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Author Topic: Grandpa Dave  (Read 191 times)

Snowth Woogle

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Grandpa Dave
« on: October 02, 2012, 04:56:05 pm »
I wonder what your opinions are on Grandpa Dave?

Personally, I felt that giving him Alzheimer's was quite a cop-out. When you think about it, he was really the least-expanded upon character from Arthur's family (and yet, we ALWAYS see him during the main titles); he was featured a little bit throughout the first season, and even had his own episode ("Grandpa Dave's Country Farm"), then afterwards, he pretty much disappeared, and was rarely, if ever, seen on the show itself. Fast forward several years and seasons later, and we have an episode where he has Alzheimer's.

Now, I'm all for explaining something like Alzheimer's to kids, and as a matter of fact, my own papaw succumbed to Alzheimer's in 2005 after a slow and steady decline for about six years, and my nana is presently slipping more and more into dementia as well, and it is a sad thing to have to deal with... still, the fact that Grandpa Dave has Alzheimer's rubs me the wrong way... it almost seemed like another example of the writers being out of ideas... almost like, hey, we haven't done anything with Grandpa Dave in a while, what can we do? Well, he's an old man, so let's give him Alzheimer's since we haven't talked about that yet.

I think it would have been nice if we had a little more of Grandpa Dave throughout the series, he seemed like a rather fun character, we saw how much Arthur and D.W. always enjoyed their little vacation stays with him on his farm, and he seems like a really fan grandfather.
I stretch like a snake, and I shimmy and shake, and I bounce like a ball, and I say something cute when you give me a squeeze!

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Crossover Dreamer

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Re: Grandpa Dave
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2012, 06:42:11 pm »
I also wanted to see more of Grandpa Dave. I think his character has potential for many good story ideas, stories with a much less serious topic than Alzheimer's.
"Where's my Prince Charming?!"