Technical Difficulties, Please Stand By...
All right, so I was originally planning to start up my DVD right after finishing that introductory post.
Well, there are two things that you should know about me that I neglected to mention:
- I am hopeless with technology compared to most of my peers. My dad and my brother are both professional computer programmers, so I never needed the knowledge of how technology works, since I could always just go to them for all my problems.
- Technology hates me. Yeah, as soon as I put my DVD in, my computer glitched up and said that I didn't put the disc in. It would not play, and because the computer thought that the disc drive was empty, it could not eject anything, so the disc was just stuck in there.
Fortunately, with the help of my brother, I was able to get the damn thing out, and then put it in again, where it was read properly. Kinda ruins the "without further ado" from the last update, but whatever.
So now, after that ado, let's finally get started.
Dan Vs New Mexico
This episode begins with an alarm clock buzzing really annoyingly. Now, I know that this is the point. But really think about it. This is literally the first thing you see (or rather, hear) in the entire series. This is an extreme turn-off for the viewer. So why do they do it?
Oh, and it's not just some brief thing. This lasts from the 3-second mark, all the way to the 14-second mark. That's eleven seconds of this crap. Plenty of time for it to soak in to the viewer.
So why does this work? Because it helps the viewer to identify with the protagonist. Everyone hates their alarm clock, and we see our protagonist do exactly that, throwing it literally out the window and hitting a jogger on the head. However, it probably would have been better if you did this in a later episode, where we are already familiar with the source material. Here, it just turns off your audience from the get-go, and that is definitely one thing that any show should try to avoid.
He gets up cheerfully and says that "today is going to be a good day". Yeah, after that annoying alarm clock thing? I seriously doubt it. His lamp placed above his bed ends up smacking his head around three times. He finally gets out of bed, tripping on a burrito that he had been planning on eating for breakfast, falling over, and from the sound effects, presumably breaking his back.
Yeah, I think this guy has reached Cosmic Plaything levels. Then again, why would you keep open food on the floor? We then see another thing on his floor that I can't identify. It looks like a ship model of some kind, which he stubs his toe on. He is rightfully annoyed, and so he kicks it in a rage. This causes his toe to stub again. He then attempts to keep his Idiot Ball by doing another kick on the thing, but he stops himself. He backtracks to his bed, only to get hit by the lamp again.
He then leaves his apartment, wondering why he put a swinging lamp there anyways, saying that he will burn down the 1970s for it.
Okay, that's kinda impossible, given that the show takes place in 2011. Of course, Dan will seek revenge on FAR more obscure concepts later down the road, but this is your introductory episode, and you have thus far established nothing apart from this character's status as a Butt-Monkey and a Cosmic Plaything.
Why was his apartment so trashy? Where are we? When are we? Why does this character act this way? What is his name? All of these are unanswered for now. Yeah, one minute into this thing and we still have yet to know who our character is. He wears a shirt that says "Jerk" on it, which I know is supposed to be an Exactly What It Says on the Tin situation, but to the uninformed viewer, this guy is not a jerk, by any means. He just hit a lot of bad luck, from his lamp to his burrito to the armadillo.
If this had all happened to me, I probably would be annoyed too. Nothing so far as pinned this guy down. He has no character tropes right now, aside from maybe Not a Morning Person and Cosmic Plaything, the latter of which we will later discover is not the case. Now, it's only been a minute, so I'm not asking for a complete biography, but you should have an Establishing Character Moment somewhere in there.
Now, if anyone who works for the show happens to read this liveblog, know that I do enjoy your series, but I think it can be agreed that it started off on the wrong foot.
Now, let's see how much more of a Cosmic Plaything we can turn our protagonist into. After tripping on the armadillo, it rolls past him and lets out a Hiss Before Fleeing. We then see him turn to his car, which has a smashed window due to cactus needles, red dirt, and adobe. He chooses to blame New Mexico, and get the plot going.
WHY!?
We have no reason to believe that any of those things are New Mexican. Oh, well, I guess you could say that they are if they are stereotyping. Yeah, this is a good idea. We're gonna base the plot of an episode around a stereotype. What were the writers thinking!?
We then get our Episode Title Card over his Skyward Scream and Angry Fist-Shake. This is essentially a Mad Libs Catch Phrase, despite not a single word here being repeated in a later episode.
