Each of the seven central characters represents one of the seven deadly sins.
People have speculated that some of the characters from SpongeBob SquarePants stand for each sin, and it seems that the LazyTown cast could very well be based on the seven sins, too. (The Mayor and Bessie aren't included, perhaps because they were added to the show to throw people off?) It would go as follows:- Sportacus is pride, as he is very proud of himself and his way of life,
- Robbie is envy, because he is quite envious of Sportacus,
- Ziggy is gluttony, since he loves candy and can't stop eating it,
- Pixel is sloth, because he spends his days sitting down playing video games,
- Trixie is wrath, since she deliberately plays tricks on others for her own enjoyment,
- Stingy is greed, as he's...stingy,
- And our central character Stephanie would be lust, which is the only one that sounds a little off, but maybe it could be because she has a lust for activity? Lust for dancing? It could work.
- Alternatively, Mayor Meanswell could be lust, due to his crush on Ms. Busybody. This would make Stephenie not represent any sins, which would fit her as an out of towner.
Ziggy is a younger version of Captain K'nuckles from The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.
Think about it. They both love candy to the point of obsession. My guess is that Ziggy listened to "You Are a Pirate" so many times he decided to become one. Then he moved to Storm-along where he met Flapjack and Bubbie. Oh, and then he turned blue.- So K'nuckles is a puppet?
Stingy is Tim Langdell as a child.
They are both obsessed about owning things they do not, and have no right to, own. Everyone ignores both of them.This is an Alternate Universe version of Kirby
We have a pink haired protagonist who is known to like cake. Kirby is a pink protagonist who once went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge over a slice of cake. Robbie Rotten lives apart from the town and, despite being considered the laziest person in it, does some pretty complex plans. Dedede lives in a castle away from the others, is a lazy glutton, and yet somehow (especially in the anime) carries out some pretty complicated plans as well. Finally Meta Knight once tried to take over the world via an airship, to make it less lazy. Sporticus arrived in an airship, to make the town less lazy. At first I said it as a joke, then it just got kind of creepy.- Sportacus and Meta Knight have also both had robots made in their image, black ones no less.
Robbie is an author.
This could be considered a possible motive for his trying to make the town lazy. If everybody spends their time being active, they won't have time to sit down and read a book—specifically, one of his. So naturally, since Sportacus arrived, his works haven't been selling too well.- Dude, this is pretty much the WMG that we needed to explain why Robbie's the villain!
LazyTown takes place in the future......
Where puppets have taken over the world!
Stephenie's father sent her to Lazy Town because it's the only place that tolerates humans.Robbie wants to get rid of Stephanie and Sportacus because he likes to be the only human in a town full of puppets.
Stephanie is actually dead.
The train she took to LazyTown crashed. The whole series is her dying dream (as she lies in a coma), and the final episode where she gets to go in a plane to a dancing school outside LazyTown (which is actually a fabrication by Robbie Rotten) was her briefly regaining consciousness, then slipping back under before her brain shuts down completely. Robbie Rotten's constant encouraging her to be lazy was not an attempt to get her to refrain from moving, but to keep her from traveling to the afterlife (the sunlight from outside where they play could represent the light you're not supposed to go into, I guess?). LazyTown Extra is the afterlife.- Seasons 3 and 4 are the reincarnation. And the puppets were a creative decision by Sportacus, who is God.
- Geez, that would make a good creepypasta. The only thing left is to explain why Lazytown residents are puppets.
You are a pirate!
Oh, come on. Sportacus is diabetic
It makes sense right? How else does he get sick RIGHT after he eats anything with sugar in it?Diabetes + super speed metabolism, that's how.I mean, the other characters react pretty much normally to sugar (for TV characters anyway.)- Glad to see that there's another person who thinks so.
- Alternately: He's gone so long without eating any sugar that his body has "forgotten" what it is, and whenever he eats junk food, an autoimmune response is triggered. Maybe it could be a mix of both.
The writers were fully aware of the double meaning of "You Are a Pirate"
It was written in our current Internet age in ICELAND. "Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free", and references to the locks of a treasure chest could refer to DRM and cracking it. Sportacus is a Time Lord.
