The Soda Shop Message Boards

So, you just clicked on a topic entitled "Death" floating incongruously in a goofy AIO message board, and you're thinking, "What the heck?" This is a very unusual topic, but it's a logical one. After all, most children's TV shows center on goofy talking animals or cool but nutty kids with insane families. (Fairly Odd Parents, Family Guy.)
Death? Nope. Imagine Pluto or Daffy or The Penguins dying. Okay, it might not be too bad if The Penguins died. But you get the point.
Death is an off-limits topic in mainstream children's fair, bye and large. Yes, it's taken on by such great geniuses as the folks at Pixar, for instance. (Up, Ratatouille. (On a side note ,it must be one of the main signs of being a Pixar fan that one knows how to spell Ratatouille.)
The Christian beliefs on death are complicated, needless to say. Yes, we believe there's no cause to be sad for someone once someone is dead because they're eternally happy. But, the fact is, death wasn't part of the original plan. Death came into the world because of sin.
Death isn't the way things are supposed to be.
Death is a disunion of our body and soul.
Death is the ripping apart of our being.
Yes, it leads to Heaven. But dying is a blight upon the earth. My very first encounter with a truly moving human death story was Karen. I heard it as a small child. It was my second or third Odyssey collection. I cried. A lot. It left me strangely happy, yet I never could quite bring myself to listen to it again for a long time. And I only listened to it a few times afterward. For the most part, Karen remained on the shelf. It was beautiful, but beautiful in the pain it causes the heart.
Where is They Sting, which I heard for the first time this year, moved me also a great deal. June's climatic conversion fell a bit flat due to the fact they'd never really established her feelings about Christianity in the first place. But the death issue, with the inspired handling of Connie's father, moves you beyond belief. These episodes, and others like them, (It Is Well With My Soul[/i] in particular) helped me greatly through unexpected deaths of relatives, as it surely has many AIO fans.
Odyssey does much more than make us laugh, entertain us. and remind of Biblical teachings, hugely important as that it is. It dares to cross onto forbidden territory. And it does it well.

Very interesting topic this is.

Karen is definitely one of the most touching episodes where a character dies. The Mortal Coil is also one of my favorites because it covers the topic in a very unique way. But I'm glad that Whit didn't actually die. Another episode that is really touching is Never for Nothing. I love how the theme of unconditional love is portrayed and how touching Esperanza's death is.

I agree. These episodes never made me jump for joy, but they were still good episodes. The Mortal Coil, especially, made me really cry the first time I listened to it. I still get teared up when I listen to it.

Oh one more thing with my previous post;

I think part of the reason cartoons don't do this is because it'd be really real. Almost too real. The AIO episodes that touch on death usually have some sort of Parental Advisory Warning on them, (or I think they do... I know some do that get really intense.) Cartoons have this way leaving our realm of reality. Looney toons and Tom and Jerry did this well. I mean it created a world where violence was acceptable but you knew that it was separate from our reality because all the characters would accordion back to regular shape after being smashed by a piano or boulder.

Odyssey does in fact take a step where most children shows don't dare to go. But the thing is, most cartoons wouldn't be able to pull it off in a tasteful manner because it's separate from our reality. Odyssey does a great job of having a thin layer between reality and fiction. It's still all fiction, but it's realistic fiction with a purpose. (Which is part of the reason Novacom is so hard to swallow for me.)

To an extent, AIO does this as well. After all, we know Connie, Eugene, and even very old Whit, are never dying, and the same is true for a long list of characters. (Penny, Jason...)
It also depends what you mean. People do die in a sense in Loony Toons. (Buried and we never see him or her pop back up, or there's one cartoon where a cowboy is drinking and then another cowboy shoots him in order to have the drink, so on.)
In a sense, however, the universe of a cartoon absolutely does depend on maintaining a certain absence of death. The huge protests when they were considering "killing" Bert It's remarkable how attached people become to characters. When Arthur Conan Doyle "killed" Sherlock Holmes, he received a flood of protests, people literally wore mourning clothes, and one woman simply wrote him, "You murderer!"
I suppose the point is, while it's anything but easy, most children are able to handle the concept of death. It's a matter of finding ways to show it to them in a correct way. And there is a very specific correct way to communicate such themes to a child audience. It's not easy.

Your topics always seem to reflect what I've been thinking about, PF. I don't know why...

I was also thinking about this just a while ago. Well, not death in particular, but I was thinking: "What if a major AIO character died?" I'm not talking about someone like Karen, who was only in one episode, or someone like Connie's grandmother, who was only in one two-parter, I'm talking about a major character, like Wooton or Katrina or... Emily. I'm not saying I want any of these characters to die, but I think it would be interesting if they actually had a character we've become fond of die. I hate to say this, but I actually think Jack or Joanne should die. It would make for a very touching episode, and it would settle the character's place in AIO. Since Alan Young and Janet Waldo are in their 90s, they probably wouldn't be able to play the parts. I also agree with Victoria Donahue when I say they should have had a funeral for Tom. Death is a subject that has been covered by AIO, but only with minor characters dying or thinking about death. Perhaps it's time for a major character... Pardon me for being so morbid, I just think AIO could do this effectively. I don't think AIO should kill off a character simply for emotional effect; they would have to have a reason. But for Tom, Jack, and Joanne, they do have a reason, so...

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IF A MAJOR CHARACTER DIED, I'D DIE!

One way I could see them effectively doing this is in a spin off series. Have it take place several years into the future, and have maybe one character currently in the show be one of the main characters, and let others rise forth. With this, throughout the show little things could be revealed. Such as Whit, Tom. Bernard. Jack, Joanne, having died. I could see cameo appearances from Jason, Eugene, Connie, Wooton, and maybe Red as elderly folks still living in Odyssey.

Would fans still be upset that long term characters had died? Undoubtedly. But with this approach it's a separate show, and having it take place in the future would ease the fans into the shock of characters death.

As a longterm fan of the show, I'd be overly upset if a long term character such as Bernard or Tom were to be written as "died" on the show. While it could introduce new story lines, I honestly think they'd get more letters about it than any other time in the past, including the Mortal Coil. I really think the way that they had them fade is beneficial. And even what they're doing with the Allens in 56 is ok for the show.

After thinking about it, I really would like to see the idea that I mentioned happen. It would be very interesting for them to develop it.