The Fads of Life
"Aunt Slappy," Skippy said as he shut the door and dropped his school books on the table in the living room.
Skippy opened her eyes but didn't move to get up from her chair in front of the TV, though she did offer a small, tired smile, "Hey Skippy, how was school today?"
"It was okay," he answered. "But I've got a question."
Slappy was more awake now and had an unamused look on her face. "I told you to save those for your teachers, that's what they're there for."
"Not that kind of question, Aunt Slappy," Skippy told her. "Where did I come from?"
Slappy shifted her eyes to the fourth wall in a very unamused expression. "What're these biology teachers doing all day?"
Skippy shook his head. "No no no, Aunt Slappy. I mean if you're my aunt, how come I don't have any parents?"
"Oh boy," Slappy huffed, "serious time, eh, kiddo?"
"Uh huh," he nodded.
"Okay, sit down," she told him, "we've got some heavy issues to tackle."
Skippy sat down on the floor facing his aunt.
"Now, if you were a human, this would be a very different conversation," Slappy told him. "Luckily you're a cartoon, so we can take a more G-rated approach. Being a cartoon, you were drawn one day, as was I," she gestured to herself with both hands, "so where you came from was a blue pencil and a sheet of paper."
"But I still don't understand," Skippy said, "why wasn't I drawn with parents? Why are you my aunt instead of my mother?"
"Oh!" Slappy sounded more interested now, "That's an entirely different subject, Skippy. Now as you know, the height of my career was back in the 1930s and 1940s. Back then things were a lot different, there were a whole slew of rules that films and cartoons had to follow if they wanted to actually get shown. In those days there was the Hays Office, then later on there was the movie censor board, whose sole job it was to ruin everybody's fun by watering down plots and characters so they didn't get accused of setting a bad example for impressionable viewers, namely the whole audience."
"You mean you smoked, drank, cursed and dressed 'scantily'?" Skippy asked.
"Don't I wish?" Slappy looked to the fourth wall. She shook her head, "Nothing like that, Skippy. For all the official rules of what was and wasn't allowed on the big screen, there was a whole set of unofficial rules of what character dynamics were and weren't allowed."
"Huh?" Skippy was lost.
"Skippy," Slappy said, "I couldn't be your mother. You've seen the cartoons from back then, who were the mothers?"
"Hmmmm," Skippy squinted one eye shut and rolled his other one towards the ceiling trying to think, then concluded, "I don't know."
"Exactly," Slappy told him. "Mother characters back then weren't stars, they were only minor characters, if they existed at all, and if they did, the whole cartoon revolved around the kids, the baby, all she was there for was to cook, clean, and nag the husband."
"I don't get it," Skippy said.
"And I'm always glad I never did," Slappy said dismissively. Getting back on topic she explained, "There was a whole dynamic of who got what roles, shown a lot more in live action films than cartoons. If you were young and pretty, you were the star. 90% of the time the young pretty girls were single who always fell in love and usually got married by the end of the movie. The truly fun and sassy women were generally older spinsters who never married, never had kids, and were generally perceived as homely. Now in cartoons...in our cartoons, Porky had Petunia, and that was about it, the only other leading lady in those days was Granny, an opinionated spinster. Bugs Bunny didn't have a regular girlfriend, Daffy didn't, now over at Disney, Mickey Mouse had Minnie, Donald Duck has Daisy, then there was Clarabelle Cow, who was often paired up with Horace Horsecollar, but these days she's been seen with Goofy, that girl gets around. But the reason Minnie and Daisy had such a lucrative career in cartoons was precisely because they didn't get married. Oh, once in a while they'd do a cartoon like that, then forget all about it by the next one and they'd be back to mere 'girlfriend' status. But nope, those girls would've been tossed out on their keisters if they'd actually gotten married and settled down and had kids, there wouldn't be anymore storylines to write about them. Women characters are only kept interesting on the big screen as long as they can be subjects of love triangles, two guys fighting for the same dame, or all the times Mickey had to rescue Minnie from Pete, or a big gorilla, or whoever else the villain was that week. Those were the fads back then in film."
