Traditionally, having adults in a work designed for children has been a tricky gambit, especially as of late. In the olden days, the grown-ups were the wise yet standoffish authority figures, staying in the background until it was time to save the yunguns or dole out much needed punishment. Now it seems the best you can hope for is an ineffectual goof of a parent, if the myriad abysmal Disney Channel Sitcoms are any evidence; they get in the way and embarrass the kids with their icky, stupid grown up hobbies. Rare is the adult who is as interesting and well-rounded as the youthful protagonists, and who manages to both be an authority figure AND a cool cat to be around. So here, in hastily thrown together order, are my top five favorite adults in a cartoon. As said earlier, take the order with a grain of salt; it's not very exact.
- 5. Mr. Emile Ratburn (Arthur)
Mr. Ratburn is the dreaded "tough teacher." He gives out bargeloads of homework, has 8 year olds study arithmetic far beyond their traditional age range, and is greatly feared by any third grade class assigned to him. Thankfully for Arthur and his friends, once you get past the mythology of terror and the mind-breaking curriculum, you find a middle-aged man who has more interests than just eating up your free time with homework. He's an accomplished puppeteer and magician, he watches Saturday morning cartoons, and he has an insatiable appetite for cake (indeed, this is probably my first encounter with cake becoming slightly memetic.) Interacting with Arthur one-on-one, he sees that Mr Ratburn is not just a stodgy teacher, but a true renaissance man who knows how to have fun when school is out. He still slightly addicted to school and giving out homework, but it far from defines him as a character.
- 4. Cap'n K'nuckles (The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack)
It's not ALWAYS a bad thing to have an adult be an ineffectual goof, and indeed, if K'nuckles was a model parent, this show would lose a lot of its charm. On paper, he sounds like someone you wouldn't want your kids to hang around; a shady, unwashed man who lures children away with promises of candy and into dangerous situations. In truth... yeah, you probably wouldn't want your kids to hang around him, but Flapjack isn't your kid, so it's okay. Basically, K'nuckles, an old sea captain (or so he appears) washes up one day into the mouth of Flapjack's whale-mother Bubby, encouraging the boy to come with him to Candied Island. Flapjack, enthralled by the lure of adventure, agrees, and they set off to find the mystical island... or they just hang around the dock, eating candy, fighting mermen, and trying to escape the wiles of mechanical genies. The big appeal of K'nuckles is that he really is a despicable guy sometimes. He tricks flapjack, tries to cheat him out of his hard earned candy, and often puts him in harms way just to save his own skin. Flapjack never gives up on him, though, and it's his selfless, childish love that somehow warms K'Nuckles cold, maple-syrup pickled heart into not giving up on Flap either.
- 3. Dr Otto Scratchnsniff (Animaniacs)
Who is the perfect foil to 3 oddball, clinically insane cartoon children? Why, an old, Austrian psychiatrist (Pee-sigh-kyatrist, that is.) When the infamous Warner Brothers (and sister!), three ink-and-paint creations from the Termite Terrace days that wreaked havoc upon the Warner Studio, escape from their water tower prison, Warner Bros CEO Thaddeus Plotz hires Otto Scratchnsniff to psychoanalyze them into some sort of rationality, and of course, it never works. Of the cartoons centering on the Studio-centric antics of the Siblings, the ones featuring Otto are almost always the best. The sheer torture that the kids put him through is sweetened only by the fact that, well, they're children; they're just playing around, and they mean well, even if they can summon cannons and man eating tigers out of hammerspace.
- 2. Princess Celestia (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.)
Despite her title, Princess Celestia seems to not only be the queen of Equestria but also a god, having created the world and governing the rise and set of the sun. And yet, she seems to find the time to be friends to a group of 6 plucky young lady ponies. She is introduced first as the central character's -Twilight Sparkle- teacher, a rare if not unheard of privilege amongst the magically gifted unicorns. Sensing that her young progeny is spending a little too much time with her horn buried in books, she sends her off to Ponyville with a new assignment: make friends, and learn about the magic that is friendship. She doesn't often appear in the series (She's alluded to at the end of every episode as Twilight writes her weekly report on the lessons of friendship she's learned,) but when she does it is obvious that she is not too high and exalted to develop a rapport with these young ponies. A good representation of her relationship with Twilight Sparkle is seen every time she arrives on the stage; the other five girls reflexively bow and kneel in respect, but Twilight just runs up to her and gives her a big hoof-hug.
- 1. All Of Them (Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra)
I know, I know, this is cheating, but Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Koneitzko's franchise is so full of fantastic characters that I can't neglect any of them. The main attraction is always the core group of 3-4 preteens (or young adults, in the second series,) but there are also plenty of grown-ups, both good or bad, who inject so much character into the world even if they are only on screen for minutes at a time. Think of the poor cabbage vendor, always trying to peddle his wares and support his family when suddenly the kid who IS SUPPOSED TO SAVE THE WORLD smashes his cart and all his leafy vegetables, or Bumi, the crazy king of Omashu who seems to prefer playing pranks over actually ruling a city-state. Then there are the mentor characters and authority figures; ones we only see for moments like Zuko's longsuffering mother and Katara and Sokka's absent father, and ones that are central to the action, like the wise, eccentric and amazingly fire-bending proficient Uncle Iroh, once "The Dragon of the West" and now an outcast veteran. Behind all of these is the looming threat of the evil Fire Lord Ozai, played by the always threatening Mark Hamill.
The second series, The Legend of Korra, has even more great adults. There's the villains (who I won't name here; find out yourselves! just as threatening as ever. There are minor characters like the wise park hobo and the pro-bending announcer. There are the mentors such as Katara (an old, wizened healer now, played by veteran actress Eva Marie Saint) the serene but sometimes easily exasperated airbending master Tenzin (played by the always awesome JK Simmons) and Republic City's chief of police Lin Bei Fong, the daughter of Toph who is just as kick ass and talented as her mother, and proves that beauty is not monopolized by the young; at 50 she is a very attractive looking woman even behind a scar and a permanent scowl (though truth be told this is easy to do in animation. In the spectacular spider man cartoon Aunt May was smoking hot simply because they used the same character model for Gwen just with grey hair.)
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