Yes, I said it, a Time Lord. He regenerated from Number 9 a while back and somehow managed to get lost, which is probably why we haven't seen him yet in the series, AND why number 10 took so long to get back to Lazy Town.- OR 9 went to go fight the Time War and survived because he regenerated into a mostly human form (ala John Smith). The airship is his TARDIS (the colouring fits, after all).
- I also thought so. And his TARDIS is the latest one (The Doctor uses Type 40, which was outdated even back when he stole it.)
Alternatively, Nine IS Sportacus' dad.
It's just a matter of why such a massive gap between the two being in LazyTown is another thing all together. Alternatively, it's 11 in a coma
sportacus just HAS to be the doctor. The only problem is that the show is definitely not in the Whoniverse. Therefore 11 got knocked on his head and is now dreaming he's Sportacus, Stephanie is a companion, and Robbie is a reincarnation of the Doctor's darkside: the Dream Lord or the Valeyard.- Or the Master.
Stephanie grows up to be Lady Gaga.
Coloured wig? Techno dance routines? Lots of inspiration from Robbie for her costumes?
- Not to mention that Lady Gaga's real name is Stephanie Germanotta.
The whole show is the product of a kid who lives in the Unreal universes imagination.
The show uses the Unreal engine in its production, so they might have worked that in to the plot. The whole Unrealverse has extreme amounts of Gore and violence, and the average child would probally be disturbed by it all. Thus, his mind imagines the whole show as a mental safe haven from the tournament and and the war with the Skaarj.
In the world of LazyTown, being lazy slowly turns you into a puppet-character.
The three most active characters are all humans. The lazy ones are all puppets. Taking this further...
Robbie needs the humans to all be puppets for some reason
This is why he needs everyone to be lazy. Maybe being a puppet is symbolic of being under control.
- Robbie's control isn't complete even so, as the kids routinely often defy him in the end.
- Most of the time his methods are short-lived at best, involving appealing to their weaker natures, such as eating candy over fruit, or getting their interest to solve non-existent problems. On the other hand, they always fall for it.
When Stephanie grows up she'll be number 11.
Stephanie grows up to be the pink-haired woman who accompanies Zladko of Molvania in his fake Eurovision Song Contest music
videos.
videos.Robbie isn't really lazy, he just has a different sleep cycle.
- Is it really right to blame Robbie for wanting to get some sleep when Sportacus sleeps 12 hours a day? Perhaps Robbie has a different sleep cycle and because he couldn't get any sleep when he needed to because of all the noisy kids, he went a little loopy and decided to try to keep the kids "lazy" so that he could get some rest.
Robbie was forced into child labor when he was young.
- That is why he grew up to hate moving because he use to have to work until he collapsed.
- Alternately, he could be jealous of the children for having the fun and healthy childhood he never had.
Sportacus is the Alpha version of a fitness cyborg.
How else would his Weaksauce Weakness be processed sugar? His prototype, Number Nine? The protagonist of Diet GoGo. I believe that Number Nine's method of getting LazyTown healthy and active (i.e.: weaponizing food), was setting a bad example, so his creators fine-tuned Number Ten, a.k.a. Sportacus and scrapped Number Nine for spare parts and covered up his existence by saying he left.
Robbie Rotten was trained by Count Olaf
- Think about it. Both are able to fool people with paper thin disguises and act incredibly hammy. It could be possible that Robbie spent some time in his life being trained by Olaf, and he's trying to get everyone to be lazy so he can get some of the town's fortune because he looks up to Olaf.
Robbie Rotten was a superhero but quit because he got frustrated by the kids going back to their old ways
- Robbie remembers "Number Nine", as made very obvious by his reaction in the very first episode when Sportacus (Number Ten) turns up.
- He has just as much crazy technology, if not more, in his underground lair as Sportacus does in his airship.
- He's rather sprightly and active for somebody who is considered to be the laziest person in Lazytown, as well as easily being the most intelligent person on the entire show (apart from Pixels).
- He has a song where he declares himself and his lookalikes 'Number 1' Sportacus is referred to as 'Number 10' and the previous hero was 'Number 9.'
- In the episode "Once upon a time", a set of loudspeakers in his house activates when Bessy is screaming for help. Plus, he is able to look outside at the town with his pipe devices. Could he have used those to watch over everybody at some point when he was still a hero?
