Elwood City Central
Arthur => Characters => Topic started by: MCCJ on November 09, 2012, 01:03:26 am
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I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but it has dawned on me that many of the new characters so far have been rabbits. As a matter of fact rabbit characters appear to be numerous in the series along with characters who are bears, cats, and dogs. My question to everyone here is why is that the case? Why are rabbits, cats, dogs, and bears seem to be dominant species of characters in Elwood City?
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I hadn't really noticed, but maybe, perhaps, it's to make Arthur's family stand out more? I'm not sure, but it seems like to me if they were to try to introduce any newer characters that were aardvarks, kids might automatically assume that they're relatives of Arthur or something, I really don't know... but it's my opinion that it's probably so the Read family will stand out more. Some shows have a tendency to do that, kind of like M*A*S*H, in the very early episodes, Radar O'Reilly wasn't the only one who wore one of those wool caps, but shortly thereafter, he was, even in cold-snap episodes.
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Yeah, I've noticed that they have a lot of rabbit, cat, and bear characters also. And dogs. It could be that it's easier to create characters using fewer species. I have noticed other TV shows do this, too, but I can't think of any specific ones this moment. I might later.
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I never really paid attention, I didn't really notice more rabbits, I felt they mostly kept a good job at keeping it all diverse.
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I guess you mean Emily, her mom, and her nanny; Molly and James; Carl; Harry Mills...what other rabbits do you mean? Are you including guest stars?
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I guess you mean Emily, her mom, and her nanny; Molly and James; Carl; Harry Mills...what other rabbits do you mean? Are you including guest stars?
Everyone in general whether they are regulars, background, guest stars, etc.... This also includes characters like Maria, Alex, Steve, Marina, the Compson Family, Slink, and Lisa to name a few.
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You think maybe there's some secret hidden messages there? Y'know, since bunnies are known for their multiplication skills?
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You think maybe there's some secret hidden messages there? Y'know, since bunnies are known for their multiplication skills?
I have no clue, but I would not eliminate that as a possibility.
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That's funny to point that out. When there is a new guest star they are asked which of the usual Elwood City animals they would like to be designed as . A monkey, dog, cat, aardvark, rabbit, rat, or bear.
They almost always say rabbit espicially women. However I can think of a number of exceptions. Matt Damon and Phillip Seymour Hoffman were bears, Art Garfunkel a moose, Joan Rivers a monkey and a camel, and Joshua Redman was a cougar.
But you are quite right that there are awful lot of rabbits in Elwood City. There is one alligator boy character that never speaks and is rarely seen, some duck workmen and a hedge hog boy in Sweetwater's class.
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Actually, Garfunkel was a moose, remember? "Mom! There's a singing moose out in front of the house!"
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Whoops that was a bad slip. thanks. I also forgot to mention that a moose is also another animal that appears in Elwood City. Such a George's family.
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You guys could be right about certain types of characters being easier to animate versus others. Here is a drawing of characters from the show.
(http://images.wikia.com/arthur/images/a/a5/Character_Storyboard_and_Concepts.JPG)
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Have been recalling some other animal types from the past. Workmen ducks were common for a while, Jack Weasal is still appearing even in season 16, there was an incidental girl in Sweetwater's class called Mary. She is a lamb. There is occassionally a goat male character with a goutee . Lydia Fox was a design from a viewer that was adapted into a character on the show although a fox is almost a dog. The Tibbles are um... whatever they are. Mrs. Tibble is kind of a moose or caribou or something but without antlers. There is an alligator teenager.
There are tons of incidental aardvarks in the series but they look a lot like bears with different nostrils.
The only ones that are harder to animate would be the ones that have mouths that are part of a muzzle where the jaw needs to animate such as a monkey or rat. Because the whole head needs to be redrawn with the mouth (sort of). It's not a significant difference in work now with some of the changes in technology. You can see the monkey mouths from the 3/4 back view so the mouth needs to keep animating for dialog even in rear view. It's negligible.
The amount of animation would be more significant if characters have lose clothing or long flowing hair such as Muffy's pigtails or DW's dress or floppy ears because they can't just be traced back or they look stiff. But those things make the show look better.
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Have been recalling some other animal types from the past. Workmen ducks were common for a while, Jack Weasal is still appearing even in season 16, there was an incidental girl in Sweetwater's class called Mary. She is a lamb. There is occassionally a goat male character with a goutee . Lydia Fox was a design from a viewer that was adapted into a character on the show although a fox is almost a dog. The Tibbles are um... whatever they are. Mrs. Tibble is kind of a moose or caribou or something but without antlers. There is an alligator teenager.
There are tons of incidental aardvarks in the series but they look a lot like bears with different nostrils.
The only ones that are harder to animate would be the ones that have mouths that are part of a muzzle where the jaw needs to animate such as a monkey or rat. Because the whole head needs to be redrawn with the mouth (sort of). It's not a significant difference in work now with some of the changes in technology. You can see the monkey mouths from the 3/4 back view so the mouth needs to keep animating for dialog even in rear view. It's negligible.
The amount of animation would be more significant if characters have lose clothing or long flowing hair such as Muffy's pigtails or DW's dress or floppy ears because they can't just be traced back or they look stiff. But those things make the show look better.
What episode did you find out about that character? I thought she was a sheep to be honest with you and her name was never revealed unless I missed something. I do know she is in Miss Sweetwater's class, but I don't remember her name ever being revealed. As for everything else you said it makes sense.
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Sheep and lamb are the same thing aren't they? Maybe sheep would be more apropriate because she isn't a baby though. Her name has never been mentioned in the show. We haven't seen her much lately.
Jack Weasel or Willy was never mentionned by name either. It's just his name on the animation model sheet.
Until the name gets used in a show I guess it's of no significance anyway.
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Sheep and lamb are the same thing aren't they? Maybe sheep would be more apropriate because she isn't a baby though. Her name has never been mentioned in the show. We haven't seen her much lately.
Jack Weasel or Willy was never mentionned by name either. It's just his name on the animation model sheet.
Until the name gets used in a show I guess it's of no significance anyway.
We knew Amanda's name since Season 1 (Amanda is the preschool aardvark girl with pigtails). They recently used her by name in the show during Season 16 in the episode All About D.W for the first time ever. So yeah they could use them at any time, but the producers probably don't see the need to do so though unless an episode or episodes warrants it like All About D.W. did for example.
As for Mary she still makes appearances in the episodes, but not as many compared to the earlier seasons/episodes. Probably cause the producers don't know what to do with the other characters other then have them appear. I mean they don't want to make duplicate personalities to the main characters otherwise it would be nothing really. I could see them using Alex and Maria though, but that is up in the air at this moment.
By the way if your finding more characters with these animation model sheets please keep uploading them by the way or if you have a link to the site please share. This will go a long way to helping our wiki improve. We have a lot of unnamed characters on many pages.