But there's just one problem: the main character is STILL unidentified, and is left with only Cosmic Plaything as a character trait. Now, if you've seen the rest of the show, you know that Dan is most definitely not a Cosmic Plaything, and that he usually tends to end up more along the lines of unlucky. If any character deserves the Cosmic Plaything status, it's Chris, but after spending so much time putting it on Dan, the writers/animators/whoever-else-works-on-this-show have kinda thrown the audience for a loop, which makes no sense of why they would do.
But hey, Early-Installment Weirdness. Everything gets better over time. Dan Vs is no exception.
We next see our main character talking to another character over the phone. This second character gives accurate history on New Mexico. The protagonist even gives us the funny line of "New Mexico is a Capricorn" based on the date when it joined. Well, okay. This presents a problem: everything up until now has been making this show to be, well, not exactly humorous. So why is this here? Because the show is humorous. It took a minute and a half to get that. Epic Fail.
Oh, and our new character name-drops a character named "Elise." That's right, our first name in this series - at the 1:34 mark - is of a character who we haven't even met yet. And all we know about her is that she hates roadrunners.
Now, to be fair, we do see a photo of her with this second character in a pseudo-romantic pose. But are they dating? Married? Friends with Benefits? We don't know.
Speaking of this second character - ah, screw it, it's only gonna get confusing. Speaking of Chris, this scene establishes him as a nerdy character, just doing research on New Mexico and spewing out the facts. Again, this is about as far away from Establishing Character Moment as you can get for Chris. Come on, guys. Introduce your characters properly.
And give them names, dammit! Would it really have taken anything away to have the phone call start with:
- "Chris, I need some information about New Mexico.""Okay, Dan, I'll see what I can do."
What's wrong with doing this? Well, I myself happen to know that Dan's line is written out-of-character, but that's simply because HE HAS NO CHARACTER YET. If the writers wanted to be really generous, they could give us Dan's character by rephrasing that sentence into the way a Jerkass would say it. But hey, baby steps. Surely I can't expect them to give us both character development and names, that'd be ridiculous. But apart from that, there is no reason not to start the phone call like that. You just make us not know their names.
Which makes it all the more harder to care about your characters.
Dan specifically asks Chris what New Mexico's weaknesses are. Chris's response? "It doesn't say." Dan says that they need more information. Chris suggests a library, and Dan demands that Chris take him there in 30 minutes.
Now, FINALLY, at the 2-minute mark, we have some characterization of Dan that isn't incorrect. He expects everyone (especially Chris) to drop everything for him. He lives in a Moral Myopia.
Chris even points out that he has to go to work, but Dan hangs up on him, obviously not caring.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, there is No Theme Tune, making these timestamps even more jarring that they would go this long without names. So the argument that "Oh, well, 2 minutes is really only a minute and a half, since thirty seconds of that would be the theme song," is invalid.
But we do finally get Dan's name at the 2:07 mark. Well, took ya long enough!
Dan gets angry at Chris for being unhelpful, and a fight ensues, with them both getting thrown out of the library. They plan to resume their Revenge Plot after lunch.
At lunch, Dan delivers what is probably my favorite line from the whole series: "There's an old saying. Revenge is a dish best served immediately."
Now, for those unaware, I am a HUGE trekkie, having seen all 716 episodes across all six shows, where most people would scream Continuity Lock-Out or Archive Panic. Seeing this Star Trek reference had me laughing for quite a while, seeing as how not only did Dan manage to subvert the Klingon proverb, but one could argue that he inverted it as well. The point to the proverb is to seek revenge at a later date than you would ordinarily, so that the foe will least expect it. And Dan takes it to mean that he should not waste any time and do this right away. Well played, Dan Vs writers. Well played.
Now, as a trekkie, this is the first time that I can say I liked something in Dan Vs, but if someone with no Trek knowledge was watching this, they'd have no reason to continue. When your joke requires the audience to be familiar with another work, the joke will fall flat on its face for just about everyone else, so the writers have really written themselves into a corner here. It's like they decided to throw up their arms and say "We can't write! We have to steal from other people in order to entertain you! Watch us anyways!"
After lunch, Dan and the still-unnamed Chris go to another library. Now, why the heck couldn't they start here? It makes the entire buildup totally pointless. Rather than having them go to the library, get kicked out, take a lunch break, and go to a different library to get the plot going, why not just have them go to the library and work from there? Stupid filler.
And yes, I just called the greatest line in the series "filler." Deal with it.
We get more scenes of Dan picking on Chris, and they go into the library, where Dan asks the librarian for help, so rudely that the librarian refuses. Chris asks for help instead, and the man tells them that information on New Mexico should be between the 900s and the 908s of the Dewey Decimal System.