- Jossed twice on these Reddit AMAs, which say Robbie was always a villain, and also isn't Number 9.
Lazytown is in Scotland
There's a surprising amount of evidence for this and the inhabitants having an inbuilt knowledge of British cultural references.- Scotland has a Real Life obesity crisis.
- It wouldn't take Sportacus very long to get from his "island in the North Sea" to somewhere in Scotland. In fact, some of the Scottish islands are in the North Sea.
- A lot of Scotland is very sparsely populated, which explains why there's almost nobody in Lazytown.
- Stephanie getting on a plane to go off to the dancing school at the end of the show makes sense when you consider that in some of the more remote parts of Scotland, air travel is one of the few ways to go to and from those areas. Glasgow and Edinburgh are also so far away from the more southern parts of the UK that the most efficient way to travel to somewhere like London from Scotland and vice versa is by air.
- Mayor Meanswell's bumbling is reminiscent of another bumbling mayor who existed in Real Life; British politician and journalist Boris Johnson. Boris was the Mayor of London at one point.
- Robbie Rotten's campy villain persona is almost pythonesque. Comedy villains like this are a staple of British traditions such as Christmas Pantomimes.
- The surrealist look of the town could remind somebody of the animations used in Monty Python films and sketches.
- The aforementioned theory that Sportacus is a Time Lord; Doctor Who is a British show and The Doctor spends most of his time on earth in Britain.
- In the British version of the show, Pixels, Stingy and Trixie have British accents.
Robbie Rotten has parallels with Hades, the Ancient Greek god of the Underworld
- He lives underground, for a start.
- There's no other human/puppet life in his lair apart from him.
- He may be the designated villain of the town but he's still invited to things like Christmas parties and they were totally fine with him joining in with the Bing Bang song in one episode.
- Like Disney's version of Hades in the animated film Hercules, Robbie has quite the knack for humour and dry wit.
- Hades, like Robbie, is a trickster and manipulator, both in the original Greek mythology and in the Disney film mentioned above.
Pixels has a form of autistic spectrum disorder
- He's a tech geek, a common stereotype for people with Autism or Asperger's Syndrome.
- He always wears his headphones. Considering that it's very common for people with autistic spectrum conditions to have overly sensitive hearing, they might not just be headphones but also a way of filtering out noise more effectively. Pixels may have even invented and built them himself, knowing how good he is with pretty much any form of technology.
- Before Sportacus came along, Pixels didn't really socialise with the other kids in Lazytown except when video games or computers were involved.
- He's incredibly intelligent but his intelligence is very specialised towards computers and mechanical things. He's still dumb enough to be fooled by Robbie Rotten's terrible disguises.
Robbie Rotten is a Mean Character, Nice Actor in-universe
- When he's Rottenbeard, he seems to really enjoy playing at being a pirate with the kids.
- The fact that he accepts kindness from the townspeople whenever they show it to him.
- The aforementioned parallels with the mythological character Hades, who was never really portrayed as a villain in Greek mythology. A sneaky trickster definitely, but not a full-on bad guy.
- He dotes over his robot dog.
- "Lazy Scouts" could be interpreted as being a critique of the scouts movement, rather than Robbie simply trying to get everyone to be lazy again. It would be a very clever bit of social commentary if so.
The characters have SOULS.
This is how Robbie is able to execute seemingly grueling plans whilst staying lazy. His endurance is so high from having PERSEVERENCE, stuff like that is as trivial and effortless as blinking.Stephanie has DETERMINATION (or KINDNESS). In the first episode, she tries with all her might to get the town's residents up and active again, and finally contacts Sportacus for help. She could also have KINDNESS, since she has a very sweet personality.
Sportacus, I'm not sure. He may have INTEGRITY, since in the game, Having a blue SOUL enabled you to jump during battle, which would fit with him, his color scheme, and his generally earnest personality.
