Re-Discovering 'the Littles'
So, last Saturday morning, I was flipping through the channels, finding nothing watch, as most cartoons for kids these days suck. Then an odd idea occurred to me: I'll check and see what's on the WB! Now, I had never had such an odd thought in my life, as the WB is a major crap-filled network. So, I go there, and there's a cartoon on. It looks a little bit familiar, btu I can't recall what it is. Then I see the little girl (very literally) with the pigtails and the regular tail, and instantly it all comes flooding back. It's the Littles! The frigging Littles! I used to love this show, and somehow forgot about it completely. The Littles!
Anyways, I have gone 'Littles' crazy since then, looking for articles all over the damn place on the show. Sadly, despite the fact that it was a great show - there are NO articles! None! I could barely even find information on the show! I knew what had to be done. I had to write an article on the Littles! So that's what I did. Er... rather, that's what I'm doing. Right here. Yer reading it.
The show is a fairly simple one. It's similar to the Smurfs, only not in a medeval setting, and there's little to no magic. And they're not blue. And they have a really intricate society. And they don't use the word 'smurf' to mean everything. It's nothing like the Smurfs, other than the fact that they're short. The Littles are, to be succinct, very little. Smaller than mice, and similar to them in appearance (pointy ears, long tails, longer buck teeth). Other than that, they look completely like regular humans. They live underground in their little world away from, suitably enough, the Bigs (regular humans like you and me! Yes - we're a part of the show!) who don't know the Littles exist. It's crazy. A few humans DO know they exist, and one is evil, but also very stupid, despite the fact that he's supposedly a scientist. He invents things, and has a lab, but I seriously doubt he actually has a degree in anything. I think the 'Dr." in his name (which I don't actually remember) is purely ornamental. There ARE other characters though! Let's get to them in order of "crappy and useless" to "awesome" (always a good order to follow).
These are the parents of the main characters of the story. Despite the fact that they never did anything interesting, they were in every damn episode. Usually they would dispense advice, that was usually wrong. I have no idea what purpose they served other than maybe to teach kids that their parents really had no clue what they were talking about.
Oh, and notice Father Little's moustache? Yeah - apparently it's a generational thing, as in the backgrounds every single male Little of his age has the exact same moustache. But, it was the 80s. Every Big male had one too. Dont' hate him for being trendy.
This is Henry. He also sucks. He is a Big child. It's his house that the Littles of this show lived under. I'm not clear on whyeh knows, but he knows of the Littles, and so the main characters hang out with him, and they get each other out of scrapes and whatnot. I wouldn't have saved Henry. I'd let him die down in a well or whatever, and take over the house. And the Littles coulda done it. There were like 1000s of them! And they gotta be pissed from living in walls and floorboards all their lives. I know I would be. I shoulda put Henry first. I hate him.
Tom and Lucy Little were they main characters of our show. From the description I gave above, you can see that Lucy was the one that made all the memories come back. I think it's the button thingy she's wearing that brought it back, but I'm not sure. Anyways, pretty much every episode revolved around these 2 doing something, which usually ended in a moral being discovered or a lesson being learned. Sadly, one of those lessons was never "how to kill Henry and take over his house."
I like Tom and Lucy actually. They're fun, and for some odd reason, Tom looks like a boot-black from Victorian England, but he spent all his life under a house in Anytown USA. Though, that brings up an interesting question... where did he get that hat?! Where do they get anything that fits them! They're 3 inch tall people! Zoinks!
Anyways, despite the fact that Tom And Lucy were the main characters, they were never THE favorites. They were okay, don't get me wrong. They're not Henry or anything. But, the main reason the show was beloved was because of our last 2 characters for today:
Dinkey and Grampa! w00t! These guys were great. They always bickered, and gave incredibly different views on how things should go. Which led to more bickering. The bickering between these 2 is the main memory I have of the show.
Grampa was the logical one on the show, and he always went on the adventures with the kids, despite his being really old, and grossly overweight. Though, in fairness, he was still probably under 4 ounces, but still - he was a fatty. He was, of course, the kids' grandfather, though I'm not actually sure which parent was his. I'd pick neither and say I was a title-only grampa if I was him... I mean, look at those parents again. He usually got upset when things went crazy, which made him the perfect comedic partner for...
Dinkey! Dinkey is the cause of most of the crazy things that happened on the show. He was, for some odd reason, a pilot, complete with little aviators helmet and everything. I have no idea what relation he was to the family, but I think he was a cousin or something. Either that, or just a crazy guy that hung around all the time. I know people like that. Either way, he was overly lovable, and such. He usually got into trouble, as he was easily talked into doing stupid things, and frequently fell down holes. He really reminded me of Don Knots, which makes a lot of sense if you think about it, as I think 'the Littles' was probably the only show that did NOT have Don Knots doing a guest voice on! Naw, I'm just kidding. I'm sure he did some voice on it.
There were some other fun characters too. The kids had a pet turtle on rollerskates, whose name I also forget, but I think it was like 'Turbo' or something. There was also the evil scientist guy who was always trying to catch the Littles with more and more stupid, yet needlessly intricate traps. I'm not sure what he wanted with the Littles. Perhaps some kind of stew. Or perhaps he wanted to see what kept them so... little? I dunno - they needed a bad guy, so we got him. He had a sidekick, who was just his lab assistant. He was pretty dumb too. And that's about it. There were random other Littles when they were needed and whatnot, but for main characters, that's all she wrote. 'Cept, I'm a boy, so I guess that's all he wrote. Oh well.
Turns out these things were books before they were tv. I was unaware, as I was raised by TV and not literacy. The books may be different, heck many may view them as better, but one thing is for sure: no amount of words could describe the moustache to Little ratio in their world. SO many moustaches!! The Littles rock. So very much. I'm glad I remember them now. Now then... I wonder how many articles there are on 'the Wuzzles'....