Dan feels the need to pick on the librarian next. Expect a lot of "Dan picks on X" throughout this liveblog by the way. It's kinda his thing.
Dan asks specifically how to hurt New Mexico, and the librarian sarcastically tells him to go write a book called Personal Vendettas Against States.
Someone give this a Defictionalization please. I mean, I have no need for it, but it'd be a hilarious read.
But the librarian reveals that he has a dark dangerous book about New Mexico, but he'll only give it out if Dan helps him. Apparently one customer in the library is dating the librarian's wife, and the customer feels the need to mock him at every opportunity. He wants Dan and Chris to help him eliminate this problem.
As a polyamorist, I always find these "cheating on you" scenarios to be hilarious in fictional works, since I'm not used to dealing with them. But I do understand that from a monogamist's point of view, this is not exactly a good thing, and so Dan and Chris must help to eliminate this customer. Dan suggests killing him, and Chris says he won't do it.
But the customer steps out of the library, only for a bus to come right the flip out of nowhere, hit him, and kill him. And his library card gets blown from his person to Dan and Chris's car. After they have reached Cosmic Plaything levels, it's sure nice to Throw the Dog a Bone.
Chris is appalled at what he witnessed, but Dan reminds him that "You date a married woman - you get hit by a bus. Karma." Dan gives the library card to the librarian, who cancels it from the system, and gives them the book. Chris even says that he doesn't care about hurting New Mexico, this is all Dan's doing.
SO WHY IS CHRIS GOING ALONG WITH IT!? Well, he's an Extreme Doormat, but we don't know that yet, so this just feels confusing.
Dan discovers some things about New Mexico, including that it has the Devil's Throne, Devil's Wash Basin, Devil's Highway
, etc.
This CLEARLY proves that New Mexico is evil, since the Devil (who may or may not exist, by the way) keeps some of his stuff there.*
The librarian also tells them that New Mexicans love hot-air balloons, so to hurt it, you need to destroy their hot air balloon festival. Okay, hold up. How many New Mexican stereotypes are there going to be in this episode? Now, I'm a Californian, and I don't know any New Mexicans, so I don't have a right to be offended here, but honestly, it seems like you're going out of your way to stereotype them unnecessarily. I could be wrong though. Maybe all New Mexicans really are like that. I doubt it.
We then see Chris packing his stuff, and Elise is talking to him. She talks to him about... um... stuff... and... she... just... is drawn... beautifully... Er, um. Okay, so they're talking about... uh... something or another - I don't care. Look at her. Elise is just beautiful. Now, if you actually look at her
◊, you'll see that she's nothing to write home about. There are far better examples of Ms. Fanservice that you can find. So why is Elise so attractive? She's realistic. She acts as the Only Sane Man (for now) and you could imagine someone like her existing in real life*. When Chris tells her that Dan is going to burn down the New Mexican balloons because New Mexico broke his window, she says what we're all thinking: that's insane. Then she asks if she can come with.
After some more Cosmic Plaything mayhem in Dan's apartment with Dan trying to pack some things, Chris comes over and tells him that Elise is coming with, and Dan says that he won't tolerate that. But he is eventually persuaded to allow it, provided that he gets the passenger seat. Gilligan Cut to Elise in the passenger seat, and Dan repeatedly kicking Chris for not letting him take the passenger seat. Chris points out that it's their (Chris and Elise's) car.
And then we get a bit of Elise's backstory. She has a grudge against New Mexico too. We see her as a little girl with her parents. A roadrunner swarm eats her cotton candy. And a cactus pops her balloon (which she didn't even have in the previous shot). Skyward Scream and Angry Fist-Shake commence.
Now here's the problem. The whole point to this scene is to show that she's Not So Different from Dan. This technique will be used repeatedly throughout the series with other characters. But the problem is that at this point in time, we don't know that Dan does this. He has done it ONCE so far. We don't know that this is his character trait. It just felt natural, screaming revenge on something, a lot of people do that in real life, and the camera angles only serve to complement the animation. We don't know yet that it was actually a Mad Libs Catch Phrase that will be repeated Once per Episode because this is your first episode.
Indeed, half the problems here stem from the fact that this is the first episode. We don't know who the characters are, we don't get to see their comparisons, and the whole thing feels forced. It makes me wonder whether this was intended to be the first episode, or if the producers just got Screwed by the Network and ended up airing them Out of Order. I'll let you guys know if I find any other episode that feels like it should have been the first.
