You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News - Writers of Cracked dot Com [71]
When Gadget actually invites his niece to come along and match wits with a global terrorist (he does this multiple times), it’s probably the most responsible thing he could do. At least she doesn’t have to figure out a way to pay for airfare and travel to strange lands unaccompanied by a grown-up.
The gritty reboot of your childhood cartoons, starring a malnourished Dakota Fanning, Howard the Duck, and a real, terrified chipmunk.
Not that her uncle is an adult in any real sense of the word. Penny probably had to start childproofing their house as soon as she could walk. But he looks like one to outsiders, and for a twelve-year-old girl constantly traveling to foreign countries by herself, kidnappers and perverts must be a constant concern.
The missions are no picnic. It turns out there’s a reason that real detectives don’t bring their kids along to investigate global terrorists. Penny is kidnapped dozens of times, and on one occasion has to be rescued from a machine designed to crush her to death. By her dog.
In fact, when you look at everything she goes through to continue living with her defective robot guardian, it becomes pretty clear what a goddamned horror show cartoon orphanages must be. Which is bad news for . . .
4. HUEY, DEWEY, AND LOUIE
Legal guardian
First their uncle, Donald Duck, then when Donald joins the navy, their great-uncle Scrooge McDuck. Apparently when you’re a duck, even if you’re from the same family, your last name reflects whatever crude ethnic stereotype you represent.
Where are the parents?
According to volume 1, number 1, of Walt Disney’s Comics, the boys “hospitalized their father when a prank involving firecrackers went wrong.” Historically speaking, in cartoons explosions are about as effective as laws requiring the wearing of pants. So this was either one massive bitch of an explosion, or the biological parents are just using it as an excuse to get away from their indistinguishable kids. Given the fact that the parents have never sought contact with them again, we’re leaning toward the latter.
The horror
After being abandoned, they are left in the care of Uncle Donald, who’s known for having anger-management problems. He in turn hands them off to a moneyed, distant relative four times their age who is generally thought to be an asshole by everyone in his community. So they are abandoned twice over before they even hit puberty.
The sheer size of Scrooge’s fortune, coupled with the lack of anyone their own age to socialize with, pretty much guarantees that Huey, Dewey, and Louie will grow up to become Duckberg’s version of the Gotti children, a fate that anyone outside of the hair-gel industry can agree is worse than death itself.
3. THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
Legal guardian
Master Splinter, if giant rats who live illegally in the sewers can indeed be considered “legal” anything.
Where are the parents?
Once normal turtles, the boys were transmogrified into hideous abominations after marinating in radioactive sludge, which means their parents are most likely still just normal turtles, eating wilted lettuce, scrabbling against glass walls, and humping one another for the amusement of YouTube viewers.
The horror
The real villain here is Master Splinter. OK, also Shredder. But Splinter was once a disgraced human ninja, who immigrated to New York City and immediately took up residence in the sewers rather than trying to find housing. Once the turtles arrived and he was changed into a rat, he decided the best course of action was to teach his newly adopted sons to be a noble—if hilariously in-your-face—ninja fighting squad.
Let’s go over that again the way the people from Child Protective