'Regular Show' profiled by Wired
Regular Show is a finalist for the 2011 Ursa Major Award in the Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short Work or Series category, which makes this Wired interview with the TV program's creator, J. G. Quintel, of interest.
Wired: I guess this is my follow-up fan service question: Rigby is a raccoon, and while he can stand and walk upright, he often runs on all fours like a quadruped. By the same token, Mordecai is a blue jay: can he fly?
Quintel: I have seen that question many times! I don’t think he’s ever going to fly… in the way that I think people are hoping he will fly. I think he’s the shape of a bird, but I don’t like to think of his so much as a bird as a person. He’s a person. The same thing with Rigby, although he does get down on all fours to run because it looks pretty cool.
I don’t know that Mordecai would be able to escape a problem just by flying.
Wired: If it serves the plot, Mordecai can fly.
Quintel: Yes, pretty much. I think the only place where it will ever be acceptable for him to fly is in that live action short that we just released through Facebook.
About the author
Fred Patten — read stories — contact (login required)a retired former librarian from North Hollywood, California, interested in general anthropomorphics
Comments
Seems like Quintel's vision is of zoomorphic humans, not anthropomorphic animals. Will furs vote accordingly?
Well... I guess it depends on their personal views regarding walking talking gumball machines :P
Really? That's kind of how I describe anthropomorphic animals. "It may have the body of an animal, but it's a person."
I mean people can throw in atavism and whatnot (and I occasionally do with characters), but my furries are people.
(-)
Seriously, Toothless is a furry to you, but not these two?
Um, okay, then.
Toothless is an animal, given human characteristics. Quintel has given a person (and by "person", I believe he really means "human") the "shape of a bird". He appears to shy away from the concept of a 'real' bird who is also a person.
This is what people mean when they say "humans in furry suits". Rigby at least has a concession to animal nature, but even there the artist admits that this is merely "because it looks pretty cool".
No Toothless isn't, he's a dragon given cute, dragony characteristics, and seriously, my head exploded with the original post, I mean, gosh-darnit, it's a FRIGGIN' BIRD PERSON AND RACCOON PERSON.
WHAT?
EXACTLY?
IS?
THE?
PROBLEM?
HERE?
Also, I never actually saw the show, so I don't really care about its Ursa Major chances, but WHAT THE HECK, MAN? Is it just an awful show?
If you start with a human and give them animal characteristics, you are (in my mind) Doing It Wrong.
The Ursa's guidelines are that a work must include:
On the face of it, Regular Show is perfectly suitable. Even the walking gumball machine would be fine, although by itself not likely to gain nomination. It is the author's comments (and the original non-canon short that shows them transforming from humans) that throw it into doubt for me. I almost expect them to turn back into humans one day once they get off their acid trip.
Imagine there is the technology to turn a human into the shape of an animal, without giving them any other characteristics of an animal. Are they, technically, a furry? No, because a furry is an anthropomorphic animal. They are a zoomorphic human - their human shape has just been replaced with that of an animal.
If shape was all that mattered, the characters in Watership Down wouldn't be furry, because they are depicted as regular rabbits. Their essential anthropomorphic characteristics are invisible to the eye.
To most, this distinction is unlikely to matter. To me, it does, a little bit (like Maus, which uses species as a metaphor for race).
Guys, guys, he's defining furry! HE'S DEFINING FURRY!
So is everyone who votes in the Ursa Majors. That is the power of a popular vote.
What's popularly considered correct based more on opinions than cold hard fact is just a nice example of relative thinking.
So let us just say, "toe-may-toe/toe-mah-toe", eh?
Seriously, what the hell are you ...
You're taking this seriously.
Oh, God, you are* all taking me seriously right now, and I mostly feel ... disappointed I'm not being funny, is all.
*obviously, there are multiple Green Reapers. It would explain so much. If they all voted for the Ursa Majors, cheese and carrots would win every category.
No, your name is Green Reaper.
Don't confuse me even more.
Thanks - now I'm going to have a vision of furs chanting RL names around a table every time I have to write an obituary. :-p
Also, what's with the space? I don't think I've ever used it like that . . .
THE NIGHTMARES I HAVE SUFFERED, THE EVILS I HAVE SEEN...
Where's the part where some kid comes in and asks "but humans are animals technically, right?"
Wait for it...
Edit: Oh right, my life isn't a sitcom. Was good delusional fun. :D
I always wondered if Mordecai would be able to fly. I sort of believed he wouldn't do so, however, when he was riding a nonmorphic duck in one episode.
MAD did a segment kind of mashing together Rio and The Green Lantern, in which Mordecai was classified as a flightless bird also.
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