DUMB CARTOON CHARACTERS

I thought I'd take a stab at answering three questions that come up in cartoonists' conversations. The first is, "How dumb should a cartoon character be?" 

The obvious answer is,"VERY dumb! The dumber the better!" That sounds right to me, but when you think about it, most dumb characters to date haven't been completely stupid. 

Okay,  I admit that Tex's dog in "Screwy Truant" comes close, and so does Beaky Buzzard...but I think I detect a few brain cells even in those characters.

Dumb characters aren't usually completely stupid. They're proud to be dumb. 

 

They're both eager and stupid. They can't wait to get out of bed in the morning and do dumb things. Maybe totally dumb is the wrong way to go...but I admit that nothing else is as funny.

I don't hear any comments so I'll move on to the second question..."Should dumb characters slouch?"

When you think about it, very few live action comedians slouch.

 In the main, they have pretty good posture.

Even the Python 'Gumbies" (above) don't slouch to much.

Classic dumb characters, the kind you see in one-panel print cartoons often slouch, but when you animate them...or in the case of live action, film them...giving them a slouch makes them appear lethargic and without goals. That can't be right.

No, in the main dumb characters shouldn't slouch. Er...okay, Beaky Buzzard slouched, and I don't have an answer for that.

The last question has to do with slouching when seated..."Are eager-stupid characters permitted to slouch when seated?" The answer to that is "Yes!" My proof for that is...well, they just are, that's all. It's my blog, and there's an end to it!

Space limits prevent me from addressing other pressing questions like..."How close should stupid characters stand when talking to each other?"

And "Do stupid people have equally stupid friends? Are they loners? Do they like to hang around intelligent foils?" These are important questions but we'll have to return to them another time.

ARE PEOPLE STUPID?

Well, we all know that stupid people exist. I guess what I really mean to ask is, how many stupid people are there? What percentage of the population? 5%? 10%? 50? 80? My own guess is that there aren't as many as most people think.

I came to this realization a few years ago when I was on the road, and it occurred to me that if a large number of people were really stupid, then there would be a lot more traffic accidents. On the whole, most people drive pretty well. 

A lot of people we consider stupid are simply out of their element in the area that we're focused on. Or maybe they just had a bad day, or a bad hour. Who hasn't had that? The guy who holds up traffic while he thinks about which way to go, isn't necessarily a bad welder or a bad lawyer. He may have just had a lapse. Maybe we stumbled on him at the only time he did something dumb like that all year.

It's tempting to think people are stupid because they vote differently than we do. That's silly. Half the time they're just starting from a different premise, which is not so irrational, once you know what it is. 

It's hard to judge people. The modern, urban, bureaucratic state is hardly what biology equips us for.  A lot of people just aren't suited for this stuff. Their intellect and instincts are sound, but modern life punishes people who operate on instinct. You could go to jail for that. An awful lot of what we're expected to do every day is counter-intuitive. Some people don't mind that.  Others feel disoriented and out of sync, like there's no place for them, and in some cases they're right.

It's amazing how many normally intelligent people are mistakenly considered stupid. That's because they have no challenging job or activity to discipline their minds. Lots of teenagers are like that. They're restless and energetic and not really ready to settle down to school work, so they do bad in school. Most don't know any crafsmen who would teach them a trade. What are they supposed to do? You can call people like that stupid when you see them unemployed and clowning around the mall, but are they?

It's a fact that every era favors one kind of personality type and penalizes another. Sometimes more than half the population can be on the outs. It's scary! 

I used to think a lot of old people were stupid. Well, actually I still do, but I feel guilty about it. I'm getting older myself and I'm becoming more aware of the obstacles those people face. Recently the elderly father of a friend told me how many different pills he takes every day: fourteen!  Fourteen, and I'll bet every one of the bottles has a dizziness warning on it. The amount of medication the average old person takes is staggering, and who knows what effect all those pills have on each other? I wonder how alert some of those old people would be if they could safely chuck the pills? 

Teenagers also seem stupid, but they're influenced by drugs too.  In their case it's hormones. 

My own view of other people is benign...at least it is when nobody's cutting me off in traffic. I don't think most people are stupid. I rely on other people. I can't even understand most things without the help of other people.

 I'll go farther and admit that when I choose my beliefs, I choose between the common ideas that are in the air in my time. Everybody does. I feel guilty about that, and once in a while I take the time to really think things out, but even then I sometimes have to borrow. It's frightening to think how much we all rely on other people's ideas. Our brains don't seem to work right unless we connect to other brains. We need other people to function as information gatherers for us. Stay-at-homes aren't just socially impaired...they can't even think.