I remembered seeing an 80s cartoon I did not remember a great deal about, other than that the villains in it had a weed theme and one of them was a skunk-like creature. I was glad to finally track it down and watch it again, but like most 80s cartoons it's a bit sickly and formulaic.
The goodies have a flower theme, and in their favour they are reasonably proactive and their main protagonist/leader is competent and female. There's a character called Poison Ivy who is ambiguous and doesn't seem to fit into a hero/villain category. On the other hand, they are pretty saccharine and holier-than-thou and their behaviour is sometimes not much better than that of the villains, and the floral theme is not exactly well done, with the characters not resembling their namesakes, and obscure references being chosen. A bit of a pity, because something really inventive and clever might have been developed from this idea.
The chief villain Dragonweed gets most of the good lines, and the sidekick Skunkweed is more nuanced than most, and comes across as rather sweet and naive. Some of the other sidekicks don't seem to be developed much and have dull character designs.
The main reason the protagonists dislike the weed characters seems to be just that they *are* weeds and the characters think they are not as good as them and dislike the place they live. Not the most inclusive message to have in a children's cartoon. The baddies don't exactly seem to be unkind to each other asides from occasional teasing of Skunkweed about his odour and pushing each other into the swamp water (which it seems they use for a swimming pool) and Dragonweed seems to have an almost fatherly relationship with Skunkweed. The weed characters are never invited to the flower characters' parties, which causes them to feel resentful and jealous. Skunkweed's design is pretty inventive, and Dragonweed and Briarpatch are not bad, but they could have really gone to town with the weed theme. Dragonweed is supposed to be 'King of the Weeds' and they could have made him look superbly shabbily regal with viny robes and a thorny crown, instead of a gorilla-faced orange-paletted thing with a weird quiff as he has come out. I'm not exactly sure what Briarpatch is meant to be and what he is wearing, but he doesn't look very horticultural either.
The villains rescue a dancer they have seen at the party from which they were excluded, from a life-threatening situation (although admittedly the dancer would not have been in this situation in the first place had it not been for the villains, although it wasn't exactly their fault outright, and the dancer was not aware of their involvement). The dancer character is rather rude and not at all grateful towards the villains for rescuing her. Dragonweed asks her to dance for him and she refuses. The baddies lock her in a cage in an effort to make her do it. While it's wrong to imprison someone because they won't do as you ask, it's neither particularly right to be ungrateful to treat badly someone you don't like because they're a 'mean old weed' and not a flower, who has helped you out of serious trouble, and it's not as though a lot is really being demanded of the character, when it's considered she is presumably a professional dancer.
I didn't remember this cartoon very well as a child, but I can remember sympathising more with the discriminated-against villains than the protagonists! There's a lot of wasted potential in terms of the character design, and not the best message for children. The baddies are wrong for imprisoning someone, but the goodies are not much better in the disdainful way they treat the baddies.
The goodies have a flower theme, and in their favour they are reasonably proactive and their main protagonist/leader is competent and female. There's a character called Poison Ivy who is ambiguous and doesn't seem to fit into a hero/villain category. On the other hand, they are pretty saccharine and holier-than-thou and their behaviour is sometimes not much better than that of the villains, and the floral theme is not exactly well done, with the characters not resembling their namesakes, and obscure references being chosen. A bit of a pity, because something really inventive and clever might have been developed from this idea.
The chief villain Dragonweed gets most of the good lines, and the sidekick Skunkweed is more nuanced than most, and comes across as rather sweet and naive. Some of the other sidekicks don't seem to be developed much and have dull character designs.
The main reason the protagonists dislike the weed characters seems to be just that they *are* weeds and the characters think they are not as good as them and dislike the place they live. Not the most inclusive message to have in a children's cartoon. The baddies don't exactly seem to be unkind to each other asides from occasional teasing of Skunkweed about his odour and pushing each other into the swamp water (which it seems they use for a swimming pool) and Dragonweed seems to have an almost fatherly relationship with Skunkweed. The weed characters are never invited to the flower characters' parties, which causes them to feel resentful and jealous. Skunkweed's design is pretty inventive, and Dragonweed and Briarpatch are not bad, but they could have really gone to town with the weed theme. Dragonweed is supposed to be 'King of the Weeds' and they could have made him look superbly shabbily regal with viny robes and a thorny crown, instead of a gorilla-faced orange-paletted thing with a weird quiff as he has come out. I'm not exactly sure what Briarpatch is meant to be and what he is wearing, but he doesn't look very horticultural either.
The villains rescue a dancer they have seen at the party from which they were excluded, from a life-threatening situation (although admittedly the dancer would not have been in this situation in the first place had it not been for the villains, although it wasn't exactly their fault outright, and the dancer was not aware of their involvement). The dancer character is rather rude and not at all grateful towards the villains for rescuing her. Dragonweed asks her to dance for him and she refuses. The baddies lock her in a cage in an effort to make her do it. While it's wrong to imprison someone because they won't do as you ask, it's neither particularly right to be ungrateful to treat badly someone you don't like because they're a 'mean old weed' and not a flower, who has helped you out of serious trouble, and it's not as though a lot is really being demanded of the character, when it's considered she is presumably a professional dancer.
I didn't remember this cartoon very well as a child, but I can remember sympathising more with the discriminated-against villains than the protagonists! There's a lot of wasted potential in terms of the character design, and not the best message for children. The baddies are wrong for imprisoning someone, but the goodies are not much better in the disdainful way they treat the baddies.
