Retrospective
Newspaper comics are another kettle of fish. In the past this went well, Garfield is as celebrated in the papers as he is on the screen (even The Garfield Show isn't that bad.), and Popeye stands as one of my favorite characters of all time (there were also adaptations for Blondie and at one point Hagar the Horrible had one.) At their core, comic strips do have the potential to work as a series, they have a wide enough cast and due to the gag a day principle, there's some flexibility when it comes to embellishment (I would love to see a TV show adapted from Heart of the City, The Lockhorns, Zits and Foxtrot.)
There is a problem with this, many of these would translate to general sitcoms, and those drop like flies on major networks. There've been several cases of this and to some it up, only one of the following examples had two seasons, at least two seasons that aired on television.
To start off there was Dilbert. Admittedly, I enjoyed this show and it got better as I got older. It kept the principle of the original strip series which was about the inner workings of the business industry. Seemingly the only reason this show didn't last longer was because it aired on UPN. On one hand, that network didn't have any major standards for show creators, on the other, few programs on that network last, especially the animated ones.
Then there was Baby Blues, which is where the sitcom standard really starts. I could see some form of effort with this (I mean heck, it didn't follow the Homer Simpson standard of an idiotic patriarch.), they did try some visual gags and some attempts at quirky humor, It's nothing special, but nothing I'd deem to be within the realm of so mediocre it sucks. Then again, the strip was more of the same so I can't say I'm one of the supposedly disappointed "thousands of fans" who saw it. A second season exists, but it's inaccessible. Bummer.
Next there was Committed. I covered this a while back and for you more seasoned animation followers, Mr. Enter covered the show as well. If you've seen Enter's review, let me tell you that there's more to this show than it being another generic sitcom. It's a generic sitcom with a feminist edge. Liz is the smart one, but only to push the female power aesthetic. We have a stereotypical Trumpian boss, a smarmy male co-worker, an airheaded bleach blond, basically a world of strawmen to make Liz look better by comparison. They didn't even try to hide it in the last episode of the series. I'm fine with female empowerment, just don't beat it into a pulp due to your own creative bankruptcy.
One last example I want to bring up before we get into the main course is Free for All. Never heard of it? Well believe me, this actually made it into papers, it was syndicated by King Features (of Popeye fame.) Obviously this wasn't very popular and the only way this got any kind of resurrection was through the creator, Brett Merhar.
This is worth bringing up for the sheer notability of the backstory. Merhar had to lie to get it greenlit by saying the strip was still in production (it wasn't.) One interesting aspect is that this was the first animated series to ever air on Showtime. I brought it up in my Our Cartoon President review, but for consistency, here we go. The show had 2D characters against a typically 3D landscape, and that makes the show interesting through a technical standpoint. The show succumbed to the sitcom bug, only this time it led to an ultra raunchy production. Key reason Merhar went to Showtime with it was for creative freedom. It's not for everyone, but even you would take this over Our Cartoon President. I hope.
Until now, every show can be considered forgettable. Each had one quirk to give it some life, but in the end, it wasn't worth any more than thirteen episodes. But since I spent like what? The whole first quarter babbling about this, isn't there one show that broke the cycle? Well yes there is, sorta.
For Better or For Worse
To get you up to speed, For Better or For Worse was created by Lynn Johnston. It centered on the lives of a family of four (later five) and the obligatory pet dog. This strip was unique in that it was portrayed in real time. We go through personal anecdotes of each family member (with the gag at the end of course), and we see them grow up over time. We get a new child later on down the road and we lose the family dog along the way.
There have been several adaptations of this comic over the years, starting in the mid-80s and coming up to the early-2000s. It began with a Christmas special produced by Atkins Film Company. This wasn't just something cooked up to sell toys or get some quick cash (ala Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Lynn had direct involvement in this, heck, she got her kids and husband involved in this. In the 90s, we got six more specials. I can't say anymore because I'm side-tracked enough as is.
But the one adaptation I want to talk about the most is the 2000 cartoon series. The show aired on Teletoon in Canada from 2000 until 2001 for two seasons. Johnston once again had plenty of involvement in this, and heck, she appears in this too. I don't know if this ever aired in the US, something tells me it didn't.
I've talked about many Canadian shows, this one is special because it was produced in Ottawa. Until now I've covered shows produced in Vancouver and Toronto. This is one of two shows I know about from that part of Ontario (the other being Freaky Stories which I hope to cover someday.) The animation was produced by Funbag Animation Studio, who was behind that show I just mentioned as well as taking over animation duties from The Ink Tank for the Sniz and Fondue segments on Kablam!. That's one name to keep an eye out for if you want to know what part of Ontario that show came from. Another name to look for is Sound Venture. They also worked on Freaky Stories but are mostly dedicated to TV movies that occasionally pop up on Lifetime. Both of these had live action segments so that could be the reason they were involved.