Oh yeah, and young Elise's voice feels... off. Too masculine, and I'm not just saying that because I want a feminine voice, but it just feels like a bad fit for Elise, whose voice in the present is very feminine. I understand that voices change over time, but it's not usually this drastic, and when it is, it's usually in the other direction of feminine to masculine, rather than masculine to feminine.
In a humorous moment, we find out that the flashback was shown to the viewers but not the characters, as Elise didn't narrate it during the flashback. Good job, writers. I genuinely didn't see that one coming.
Oh, and Chris gets his name here, by the way. At the 9:17 mark.
What the hell is wrong with you, writers? You're already 42.879137798% of the way through your episode, and NOW you give us his name? Inexcusable. He's a main character. Probably THE main character, apart from Dan. Heck, he even has an entire episode in the second season named after him, and you don't even name him until you're nearly halfway through? Unacceptable. And were it not for that hilarious Star Trek joke earlier, I'd turn this thing off right now.
We see that Chris has fallen asleep behind the wheel. Elise quickly grabs the wheel and maneuvers the car, throwing Dan around the car as a result, because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt. I'll talk about this in more detail in a later section down below, but for now, let's keep this going.
Cut to Chris driving the car, awake, and Dan forcing his (Chris's) eyes open. Okay, what the hell is the point to this? Just switch drivers, honestly. And if Chris is the only one who brought his license with him*, then just pull over and continue the trip some other time. Driving while drowsy is honestly the STUPIDEST thing you can do. *cough*I know because I tried it once and couldn't even make it two blocks before I felt the need to switch drivers.*cough*
They pull over at the gas station. Dan tells Elise to buy him some peanut brittle. I bring this up only because it is the set up of a genuinely hilarious Brick Joke later on.
Something from across the Arizona border hits Dan, and so Dan feels the need to add Arizona to his "Revenge List". This is a notepad that Dan writes all of his episode ideas on. I'm looking at you, fanfic writers (my thoughts are denoted with "*" when appropriate):
- The Hawaiian Monarchy*
- Ted*
- The Deep Blue Sea
- The Elderly
- Patchy Beards*
- Cari Caturists*
- William Shatner*
- Maryland*
- ???? Of ???? Was Wrong*
- ????ets Who Run Stop Signs*
- Children
- Hangin' EU's Dairy Farm*
- Beef Hotdogs
- Arizona
We then see Chris get an Establishing Character Moment with him being a Big Eater, bordering the line with Extreme Omnivore. Elise tries to get him to diet, even using this "Jump Off a Bridge" Rebuttal:
- Chris: Okay, fine. I'll only buy one thing.Elise: Thank you.Chris: I choose a milkshake! With cookies in it!Elise: Chris!Chris: It's still one thing if the cookies are in it.Elise: All right, fine, but we're having salad for dinner.Chris: But Dan said we were having burgers.Elise: If Dan jumped off a cliff, would you?Chris: *thinks about it*Elise: CHRIS!Chris: I mean, it depends.Elise: Don't jump off a cliff!Chris: I wasn't going to.Elise: But if Dan jumped, you would?Chris: *thinks about it*Elise: CHRIS!
This further cements Elise down as a realistic character for me. While Chris's lines in that exchange are clearly something out of a work of fiction, Elise's genuinely do seem like something that one romantic partner would say to another in a situation like this. Concern for their health, and then major concern over a potential suicide. Reading it isn't exactly helpful, as Elise's delivery is what really makes it realistic, but short of illegally uploading the file (which I will NOT do), there's no way of showing that to you guys, sorry. Kudos to the voice actress there though. Big time.
We then get a rather hilarious exchange about Dan's anger. After Chris and Elise come out of the gas station/convenience store, Dan says "Took you long enough, I have to pee!" Chris responds with "So go pee, we'll wait," only for Dan to say "There's no time!"
Kinda rare for a cartoon to avert Nobody Poops, but whatever.
What's really hilarious is the next exchange.
- Dan: All right, let's go already!Elise: Calm down. Here, I got you some peanut brittle. (hands it to him)Dan: (snatches it from her) I'm saving it for later.Chris: You could at least say "thank you."Dan: You're welcome, now GET IN THE CAR!
Elise then asks to be dropped off in the middle of the desert, specifically Roswell, which you Genre Savvy people know all about. She justifies it by saying that it's "girl stuff" quietly in a whispered tone, as if it has something to do with female anatomy.
