It's curious that Jabberjaw has got the reputation for being an unspeakably awful 1970s Hanna-Barbera themed product show; even that amusing little music video Cartoon Network made up for it --- ``Me and My Friends Get No Respect'' --- takes as its premise the attitude that everybody hates it, nobody loves it, going off to the aquagarden to eat sea worms.
A good part of this has to be the Internet Echo Chamber at work: Jabberjaw stayed familiar enough that people would have any idea what was being talked about, the way, say, The CB Bears did not, so start talking up how bad it is and you can get a runaway this-is-the-worst effect. I don't think it's even worst among the line of Josie and the Pussycats-derived shows (even if it gets incorrectly lumped in as a Scooby-Doo-derived show).
Jabberjaw himself definitely has powers to stretch and squash that ought to qualify him for Plastic-Man-style prowess (and loopiness; are Mister Fantastic and Elastigirl the only elastic superheroes who aren't a bit nutty?), but it's not explained just why Jabberjaw is so malleable, or why he walks and talks et cetera. From the plan to transform humans into sharks to provide a population of intelligent sharks and take over the world bwuh-hah-hah it seems like Jabberjaw must be an exceptional shark, but, if he's that exceptional why isn't he a bigger deal? On the other hand if there aren't a lot of sharks smart enough to get into the sub-oceanic cities why are there shark ejectors? I can't imagine Hanna-Barbera deliberately putting an aggressive racist element into their stories ... but accidentally, well, accidentally they had Superman murder every living being on Krypton and I know they couldn't have intended that.
Ultimately there's almost nothing of the backstory that gets explained, and the only attempts to explain it leave it more confusing and weird, the electro-genie being the perfect example of that. I suppose in some ways that's good for fans who get into the world, since it produces a world with a lot of stuff that may not seem superficially sensible and that's great for fans who want to work out elaborate and unbelievable rationalizations for how it got that way. On the other hand, rec.arts.jabberjaw.tech never did evolve, so instead it just leaves these odd baffling questions about why Jabberjaw.
As far as I remember there aren't other talking animal species other than sharks, and I think Francine La Fin might be the only other talking shark we see, although the dinosaur from one million BC seems to understand what he's told to do suspiciously well, and there's an excellent chance I'm overlooking animals who clearly understand conversation.
Jabberjaw himself, yeah, is a ripoff of Shemp and Rodney Dangerfield, which makes for an interesting fusion. It actually gives him his own personality. Bubbles is a worn-down copy of Gracie Allen, although there are a few other old-time radio Dumb Doras that I think go into it. But as Gracie played a Dumb Dora anyway that makes her a less distinct personality. But cartoons have always relied heavily on ripping off their higher-ranked media figures; it's shocking to learn how little of the Golden Age of Animation characters (particularly at Warner Brothers) was original to their work. (Ironically, Foghorn Leghorn is the rare case of this that isn't clearly character theft.)
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rosecarmine
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Date: 2010-12-07 12:05 am (UTC)It's curious that Jabberjaw has got the reputation for being an unspeakably awful 1970s Hanna-Barbera themed product show; even that amusing little music video Cartoon Network made up for it --- ``Me and My Friends Get No Respect'' --- takes as its premise the attitude that everybody hates it, nobody loves it, going off to the aquagarden to eat sea worms.
A good part of this has to be the Internet Echo Chamber at work: Jabberjaw stayed familiar enough that people would have any idea what was being talked about, the way, say, The CB Bears did not, so start talking up how bad it is and you can get a runaway this-is-the-worst effect. I don't think it's even worst among the line of Josie and the Pussycats-derived shows (even if it gets incorrectly lumped in as a Scooby-Doo-derived show).
Jabberjaw himself definitely has powers to stretch and squash that ought to qualify him for Plastic-Man-style prowess (and loopiness; are Mister Fantastic and Elastigirl the only elastic superheroes who aren't a bit nutty?), but it's not explained just why Jabberjaw is so malleable, or why he walks and talks et cetera. From the plan to transform humans into sharks to provide a population of intelligent sharks and take over the world bwuh-hah-hah it seems like Jabberjaw must be an exceptional shark, but, if he's that exceptional why isn't he a bigger deal? On the other hand if there aren't a lot of sharks smart enough to get into the sub-oceanic cities why are there shark ejectors? I can't imagine Hanna-Barbera deliberately putting an aggressive racist element into their stories ... but accidentally, well, accidentally they had Superman murder every living being on Krypton and I know they couldn't have intended that.
Ultimately there's almost nothing of the backstory that gets explained, and the only attempts to explain it leave it more confusing and weird, the electro-genie being the perfect example of that. I suppose in some ways that's good for fans who get into the world, since it produces a world with a lot of stuff that may not seem superficially sensible and that's great for fans who want to work out elaborate and unbelievable rationalizations for how it got that way. On the other hand, rec.arts.jabberjaw.tech never did evolve, so instead it just leaves these odd baffling questions about why Jabberjaw.
As far as I remember there aren't other talking animal species other than sharks, and I think Francine La Fin might be the only other talking shark we see, although the dinosaur from one million BC seems to understand what he's told to do suspiciously well, and there's an excellent chance I'm overlooking animals who clearly understand conversation.
Jabberjaw himself, yeah, is a ripoff of Shemp and Rodney Dangerfield, which makes for an interesting fusion. It actually gives him his own personality. Bubbles is a worn-down copy of Gracie Allen, although there are a few other old-time radio Dumb Doras that I think go into it. But as Gracie played a Dumb Dora anyway that makes her a less distinct personality. But cartoons have always relied heavily on ripping off their higher-ranked media figures; it's shocking to learn how little of the Golden Age of Animation characters (particularly at Warner Brothers) was original to their work. (Ironically, Foghorn Leghorn is the rare case of this that isn't clearly character theft.)