The show had a mixture of styles. We had the traditional animation in the strip segments, mixed with digital animation for transitions, as well as a digital backdrop for Johnston's segments. Pretty ambitious I must say, those tax dollars went to good use up north. I'd talk about the actors, but I don't know who a lot of them are. I take it many of them do live action work for Ottawa productions. There is only one actor I recognize, and that's Bryn McAuley. Some may recognize her as the voice of Mavis in that animated adaptation of Hotel Transylvania, or Suzi from Camp Lakebottom, or Laney from Grojband, or Gina Lash from Angela Anaconda, or heck, how did I not recognize her when I briefly talked about Harry and His Bucketful of Dinosaurs in my Tickle-U retrospective?
Structure
Every episode begins with a live-action segment with Johnston. She gives a personal anecdote on her life or some advice which connects to one of the three stories of the day, while she draws one of the characters. Basically, this show is a collection of life experiences as told by Johnston, so I guess the live-action bumps make sense. This certainly helped make this show stand out from the competition.
We then get three segments. These represent the different decades of For Better or For Worse, The Early Years (80s), The Growing Years (90s) and The Later Years (00s). These amount to daily experiences with little urgency. It's the safest depiction of life you could imagine. It's fine, don't get me wrong, not everything needs to be tits and bloodied. It all depends on your mood, if you want something relaxing to watch or you want to be reminded of better times, or maybe you relate to what's happening (that in itself is very plausible.) They also show a strip from the original comic series, but these rarely have anything to do with the plot and likely only exist to please original readers.
I saved the character and setting description for here because I already wasted time talking about behind the scenes details. Set in a fictional Ontario suburb, we encounter the lives of the Pattersons. Elly, the not-so neurotic, not so, well anything really. John, the child at heart dad who's uber wholesome and thankfully not borderline retarded. The parents hardly change in each segment.
Of the kids we have the not-so obnoxious and not much else Michael and his younger sister Elizabeth, who ironically has some more noticeable personality to her. Michael starts off as a stereotypical rude brother (gotta fulfill the older brother picking on younger sister stereotype.) but even in the early segments... there's little else to him. He's mostly just there. The same mostly goes to his younger sister Elizabeth. One aspect about her is that she can stand up for herself and is fairly resourceful, but given that this show is more of a slice-of-life affair, there's little headroom for more unique qualities.
In the Growing Years, Michael gets some more personality. He's now somewhat childish and occasionally plays pranks. I like the voice he has here, it really ties the character together. Elizabeth seemingly lost some braincells over the years, because now she's somewhat naive, as well as an awkward dork. Hey, more power to her, she's developing as a character. At this point we get the third child, April. She's a bit weird to me, not because she's an archetypical bratty child, but because... she's got a full head of hair and is certainly above the age of one, but she still acts like a newborn. It's just a tad weird, not bad, but weird to me.
In the Later Years, Michael's more of the same, but now he has someone on the side. If this happened now he'd bring this up when he's getting beaten in a debate on YouTube. Elizabeth went through a more major change, in that she became a sorta-rebel. Well she acts like one and she has somewhat of a bowl-cut, is she... explorative? Okay maybe I should back off. For April, she is definitely weirder now. She sounds like she has some sort of mental block, her dialogue isn't too natural, at least to me.
Now for the meat of these segments. So they're daily life unfiltered, sounds like a typical day in Ontario, is that a bad thing? Not in the least. This can definitely appease the more seasoned animation fans and it breaks the sitcom stereotype, but maybe a bit too well. The worst thing that this show did was kill off the dog Farley, but that's because the actual Farley died while trying to save one of Lynn's daughters from drowning under thin ice. Would you like to see something like that in the show? Negated to exposition. I mean the episode where it's brought up is carried out very well, tugged at the heartstrings good enough I guess, and it is more realistic. This episode will be linked below.
There was one aspect that kinda ticked me off. They did an episode about a friend to the Patterson's moving away (Michael's friend Lawrence), and they build it up as some emotional affair. But guess what? The segment after this shows that Lawrence is back in town. Okay, they made it so Michael knew Lawrence would be back one day, but... I dunno, it gives me some mixed signals. You mean my friend who moved to Croatia will be back one day?
This was a standard for many Canadian shows back in the day, just showing daily life. This happened in the days of Caillou, where all it was was the experiences had by an undisciplined boy. Nothing out of the norm for many of these shows. It's pointless to talk about every episode in this show. Since it's a collection of segments about different encounters in life at different periods that share one similar theme, you could apply that to every episode and then call it a day. Nothing in this show got under my skin, we didn't have a snob lecturing someone on equal treatment in a hackneyed discussion on racism, we didn't have a scrawny Stan Smith act like he had the grounds to talk shit about a liberal douche, we didn't have a sadistic cheapskate strip someone down to teach him a lesson while making him paranoid, it's not a fucking half-hour toy commercial, it's just aspects of life we've all encountered in one way or another.
Here're three parts to one episode to get you up to speed.
So overall, props to Lynn Johnston for making one of the more unique entries into the comic-to-screen genre. Maybe I'll return to the past seven entries in your repertoire someday. Key word, someday.
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