Now, female anatomy is probably the one topic in the universe that I know the LEAST about. But even still, I don't think that this excuse would fly past anyone. Like there's really anything in the female body that requires being dropped off in the middle of nowhere.
So, with Elise gone, Dan takes shotgun. And he wears a seatbelt now. As I said, I'll go into more detail at the end of the page.
With Dan unable to hold Chris's eyes open from the new seating angle, he's forced to use an alternative method, punching Chris in the gut as hard as he can, as often as he likes.
We get a shot of Elise dressed as a ninja sneaking into a military base of some kind.
And we get the followup of that Brick Joke from earlier:
- Dan: Shouldn't there be a rest stop somewhere!? I'm starving!Chris: I'm hungry too, but-.Dan: It's all about what you want, isn't it? Well, forget it! You're not getting any of my peanut brittle.(Dan looks for his peanut brittle in the back seat, where he was at the time)Dan: Where is it!?Chris: Dan, there's something you should know. About your peanut brittle. I ate it. And I'm sorry.Dan: WHAT!?Chris: It was just sitting there, and I wasn't doing anything.Dan: You were driving the whole time! When did you even have time to eat?Chris: You were looking out the window.Dan: For like, two seconds!Chris: Yeah. I said I was sorry.
As Dan strangles Chris, the car is spinning out of control, as Chris can no longer focus on driving. Then he hits something...
- Chris: It's just a roadrunner.Dan: I'm pretty sure it's THE roadrunner. You killed a celebrity.Chris: It doesn't even look REMOTELY like the roadrunner.
Dan points out that they solved two problems: the roadrunner overpopulation, and having something to eat. Cut to them at a campfire eating the thing. Dan says that they're like Native Americans, living off the land.
- Chris: I'm pretty sure they didn't run things over with their cars.Dan: Sure they did.
Dan asks Chris to pass the ketchup. Chris points out that they don't have any ketchup, so Dan, in a rage, declares the bird, which is their ONLY source of food, useless and kicks it into the distance.
Now, at this point, you might wonder what Dan's plan to disrupt the hot air balloon festival is.
- Chris: So, how do you intend to-?Dan: Hydrogen.Chris: Hydrogen?Dan: Shut up.
Hope that cleared that one up for you guys. :P
So cut to the two of them at a gas station/diner, when a truck filled with liquid Hydrogen pulls up to refuel. Dan and Chris go to beat up the driver and steal his Hydrogen truck. Sure, why not.
Now, Chris is driving the Hydrogen truck. This presents a number of problems.
First off, as we just saw, Chris falls asleep behind the wheel and loses control of his car. The man really shouldn't get a Class-C license, never mind the Class-A license that you'd need to drive that thing. Which leads me to believe that he's driving it illegally, but if that's the case, why is he doing it perfectly!? Secondly, it means that Chris's car was just abandoned in the desert, so how did they get it back for future episode use? Could be Negative Continuity, although some later episodes dispute that claim. Still, Early-Installment Weirdness could make this episode exist in Negative Continuity.
Cut to Elise sneaking into Area 52. Nothing happens. What's the point of this scene again?
Anyways, as if this episode hasn't insulted New Mexicans enough, apparently every five years, to hold this hot air balloon festival they have to sacrifice a maiden. We see them doing this spliced in with Dan filling the balloons with Hydrogen.
Back at Area 52, Elise becomes an Action Girl and takes out an entire military unit single-handedly, while sneaking into a military base, Ninja-style. Until she comes to a Laser Hallway. Then she just flicks the light switch and turns the laser beams off.
Meanwhile, Dan has finished filling the balloons with Hydrogen, so he turns on his lighter*, and throws it out the truck's window for a huge explosion.
Now, the truck is still full of Liquid Hydrogen. You would still get an explosion, which would then set off a chain reaction with the balloons. But Rule of Funny allows Chris and Dan to flee the truck first, so the truck, without a driver, just plows straight ahead into a balloon setting off the aforementioned chain reaction. And the balloons are destroyed.
The cultists come to see the damage, and Dan gloats at how he's won. The cultists naturally gang up on him and Chris, and things look bleak, as they are about to be killed.
And a spaceship abducts Dan and Chris to save them from the balloonists. Oh yeah, by the way, Chris is unconscious during this. He was knocked out by the angry cultists in the fight. Anyways, the ship is being flown by Elise, who recovered it from Area 52. She uses the Death Ray to fire at various people and places in New Mexico, getting her revenge as well.