"How come, Aunt Slappy?" Skippy wanted to know.
"Oh because getting married was supposed to settle them down, make them more pleasant and less inclined to speak their minds and turn them into merry little homemakers. And they were always expected to have kids, who they then had to be a positive role model for. They had to suddenly be all prim and proper and responsible, ehh, who needs that?" Slappy asked with a sneer.
"So they couldn't blow anybody up with dynamite?" Skippy asked.
"Kid, they couldn't even bop anybody over the head with a mallet," Slappy answered.
Skippy scowled. "That stinks, Aunt Slappy."
"Don't I know it?" she remarked. "Now, fathers weren't much better, they were either in charge, or big bumbling boobs, but it was grandpas that were allowed to be fun and eccentric for the kids to hang out with and learn questionable lessons from, like with Betty Boop. Heck, Skippy, she never even got married and they still had to tone her down into the little homemaker type. Later on the fun grandpa role also went to uncles."
"And aunts like you?" Skippy asked.
"More like Mame," she answered.
"Huh?"
"Never mind, I'll explain it to you later. No, I've always been a one of a kind, Skippy. I got to be the foxy lead who never settled down who still got all the laughs, and now I get to be the sarcastic fun aunt who sets horrible examples for her nephew and all the kids watching at home. None of those things would've been possible if they'd drawn me as your mother. Heck, Skippy, until Lucy Ricardo started doing it, mothers weren't a big attraction. Nowadays you got Roseanne, she can do it all, she has the best lines, a great house, a trainable husband, and she got to keep her figure. You'd think that would spearhead a new fad for TV, but if you actually watch that boob tube thing, you'd see today the fun roles are going to the grandmas, most TV moms are still rigid, uptight, responsible, organized out their ears types that wouldn't know a good time if it whopped them over the head."
"Spew!" Skippy exclaimed.
"Couldn't have said it better myself," Slappy wagged her eyebrows at the fourth wall.
"Aunt Slappy," Skippy stood up and hugged the older squirrel, "I'm glad you're my aunt."
"Me too, kiddo," she replied, then pulled back and said, "now, what do you say we go harass the dog next door?"
"All right!" Skippy jumped with joy.
"Good, just let me make sure I got what I need for a little outing," Slappy grabbed her purse, opened it up and took out a large mallet, "yeah, that one ought to do it."
"I'm ready, Aunt Slappy!" Skippy came out of the hall closet with two ammo belts strapped over his vest and big sticks of dynamite.
"Kids, they make life more interesting," Slappy commented, "as long as I don't have to be a good role model for them anyway."
"Oh boy, Aunt Slappy!" Skippy said as he charged into the house and ran around in hyper circles, "this has been the best day ever. First we annoy the dog, then we go to a baseball game, then we get ice cream for dinner! You're the best, Aunt Slappy."
"Glad to hear it, kiddo," Slappy said as she kicked the door shut behind her and hung up her hat and umbrella. "Though I'm definitely going to have to double up on the butter milk and prunes tomorrow."
"Spewwwwww," Skippy said as he spun up the coat rack until he was perched on top of it.
"Now what say we hit the sack?" Slappy asked.
"Okay!" Skippy trotted upstairs, made a flying leap for his bed, made a perfect 10 landing and pounded the mattress with his fists for a few seconds before he wore out and flopped against the bed, out cold and snoring.
"Hmmm, guess it's true what they say about sugar crash," Slappy mused as she headed over to her own room, "maybe I shouldn't have let him have that fifth banana split with extra nuts...on second thought, naaaaaahhh."
Slappy's bedroom door slammed shut behind her. In Skippy's room, the younger squirrel turned on his side, opened his eyes halfway and let out around a huge yawn. "Aunts...they make life more interesting." He yawned again, closed his eyes and resumed snoring.