Robbie is a Patriotic, stand-up guy who is trying to stop Sporticus from tarnishing the Town's long-held culture
Robbie only acts "Evil", because the show is really Sportotian Propaganda. The show is produced by the military of Sportonia who want to destroy the town for its vast resources and puppet slaves. You have been brainwashed by this show, and you must break out of it! And most importantly: Don't let your kids watch it! Robbie is in some way related to I. M. Meen
They're both flamboyant villains with enormous egos, impressive chins, fancy suits and rather petty motivations. Meen could possibly be Robbie's father, or uncle. The show exists in the same universe as Greg the Bunny.
Might be one way to explain the puppet members of town. Robbie Rotten is the bastard son of TV's Frank and Mrs. Mavilda who was forgotten
When TV's Frank escaped the clutches of Dr. Clayton Forrester, he returned to Earth and married Mrs. Mavilda, who had just retired from her job as Judy's assistant. The two gave birth to Robbie Rotten, who was sold to an adoption agency because they couldn't take care of him anymore. He was then sent to an adoption agency in Iceland where he was adopted by a mad scientist and became "Number One", LazyTown's first superhero. Robbie Rotten is bound to LazyTown in some way, shape or form.
Despite Robbie complaining about the activity that goes on, he never moves out to find a place where he can laze around in peace, instead opting to try and foil the kids' activity. So, laziness aside, why does Robbie never leave LazyTown behind in pursuit of a quieter life? Why does he not just pack up and take a train out just like how Stephanie took a train in? Because he can't.He's seen wandering around LazyTown a lot, but he's not once stepped foot outside of the place. It could be that Robbie is pretty much trapped in LazyTown for the rest of his life and feels that he might as well try and gain some form of satisfaction from it. The only reason this doesn't apply to Sportacus or the other kids is because Sportacus has been to France and China for the former case, and they have travelled away for the Summer in the case of the latter. Robbie, however, is never seen or implied to have been anywhere outside of LazyTown's borders (as far as we know, anyway).
As for exactly what could trap Robbie in LazyTown in such a way, it's uncertain. Perhaps the consequences for failing as a superhero of LazyTown (going in conjunction with the theory that Robbie was a former superhero)?
Stingy is/will grow up to be an Orange Lantern.
I mean, how would he not fit the role? He'd be able to quote their creed by heart.- "This Orange Lantern is MINE!"
Stephanie is actually in the hospital the whole time; the show is actually a story that her two dads are telling her while she's there.
Her dads would make hand puppets and bring them when they come to visit her. Then they'd use the puppets to act out stories.The reason why there's so much Ho Yay between Sportacus and Robbie? They're Stephanie's dads- even when they're pretending to be characters, they still love each other. The reason only Stephanie, Sportacus and Robbie are human and the rest are puppets? Her dads bring hand puppets to play pretend with her, and incorporate her and themselves into the story. Why does everyone fall for Robbie's flimsy disguises? They're pretending not to notice, because that would stop the game/story. The reason the kids constantly forget the lessons they learn? A result of Stephanie's dads recycling story elements if they can't think of something new to tell her. The reason everyone is obsessed with sports? Maybe her dads are trying to teach Stephanie how to take care of herself. Stephanie could be in the hospital as a result of complications from Type 1 Diabetes, which one of her dads could also have, seeing as he would play Sportacus, who passes out at the slightest taste of processed sugar. Stephanie leaving for dance school on a plane could be her father telling her she'd get out of the hospital soon, if she was sick of it and wanted to go home. When all of the characters are at the beach, it could be that Stephanie and her father are playing at the beach for a short while just to get her out of the hospital for once while her other father stays behind and watches over them to make sure Stephanie doesn't get hurt outside the hospital. Each of the show's episodes could be a new story. Number 9 was the hero who defeated the original Rottenbeard.
Seems obvious, but I just thought I'd throw it out there anyway. Robbie Rotten was the original Rottenbeard.
Related to the above. In the very first episode, Robbie implies he knew, or at least knew of, Sportacus' predecessor. This would explain where Robbie got his limitless scheming resources, why he has a parrot, his instinctual and seemingly visceral contempt for Sportacus, how he knew how the missing piece of the stone slab should be shaped without getting a close look, why his favorite song from the show is You Are a Pirate, and why many of his inventions seem to feature or be inspired by cannons. It would also explain his aversion to good health and physical activity: after his crushing defeat years ago, he's too humiliated to return to sailing, and since he's rich in stolen goods anyway, he just wants to stay at home for the rest of his days and while away his retirement sleeping off the grief. Stingy grows up to be Don Armage.