It is mentioned, by the way, that this ship is a VERY complex piece of technology. So how can Elise maneuver it? My theory was that she's an alien. It honestly makes more sense than her real story.spoiler alert Yeah, I'll just chalk this one up to Early-Installment Weirdness.
Elise goes to check on Chris, and so Dan is left alone with the controls and he's very Trigger-Happy. He doesn't know the controls though, and crashes the ship into the ground.
Cut to them in Chris's car again. How did they get there? We don't know. Never explained. Also, Elise is driving, so my theory about switching drivers works. She has a license. Chris wakes up, only to try and take a nap again, but he falls out of the car in the process, and Dan laughs and says "Bye Chris" as they leave him behind. And then the roadrunners come to Chris's body.
As the credits roll, I honestly say that this episode was... average. Yeah, you were expecting me to hate it, weren't you? Well, the thing is, it got a lot better after the beginning, including some very funny lines. The second half was really well-written, with Dan and Chris's parts. Elise's wasn't that spectacular, since it just feels like a Deus ex Machina, since we don't know that she's reallyspoiler alert yet. And even if we did know that, it still feels strange. Yeah, it explains some of the extremely advanced resources and technology that she has, but nothing like a freaking spaceship. Sorry, that's where I draw the line.
And although the writing and animation (especially the latter) were both incredibly poor at places, I will say that the voice acting was some of the best I've ever seen. I really give props to those actors. I never felt like I was listening to some guy with a microphone. It felt like I was genuinely hearing the characters. And that's always a great thing to see.
But while the voice acting was consistently good, and the writing got better over time, the animation was bad. Why is that? Well, it ties into my seatbelt tangent, so let's talk about that now:
My Little Dan Vs: Animation Is Magic
Now, it is a good time to talk about the show's animation. I bring this up here for a reason. The characters in the front seat of the car, regardless of who those characters are, always wear seatbelts. Those in the back never do. Why? Because the back seat does not have any seatbelts. However, it does have seatbelts. What do I mean by this? Well, the animators felt the need to eliminate everything unnecessary to the episode.
Basically, if it's unimportant, they won't draw it. This is why the other cars have no drivers, for instance. And this is why the back seat usually has invisible seatbelts. It's just a quick gag here that makes it not have those at all. But other than that, there are no background characters or anything. Here, it feels somewhat natural, as they are in the desert. (The show takes place primarily in Van Nuys, California, so there's nothing but desert roads to get from there to New Mexico.) But for all practical purposes for episodes in the actual city: the animation is ugly.
And the writing, based on this episode, isn't good either. So what is saving this series? Nothing. It's stupid, and I would not blame you if you shut it off.
Aside from the fact that the writing can be chalked up to Early-Installment Weirdness, and I promise you: it gets better. But the animation never does. However, this presents an interesting point:
Rather than the animation being corrected, the animation corrects you. The viewer eventually grows to accept the fact that there are very few background characters. And you know what? It works pretty well, because then you can better appreciate the stuff in the foreground, since you will be focusing ONLY on that, and not be distracted by anything in the background.
Now, it's no secret that a large majority of The Hub's older demographic is either only watching the channel for ponies or intended to only watch the channel for ponies, before discovering other good shows. Even I fall under the latter category. Were it not for My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, I probably never would have heard of The Hub or Dan Vs. The reason I bring this up is for the huge contrast between the two.
In MLPFiM, you are ALWAYS looking at the background. Every time you watch an episode, you'll find something new going on in the background that you never noticed before, and it's no surprise that the fandom gives the background characters more attention in fanart than the main characters.
And while the Dan Vs fandom isn't nearly as rampant as the pony fandom, where it does pop up, the fans only focus on our three main characters*. There is no Derpy Hooves, there is no Adventure Time snail, there is no Ensemble Dark Horse. At all.
With the majority of the Dan Vs fandom crossing over with the My Little Pony fandom, why would there be such a heavy contrast? Obviously, it's just a TV Network, and few people, if any, actually worked on both shows, but why are fans drawn to both? It's a perplexing thought, to say the least, and I can't say that I have a clear answer for it. Just something to think about.
I also don't think it's possible to talk about Dan Vs without talking about ponies, since it impacts a huge part of the fandom, in the same way that you wouldn't talk about Avatar The Last Airbender without talking about Shipping, for example. So I hate to leave you guys with no real conclusion, but that's honestly all I have for now. If I see anything later, I may come back to this point though.
