Tintin/Trivia

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• The reason why Hergé provides no explanation for Haddock's Deus Ex Machina rescue of Tintin in Land of Black Gold (when Haddock tries to explain how he got there, he's always cut short) is that it's actually a meta joke. The original version of Land of Black Gold was initially serialized in a newspaper in 1939 and 1940, but after Germany occupied Belgium in 1940, Hergé thought that the comic would not pass the German censors because to its political nature, so the publication of Land of Black Gold was stopped mid-story. At this point Captain Haddock hadn't yet appeared in the series, so naturally he wasn't in the original Land of Black Gold either. Several other Tintin stories were published before Hergé decided to redraw Land of Black Gold in 1948, and in those intervening stories Haddock had become the most significant character in the series besides Tintin himself. Thus it would've been odd if Haddock had been left out of the new version of Land of Black Gold, but on the other hand he didn't really belong to a story that had been scripted before he even existed. This is the reason why Haddock is virtually absent from the story until the very end, and why there's no explanation for his sudden appearance. The lack of explanation is Hergé's comment on Haddock "invading" a story he wasn't originally a part of. So there is a solution to the riddle on a meta level, but not in the actual text.
• Because Tintin in the Congo is often not printed that much anymore due to racism, Al Capone mentions a diamond operation in the Congo that is never mentioned again and makes the viewer wonder if s/he missed an adventure. This may seem like a Noodle Incident to the uninitiated.
• Hey, It's That Voice! (from the 2011 film):
  • Try watching the film and the American version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo back-to-back. Why is Blomkvist a pirate? Or alternately, being unsurprised at James Bond's swordfighting skills.
  • Is the Unicorn Captain Haddock's precioussss?
  • Tintin's pretty light on his feet- is that his ballet training at work? Him and Sakhrine were also brothers in a past life! And it's not the first time he's been on a ship with Captain Haddock...
  • Thomson and Thompson were both less clumsy back when they fought zombies. They've defended the law before, even if one of them also played a pot dealer. For the other, you can see him in the cinema at the same time |as a hacker; and they both lived at the Ice Age, but not together.
  • Tom, one of the mutinous crew on the Karaboudjan, appears to be Assistant (to the) First Mate.
  • Allan was just as villainous when he was in the police force.
• Shown Their Work:
  • After Hergé announced at the end of Cigars of the Pharaoh that Tintin's next adventure was to be set in China, he was introduced to Zhang Chongren, a Chinese art student living in Belgium, who offered to consult on The Blue Lotus in order to avoid the stereotypes and caricatures typical of depictions of his homeland. Hergé accepted the offer, leading to a lifetime friendship. Zhang was even included in the story and known as Chang Chong-Chen. A humorous sequence has Tintin telling Chang about European stereotypes of China, which leads him to think that the Europeans are crazy.
  • Hergé was particularly meticulous in his research. He kept a huge collection of photographs, newspaper articles, and anything else possibly useful in future stories, and so many places and objects in the comic books are real places. For instance, the house of Prof. Calculus' Italian friend in The Calculus Affair is a real house that is still standing to this day. Furthermore, much of the scientific information in the books is accurate, or at least was accurate for the knowledge of the time, some apparent errors being a case of Science Marches On. In a odd case to Science Marching a 180 Degree Turn, one of Hergé's most well known "mistakes" was in depicting ice on the Moon (Explorers on the Moon), but since Indian astronomers have indeed found ice there, we probably owe him an apology.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Hergé was working on the early stages of a Grand Finale for the Tintin series, "Tintin and Alph-Art," when he unexpectedly died.
  • Flight 714 was apparently just going to be a Slice of Life story that takes place inside an airport lobby.
  • The film was originally going to cast Thomas Sangster as Tintin, but he was scrapped due to a delay in filming.
  • In 1948, Hergé wrote to Walt Disney, hoping to pitch his series into a potential animated feature in an effort to introduce Tintin to American audiences. The proposal fell through as Disney was busy working on Cinderella around that time, though Hergé did receive a Mickey Mouse trophy and a picture showing Tintin and Mickey shaking hands decades later.