Gaston Lagaffe / Trivia

Trivia / Gaston Lagaffe

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The Comic:

Creator Backlash: André Franquin has admitted that he didn't like one of his early strips where Gaston invents a bird call whistle that attracts a weird bird that doesn't exist in real life, since he felt like fictional creatures didn't fit the comic's spirit.^Note
Creator Breakdown: Bertand Labévue started as a generic lunatic guy and became depressive after Franquin dealt with depressions.
Died During Production: The series was discontinued after the death of Franquin. This is shown in a somewhat chilling way with the last sketch (Number 913), which Franquin had started working on. His death had come very sudden, as all but two panels have been sketched with pencil and a third of these had been inked. You almost feel him starting to work on it, never suspecting it would stay unfinished.
Reality Subtext: The character Bertrand Labévue gets hit by depression because Franquin himself had it.
Referenced by...:
- In the Yoko Tsuno episode The Devil's Organ, after a single note from the eponymous organ collapses a wall, Pol compares it to the Gaffophone.
- Gaston is mentionned in the easter eggs filled credits from La Cité de la peur as the gaffer.
- Radio Enfer: After Carl makes a blunder by making fun of a renowned talent agent named Ronnie Angello without knowing who he was beforehand, Maria introduces Carl to Angello by calling the former "Gaston Lagaffe".

Promoted Fanboy: Delaf was a big fan of the Gaston comic and he did homage fancomics where he was very faithful to the style. Enough so that he has become its new official artist.
Sequel Gap: Le Retour de Lagaffe was released in 2023, 27 years after the last officially published Gaston album back when Franquin was still alive (in 1996).

Descended Creator: Pierre-François Martin-Laval is both the movie's director and Prunelle's actor.
Disowned Adaptation: André Franquin's daughter Isabelle had nothing nice to say about the movie before its release, calling it a disaster. In particular, she vetoed the movie script's first draft (see What Could Have Been below), but having no control over the franchise, she was powerless to stop the production entirely.
Fake Nationality: The country the film is set in isn't specified, but going by the original comics (since some clearly Belgian names have been kept in), the characters are Belgians. All the actors are French, meanwhile.
What Could Have Been: In the first draft:
- Gaston would have abandoned his cat and seagull at some point.
- Gaston would have heated up the office by inserting a gardening hose into a cow's ass.

Missing Episode: The entirety of the 1989 Merci Gaston! TV series is unavailable. There are no clips to be found anywhere, and only a few photographs had been published in magazines. For more information, see here.
What Could Have Been: TVA Dupuis planned to make animated Gaston cartoons as early as 1962. However, after having animated one minute of test footage, they realized it didn't look good and that it wouldn't work. This footage too is unavailable.