The Characters (So Far), Part I

The Characters (So Far) Part I

With any narrative, it’s incredibly important to first create a slate of interesting, dynamic, and broad-ranging characters. Thus, in our endeavor to lay a solid character foundation to build upon, Gabe and I came up with about as sundry an assortment of characters as could be hoped for. However, since Gabe is still pretty new to the creative process, we ended up creating quite a few characters that could best be described as “stereotypes.” The boy should be forgiven, though. He’s still too young to know the difference between “good” characters and “unimaginative” characters. If you still have a problem with any of them, though, I recommend you take it up with him directly. Just a word of warning—the kid’s wicked accurate with a heavy metal ladle, and he always goes straight for the groin or the head. Just saying. Also, you should stop picking on my kid, jerk.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect—and, I think, mildly amusing, at least in a not-quite-ironic kind of way—is that Gabe has almost no use for any of his stuffed animals. The only ones he sort of likes are the little Elmo doll we got for him (god help me, Elmo is the first television character my son recognizes, though I swore to the heavens over a decade ago that his cutesy little Muppet-ruining ass would never make his presence known in my home) and his Wonder Pets. So far, none of these characters have made an appearance in any stories, but I expect Elmo, at least, will, and probably he’ll end up being tortured somehow. I look forward to it. The Wonder Pets might just be ignored as I feel pretty indifferent to them. Yes, they are annoying, but on the scale of Barney on the low end to Yo Gabba Gabba on the high end(I love that show—by kid show standards, of course—because it’s just so damn trippy and weird), they fall pretty close to the middle.

And, just because this sort of useless trivia always interests me, I’m also going to give whatever factual backstory I can about the toy. I won’t give any warning or any discernible way of differentiating this information with the rest of the character information, though, so if you don’t want to read it, you will have to scan ahead at your own discretion. Just don’t miss anything important or you’ll likely find yourself floundering in the middle of a ridiculously convoluted story, possibly involving Santa, the Yakusa, time travel, or one of the other multitude of silly plot devices/settings/side stories that have been incorporated into the stories.

Fat Sheep

Fat Sheep was one of Gabe’s first toys because, technically, it wasn’t really his toy at all. Fat Sheep was waiting in his crib the first night Gabe slept in it. Libby and I bought him while in New Zealand in 2006 and named him Fat Sheep because, as the picture shows, he’s an impossibly fat sheep whose poor little legs are even too small to stand on. Biologically, he would only be able to sit on his bottom with his legs sticking straight out and, if he ever wanted to move, he would have to roll from one place to the next, probably with considerable help from some other less rotund chum—or a group of said chums, more than likely. Very sad. Originally, we’d hoped to create an entire collection of Fat Creatures. Why? Good question. Probably we’re strange. Unfortunately, not many stuffed animal manufacturers have glommed onto the obviously profitable concept of Fat Creature toy creation, so we’ve only been able to find two since we started our little pro-fat-toy shopping commitment. The second one is . . . .

Fat Frog

Gabe also inherited this toy. We found it in a gas station on a trip to Colorado in the first part of 2007 and we were understandably ecstatic to be progressing by leaps and bounds—or, considering the shape of these toys, trundles and waddles—on our Fat Creature quest. Sadly, Fat Frog was the last toy we were able to find that properly fit the bill. Neither Fat Sheep nor Fat Frog have particularly interesting backstories. Since they already had names, they already had existences prior to our story-telling genesis. Suffice it to say, they are morbidly obese, and somehow they had to come to that state. They are also best friends and are always seen palling around in Gabe’s room together. Though neither has sought medical attention for their conditions, I’m guessing that, if they ever do, one or both of them will find out that they have a number of weight-related health problems. Poor fellas. Fat Frog does have the benefit of being slightly more realistically proportioned with legs and arms that still wouldn’t allow him to move like a normal frog, but he might, at least, be able to drag himself from one place to another. Probably to fetch some food for Fat Sheep, who will almost certainly have to be airlifted by a helicopter out of whatever home he dies in—after the roof has been removed, of course. Depressing. Man my kid has some dark toys. Let’s move on to something a bit more cheerful.

Sam

Sam is a horse and was one of the very first animals that Gabe was given—by the Hamiltons at Gabe’s baby shower. Ronda and Aaron’s son Sam picked it out, apparently loving the fleecy feel of him. Sam is a moderately intelligent horse—let’s say of upper-mid-range Trigger intelligence, not like Mr. Ed or Bravestarr’s horse Thirty/Thirty (yeah, that’s right, I went there). He’s not one of those fancy anthropomorphized talking, walking horses, is what I’m saying. He’s just a horse. As such, Sam pretty much does horse things and horse things only.

Erasmus Poxybottoms III

Erasmus is a Bellybutton Monkey. I think that might be that species of monkey’s scientific name, actually. No, wait, that would be its non-scientific name. His scientific one would be (and I’m basing this on my years of Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner research) Monkious Bellybuttonus. He has a very pronounced outie bellybutton, let’s just leave it at that. Erasmus is a foppish British aristocrat of the exceedingly inbred variety (think Bertie Wooster from the P.G. Wodehouse stories or, more recently, the Upper Class Twit of the Year competitors from Monty Python—if neither of these is familiar to you, I suggest adding either “Flying Circus” or Hugh Laury and Stephen Fry’s “Jeeves and Wooster” ). He leads an exceedingly privileged life, which he obviously doesn’t deserve. It’s worth noting that Erasmus isn’t the Third anything—there was no Erasmus Poxybottoms, Sr. or Jr. His last name is the Roman Numeral 3. Poxybottoms is his Confirmation name. He has no given middle name, though, if he could choose one, he would pick Poxybottoms. As was previously stated, he’s not the sharpest rock in the bag.

Fire Chief Clancy T. Firebug

Clancy is a small red teddy bear that my brother Jon got for Gabe in New York City when he went there for some something or other—for whatever reason people go to NYC, I suppose, to see a show (probably Rent, knowing Jon), get mugged, or, perhaps, to have some sort of Midnight Cowboy style encounter. Or maybe he was there to try and “assassinate” Andorra’s ambassador to the U.N. again. I use the quotes around the word because Jon thinks it means something entirely different than what it really means. Probably because the first time he saw the word, it was broken down with hyphens into its individual syllables. You’ll have to ask him about it. Clancy is from that period in NYC’s history known for the widespread corruption of civic officials—you know, whatever period in history that happened in, and if it didn’t, then it should have, probably in the 70s. As his name suggests, he’s got a bit of a fire obsession, specifically with starting them. Why anyone would have ever allowed a man with Firebug for a last name to become a Chief is quite beyond me, but there you have it. Clancy also has a jaded history of working with several of the different underworld organizations across the greater metropolitan area. He’s clearly a bad seed.