"grownups always come back" you can't promise the child of a soldier or the child of a sick parent that there's any "always" about life.
I couldn't agree with your pointing this out more, bka. Although there were a few exceptions, it's notable that Fred was almost entirely inclusive in how he phrased things. He wasn't afraid to add a comma and add possibilities to a statement he made. In talking about families he mentioned just about every combination of family that could exist (with the more modern exception of 2 dads or 2 moms, something that wasn't talked about on TV at the time). Conversly this "grownups" jingle practically slapped me in the face, with how un-Freddish it seemed. Either nobody thought about the issues you have mentioned here, or they were discussed and it was decided that having a simple jingle was more important than the cohesiveness of the lesson. I don't see any other explanation and both sadden me.
DTN rates 100% on the cute meter. MRN never courted its audience with cute, although Anna Platypus (confusingly relegated to puppet in the school sequence, and with none of her exquisite charm or veracity, employed merely to help little Daniel with his separation anxiety & josh him out of his anxious feelings.
I would disagree that MRN wasn't cute. Certainly the puppets, all being designed by whichever mysterious person designed them long ago, had a charm of their own. That charm may have quickly become outdated as newer shows utilized more contemporary ideas of style and cuteness, but for those of us who grew up with it, it was appealing to the eye. But nobody back then could have predicted how "cute" would become the thing to be nowadays. Frankly, as attractive as the DTN might be on some level, the style of animation always feels so intangible to me. It's a hodgepodge of computer and photographic elements, all of which exist seperately so nothing really melds. I feel it's such a missed oppurtunity that DTN wasn't done with puppets, even totally new puppets.
to have Lady Aberlin's private, intimate, tender farewell of love to Daniel Striped Tiger (of whom there is no characteristic sign in the adult Dad Tiger) made into a bumper-sticker, trivialized, both conjuring up for MRN fans the memory of the King's niece, and excommunicating her from her own land - is deplorable, if only to me.
Yeah I'm kind of with you on the Ugga Mugga thing. Even more though, it bothers me how many little catchphrases they have tried to give the characters, which sound very amateurish. Having Prince Wednesday roll his "r"'s and insert "Royal" into everything, might be able to be pulled off, but it doesn't sound natural to me, at least not by the kid whose doing the voice. Prince Tuesday never quite seemed on board with the Royalty thing, being wary that his friends might not see more than "royal robes" when they looked at him. I guess Wednesday is different. Does that mean that he falls more in line with Friday's philosophy? King Friday was almost annoying in his fetishism of all things royal, purple, etc... That kind of seems like what they are doing with Wednesday but he also acts like a rough and tumble kid, which doesn't seem to mesh. However, he's a new character so perhaps he'll grow and develop.
Why have Katarina Kitty Cat insert Meows into her phrases, but not in place of other words the way Henrietta did? Did they think kids would have troubel understanding her when they didn't on MRN? That seems condescending, either to today's kids or to MRN. And it seems totally pointless to do it the way they've chosen. Echoing what I said about Wednesday's inserting Royal into everything, the voice of Katarina doesn't seem to get how to make it work either.
I'm more disappointed that classic characters have been changed so much. Why is Teacher Harriet a human being? Is there any reason she couldn't be a cow? As I'm typing it, I'm realizing maybe there would be issues with Bob Trow's estate? Not sure if that's true or not, but it seems weird to simply pay tribute to a character in name when you could simply have the character appear (same for the whole Platypus clan). And why was Lady Elaine changed? I think that's the single biggest change that bothers me. It's like they listened to everyone who said Lady Elaine scared me when I was little. Now I wasn't one of those people, but surely Fred must have heard that too right? And he didn't see fit to get rid or her, or change her appearance, which he could have done. In fact, seeing how prominently Lady E was throughout the show's run, I can only imagine that she was liked by a lot of kids, and that her unique appearance, behavior, etc... served a function. Prettying her up, (and I assume they'll have changed her personality as well) seems like they have no idea of any value the character obviously had for 40 years. I would rather she not be included at all.
