pretty obvious and weak interpretation of the character to just say "she's gay" and leave it at that. Above all, she's clearly some sort of homage to Rhoda,as the Channel 6 News Team clearly homages Mary Tyler Moore.... Mr. Thompson/Mr. Grant, Vernon/Ted... My interpretation is that she can't differentiate between love and lust and desperately wants to cling onto any man... any male she can. That includes robots (twice), Donatello, and Bigfoot ("find out if he's married.") What they rarely show is her regret. They did that just once in "Attack of the Killer Pizzas" where she was trying to hide from some garish Italian stereotype that she had some history with. She's a shockingly inappropriate character to have in a kid's show, actually.

And where do people get the idea that Heffer from ROCKO'S MODERN LIFE is gay? I've honestly never seen any indication or implications from that show that even remotely suggest that he is.

You got me on that one. Never heard of it actually. There's clearly something going on with him and someone named Sheila, and he did really like getting milked by an automatic machine (I can see why this is censored... he never bore any udders... so...). Above all, he's just a food crazy fat manchild. I don't see anyone getting "gay" out of that.

As long as it isn't being used to further any agendas, then it's just stupid, but harmless fun.

Exactly. And like I always say, you can pick apart characters that have could be seen as that in a stretch, but I prefer ones with glaringly obvious hints thrown in. At least you can tell that was the intent of the creators. That's always much more fun.

 

[D'Snowth]

You got me on that one. Never heard of it actually. There's clearly something going on with him and someone named Sheila

That's what I brought up at TV Tropes, since they're the ones who say he's Ambiguously Gay (Filburt too, but he's married to Dr. Hutchison).

 

[beatnikchick300]

That's what I brought up at TV Tropes, since they're the ones who say he's Ambiguously Gay (Filburt too, but he's married to Dr. Hutchison).

I've noticed that the TV Tropes community seems a bit obsessed with seeing latent homosexuality everywhere (the Beauty and the Beast page and the Pocahontas page list Cogsworth and Governor Ratcliffe as ambiguously gay, because their voice actor recently came out. How does that make any difference? Then again, they also say Ratcliffe is gay because of his rather effeminate sycophant, which is equivalent to saying Mr. Burns is gay because Smithers works for him). I'm all for more representations of LGBTQ characters in all forms of media (outside of the stereotypical ones) , but I think Tropers look more into certain things than need be.

 

[Drtooth]

I've noticed that problem all over TVTropes. Posters that don't know the difference between getting crap past the radar and looking for crap in a crapless place. Apparently, they pushed the envelope on Goof Troop because Pete pronounced cement "SEE-Ment" instead of "seh-MENT" the preferred pronunciation because they were really trying to make it sound like... a certain other word. Even though that pronunciation denotes a lower-class accent (I'm sure they haven't heard either the Beverly Hillbillies theme or Weird Al's cover of it), not trying to say male excretions. And one even insists Pinocchio's nose means male parts instead of just Pinocchio's nose as per the original story. So much of the Getting Crap Past the Radar is unfunny guesses and stretches those with dirty minds already are trying to look for, instead of the genuinely funny stuff that's actually there.

And don't get me started on how Author Existence Failure is full of "If they ever plan to revive a show they never actually will revive, they're going to have to recast so and so."

 

[D'Snowth]

As I've said before, if there is one animated character who I would believe is Ambiguously Gay, it's Zazu from THE LION KING... as a kid, I honestly was not sure whether he was supposed to be male or female: I know Zazu's male, but he seemed to act and sound more feminine as I remember, which is why I wasn't so sure about him.

*Shrug*