Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25360281-20150111053551/@comment-25170312-20150114023506

Sorry to go off on a tangent here, but Raidra mentioned Smurfs. There was an episode where a crystal was making the Smurfs trip out. I mean they were literally tripping out. Painter Smurf was even doing abstract expressionism. They all got addicted to the crystal (meth) and Papa Smurf had to save them. It might have been trying to sumbliminally deter kids from drugs. I don't remember seeing it as a kid, but I can't imagine I would have understood it.

About the Uncle Grandpa thing, to be honest, I find the show kind of racist. There's a lot of outdated jokes that insinuate Gus is a black stereotype, in a subtley demeaning way. If he is supposed to be black (even though he's a green dinosaur), then that's fine, but the way they go about it just doesn't work. It comes across as willful ignorance rather than being playful. I wish I could remember specific examples, but I try not to watch the show anymore. It's almost like they're trying to make fun of how old white guys view African Americans, and failing. The only thing that makes it okay is that he's the only character who thinks logically.

There's also an episode where, in order to get a cool nickname, a black kid has to do yard work. He even pulls weeds or something and asks if his nickname will be "Eric the Weeds Master". Seriously? So because he's a black kid they had to make a marijuana joke? I think there's way more than just insect brewing in this awful show. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Now for something that might actually help... maybe put something in the pasta about how the writers came up with the idea to make Uncle Grandpa the product of incest? Or maybe who the parents could be and how they go together? Maybe the creator was raised by his uncle and grandpa, and there's some sick twisted reason why he eventually combined them into one character. Or maybe they traumatized him somehow and that's why he turned to cartooning to express his pain. Or maybe they weren't his real uncle and grandpa and had instead been kidnapped and forced to be their nephew/grandson. There's so much more you could do with this pasta.