Family-Unfriendly Aesop: Difference between revisions

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** It's not that family-unfriendly; Kramer just took Jerry's friendly offer too literally and too far.

** And of course, looking for any aesop in the "[[Very Special Episode|No hugging]], [[Defied Trope|no learning]]" world of ''Seinfeld'' is barking up the wrong tree.

* One episode of the short-lived anthology series ''[[Night Visions]]'' told the story of a [[Town with a Dark Secret]] where music is banned and anyone who breaks the rules is swiftly and brutally dealt with. A drifter comes into town, realizes something is wrong and starts investigating: it turns out that the townspeople are all convinced that they're under a curse, and playing or creating any kind of music within the town will summon some sort of monster to kill them all. Of course, the drifter thinks they're all nuts, and in the inevitable climactic confrontation he delivers a heroic speech about how they have no proof that the monster actually exists, and they've been committing horrific acts in the name of blind superstition. The townspeople realize he's right, and he leads them all in a rousing rendition of "[[Amazing Freaking Grace|Amazing Grace]]." {{spoiler|... And then the monster comes to kill them all.}} Moral of the story: committing horrific acts in the name of blind superstition is a really good idea! For the record, ''Night Visions'' was chock full of family unfriendly or outright broken aesops. It's the sort of show you watch expecting a story about an abused wife to end with her being beaten to death by her husband, followed by [[~~WTH?~~ Casting Agency|host]] [[Black Flag|Henry Rollins]] delivering [[An Aesop]] along the lines of "Next time your husband tells you to shut up, you should do it."

* One episode of the short-lived anthology series ''[[Night Visions]]'' told the story of a [[Town with a Dark Secret]] where music is banned and anyone who breaks the rules is swiftly and brutally dealt with. A drifter comes into town, realizes something is wrong and starts investigating: it turns out that the townspeople are all convinced that they're under a curse, and playing or creating any kind of music within the town will summon some sort of monster to kill them all. Of course, the drifter thinks they're all nuts, and in the inevitable climactic confrontation he delivers a heroic speech about how they have no proof that the monster actually exists, and they've been committing horrific acts in the name of blind superstition. The townspeople realize he's right, and he leads them all in a rousing rendition of "[[Amazing Freaking Grace|Amazing Grace]]." {{spoiler|... And then the monster comes to kill them all.}} Moral of the story: committing horrific acts in the name of blind superstition is a really good idea! For the record, ''Night Visions'' was chock full of family unfriendly or outright broken aesops. It's the sort of show you watch expecting a story about an abused wife to end with her being beaten to death by her husband, followed by [[What the Hell, Casting Agency?|host]] [[Black Flag|Henry Rollins]] delivering [[An Aesop]] along the lines of "Next time your husband tells you to shut up, you should do it."

** The fact that a monster killed them makes the claims true, and thus, not "blind superstition." This post implies that, as long as you're intentionally or unintentionally unaware of the validity of a claim, it's A-OK to act as though it isn't true. If that's the case, most children shouldn't listen to their parents as they most likely won't understand why they're being told to do something at the time of instruction

*** The fact that they unquestionably accepted it for at least a hundred years despite no indication or evidence of it does make it one. That the townspeople seem incapable of moving makes it even more. And that headphones are forbidden. But what puts icing on the cake is that the monster isn't coherent: music disturbs it but yelling your head off won't; it doesn't attack only the source of the music; it has slept for hundreds of years on nothing but birds; and that's just the overt problems. Also until the person was eaten the acceptance was in fact blind superstition. And, fyi, there's a vast difference between believing in Santa Clause when a kid and still believing in Santa Clause when you grow up.

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* In ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', the Giggle at the Ghosties song has [[An Aesop]] about how you're supposed to laugh at your fears... So if a scary looking guy comes up to you [[Sarcasm Mode|you should laugh at him]].

** More accurately, it was about laughing at the scary things kids see in the dark.

** More recently, ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2 E4 Luna Eclipsed|Luna Eclipsed]],'' for which Luna spent most of the episode trying to win over the population that was irrationally afraid of her, ends with her instead deciding to instead go along with it and be the pony who scares other ponies to entertain them. A lot of viewers compare this to the concept of a deformed character joining a freak show just to try to get more approval from society.

** More recently, ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2/E04 Luna Eclipsed|Luna Eclipsed]],'' for which Luna spent most of the episode trying to win over the population that was irrationally afraid of her, ends with her instead deciding to instead go along with it and be the pony who scares other ponies to entertain them. A lot of viewers compare this to the concept of a deformed character joining a freak show just to try to get more approval from society.

** Even more recently, ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2 E15 The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000|The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000]]'' has the moral of "Sometimes it turns out that you were right all along and the other guys were wrong." Which is entirely true, but also entirely atypical for for a kids' show.

** Even more recently, ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2/E15 The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000|The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000]]'' has the moral of "Sometimes it turns out that you were right all along and the other guys were wrong." Which is entirely true, but also entirely atypical for for a kids' show.

*** The whole episode is somewhere between Broken aesop, Space Whale aesop and idiot plot since the only reason the Apple family could beat the Flim-Flam brother's machine was because they got help from another 5 ponies who worked to exhaustion, the machine would have eventually defeated them if there was no time limit, and the whole town was going to let a couple of strangers to take over the city's main food supply. Not to mention that the whole conflict could have been evaded if someone had the insane idea of negotiating a fair price for both sides.

** The episode ''Dragon Quest'' has one at the end. At the end of the episode, Spike adopts a phoenix he names "Peewee" after refusing to smash the egg when Teenage Bully Dragons make him go on a raid. This is supposed to parallel how Spike was adopted as an egg and raised by something outside his species (IE: Ponies). One tiny little problem. No one knew who Spike's parents were and it's explicitly stated that they just found him as an egg implying his parents either died or abandoned him long before Princess Celestia found him an gave him to Twilight Sparkle. Spike, on the other hand, is '''well-aware''' who Peewee's parents are and knows where they live (IE: The Everfree Forest). Plus, he had plenty of time to go after the Phoenixes and return their egg to them. So, erm, [[Unfortunate Implications|kidnapping is fine as long as you intend to raise the child as your own?]]