Favorite character details

Garbage Kills Megan

parties with your mom
There are a lot of small details about the characters of the show that come up from time to time. I really appreciate this. They add little quirks and details to the characters that aren't really necessary to the plot, but just make things more interesting. And they don't forget about them later, the bring them up again and again. A lot of shows don't do things like this. They will make up something about a character for a joke, and never bring it up again. But I digress...

An example is Lois's fondness for baseball. We first see it when she goes to the batting cages in Lois's Birthday, and have seen it a few more times since then. Or Hal's severe fear of hights, which we see in a couple episodes. Francis's ability to play the piano is an interesting detail about him brought up a couple times.

What are some of your favorite details about the characters?
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
That's a very interesting thead. I agree, there are a lot of details they bring up, that stick with them.

We see Hal show his affection for the boys more than Lois, I think. That's not to say that Lois doesn't love the boys, just to say that Hal is a bit easier going, and is happy with many things they do, because he loves them. Examples: Health Scare, Emancipation, Christmas Trees.

We found out that the only sport Malcolm actually likes and is good at is Basketball in Malcolm Holds His Tongue. They've revisited that idea since then, just as something that Malcolm is doing. It's in a cold open, at the end of If Boys Were Girls, etc.

I am interested to hear other people's thoughts on thsi topic.
 

Malcolm

New member
I noticed that Malcolm seems to like dinosaurs very much.

I remember in Sleepover when he had a Tyrannosaurus rex model. And in several episodes we can see dinosaur items in his room. I think I remember also a Mamooth poster...

I dont know if it counts, but Dewey has some kind of strange gift with animals. He was able to control his huge pet in "Dewey's dog" without any kind of problem. Okay, maybe that was because he had feed the dog before, so the animal started seeing him as his friend... but, what about Tony, the fly?
Or maybe he is just insane, poor boy... :p
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
Probably the latter.

I thought of anohter. Eric, Francis' friend from military school, has two fathers. It's referred to in at least two episodes, Mini Bike, and Jury Duty.
 

Malcolm

New member
Another details: Reese likes sandwiches with aguacato, and Hal is afraid of Chucky and some other fictional characters...even from cartoons!!:p
 

Garbage Kills Megan

parties with your mom
There are tons of silly names they could use that are ok for tv. Nads is much more common than nards. Or they could switch it around, and use a different one each time, but they always use nards, which I don't think I had really heard used before. It's just a variation on nads, but still. I dunno. It just makes it seem that it the Hals word of choice, so it became the boys too. It's cute!
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
Well, okay then! If it's cute, we're good to go! Lol, I hate it when people say I'm cute, so I'm glad I'm not one of the boys you're referring to in this case.
 

MITM18

New member
The word "Nards" is an abbreviated form of the word "Gonards" which itself is an abbreviated form of the words "Testicles."

and

Nads is just another sland word for testicles/balls.
 

MITM18

New member
malcolm said:
Hal is afraid of Chucky and some other fictional characters...even from cartoons!!:p
Guess the writers just forgot about that one when Hal wanted to watch those scary movies with Reese :)
 

Garbage Kills Megan

parties with your mom
You know a character detail that has always sort of baffled me? Reese's vanity. I wonder why they decided to do that. It never really has that much of a role.
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
MITM18 said:
Guess the writers just forgot about that one when Hal wanted to watch those scary movies with Reese :)
More like Hal forgot about it; they scared him half to death. As I recall, he almost cut up Malcolm with a butcher knife when he tried to exchange his fruit roll-up. I think that detail has actually been rather prevelant throughout the series.
 

MITM18

New member
Not really since at the beginning of the show he says that he loves scary movies and how exciting they are.

The movies Reese watched with Hal werent theatrical scary movies, more like Indie films where they are uncensored, and then he even got illegal scary movie bootlegs where they used real corpses.

Hal was shaken up after watching the scary movie and was just went crazy went he wasnt expecting Malcolm to be there.

Alot of people do that when your not expecting someone, you scream.

Another detail the writers have "forgotten" or just creativly written out of the story is Hal's scardness of robots, but if he was so scared of robots, why would he make one himself?

Its just the writers being creative.
 

ReMoss85

New member
MITM18 said:
Guess the writers just forgot about that one when Hal wanted to watch those scary movies with Reese :)
The movies he wanted to watch with Reese weren't cartoons with creepy dolls or robots. Granted, if someone's afraid of Chucky and the robot from the Jetsons you might think they'd be afraid of scary movies with people too, but they never revealed anything about him being scared of normal scary movies. "They Peeled My Face" and the other movies Reese picked out were just a bit too extreme for Hal's tastes.
 

ReMoss85

New member
MITM18 said:
Hal was shaken up after watching the scary movie and was just went crazy went he wasnt expecting Malcolm to be there.

Alot of people do that when your not expecting someone, you scream.
You can't say that Hal's reaction was a normal reaction to simply being startled. When people are startled they don't wave around a butcher's knife screaming "Ah! What do you want???"

MITM18 said:
Another detail the writers have "forgotten" or just creativly written out of the story is Hal's scardness of robots, but if he was so scared of robots, why would he make one himself?
That's a good point, but I suppose, again, the writer's never actually revealed he was scared of robot's in real life, that I know of. Just the creepy one from the Jetson's. Maybe he mentinoned other cartoon ones too, I don't remember. But you'd think he'd be scared of them in real life too. Although he did sort of go nuts and turn into another person because Lois was gone when he making the robot.
 

MITM18

New member
Could be, but I dont see how you can be scared of Chucky and not be scared of any other scary movie.

Since he says there is nothing better than staring into the face of something, he said something that showed how he loved to be scared.

But it doesnt make sense since in season one Malcolm said how he is mostly easily scared.

Its a plothole, a thing the writers just didnt look back at or cared about since they wanted an episode with Hal and Reese watching scary movies.

There are TONS of plotholes in every show like in That 70's Show, in the early episodes, Donna had a sister, they never have mentioned or seen this sister ever again.

Its just a detail writers write off.
 

MITM18

New member
ReMoss85 said:
You can't say that Hal's reaction was a normal reaction to simply being startled. When people are startled they don't wave around a butcher's knife screaming "Ah! What do you want???"
It was just shown on the extreme level what scary movies and suprises can do to you. This is a comedy :)

ReMoss85 said:
That's a good point, but I suppose, again, the writer's never actually revealed he was scared of robot's in real life, that I know of. Just the creepy one from the Jetson's. Maybe he mentinoned other cartoon ones too, I don't remember. But you'd think he'd be scared of them in real life too. Although he did sort of go nuts and turn into another person because Lois was gone when he making the robot.
"Then he says another cartoon he is a scared of" something like that, dont have it infront of me.

Sitcoms write off details, its not taken literal and set in stone for future episodes.

To look at details like this I think you really need to examine them per episode and not in a long run since somethings do in fact contradict each other, it happens.

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But thats just my opinion, you of course dont have to follow it :)
 
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