Just to claim the entire universe as his own. Robbie Rotten's last name isn't Rotten.
It's Robotnik, and Robbie is a descendant of the good Doctor.Both Robbie and Eggman share an improbably high intellectual capacity and are skilled with machines, to the point where they can assemble them within seconds and have technology far beyond the scope of what is thought possible at their fingertips. The two also share Manchild tendencies and, though Robbie fortunately isn't quite as cruel as his ancestor can be, do desire some form of dominance over a location. The only reason Robbie hasn't won is laziness.
Some episodes have him almost win, usually due to overlooking something obvious, and in "Records Day" he attempts to kill Sportacus and nearly succeeds. Between his technology, his disguises that can fool the whole town, his ability to teleport in "Master of Disguise," and some of his plans being legitimately dangerous, it seems like he could cause a lot more damage than he does, but given his main trait is laziness that's likely why he doesn't. Glanni took Penny under his wing as a criminal, and that's why she disappeared from LazyTown after the first play.
Both characters share a love for money and have expensive tastes, and the timing of her disappearance and Glanni's appearance is suspect. The show is set in the same universe as Tokyo Mew Mew
Ryou decided to make a second Mew Mew Project because he got bored and selected LazyTown as the location of the Project. Stephanie already has pink hair so no hair color change is required for her to be Mew Stephanie.Stingy is in some way related to or is a younger Tsutomu from Bust a Groove.
Short temper? Check. Disliked by his peers at times due to his attitude? Check. I mean...They even look the same. If we're going for the "younger Tsutomu" route, my guess is he grew out of his greedy ways, moved out of Lazytown and his name was legally changed to avoid getting bullied. It didn't work because he was bullied for his new mature attitude.Sportacus is an alien (though not a Time Lord).
Think about it. Maybe sugar is bad for him because it's bad for his alien metabolism. Maybe he covers his ears all the time because his ears look different due to being an alien (he could have pointy ears like a Vulcan or maybe his ears are a different colour at the top or something). Maybe his species is naturally more agile than humans (again, like a Vulcan, although I'm not suggesting he is a Vulcan because he lacks the slant eyebrows, stoicism, and ability to go without sleep for ten days. Also, sugar is OK for Vulcans.) And lastly, maybe his unusual name comes from trying to rename himself from an alien name to a human name but not knowing how names work (e.g. he went "This woman's name is Rosalie and she likes roses, I like sports, so I'll call myself Sport... acus.")- Actually, I think Spock says sugar isn't good for Vulcans in the novelization of The Voyage Home, and we all know from Deep Space Nine that Vulcans get drunk on chocolate (Sporty would not be setting a great example for the kids if he went around drunk!)
Robbie's telescope device with the always angry eyes on it is sentient and also an actual LazyTown resident.
The fact that the eyed telescope you know, HAS PUPPETY EYES, and can appear anywhere around the town (even through any window outside and inside the higher level of Pixel's house) is proof of that fact. He just has to be controlled by Robbie and he doesn't have any arms, explaining why he doesn't turn on Robbie and hang out with the kids.In "The Lazy Genie," the genie was Obfuscating Stupidity and being a Literal Genie on purpose.
The genie could probably tell instantly that Robbie was a bad person, or at least didn't appreciate Robbie's selfish attitude. So he intentionally screwed up Robbie's wishes by taking them too literally as a really subtle form of Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal. Some evidence: When the genie makes the healthy foods and sports equipment disappear, they reappear later because Robbie never specified that they had to disappear forever. But when Stingy wishes for Robbie to return from disappearance, Stingy never specifies that he has to return "forever," and yet the genie grants Stingy's wish the way he intended. This implies that the genie is normally a Benevolent Genie unless he dislikes his master.- It should be noted that despite all this, it seems like the genie making Robbie disappear was not intentional, based on the genie's Oh, Crap! reaction. This implies that the genie is fine with messing with his latest master if that person turns out to be a jerk, but he would not intentionally hurt anyone of his own volition.
LazyTown is a micronation.
This would explain the tiny population, the lack of any law enforcement aside from Sportacus (and/or the police officer in the original Icelandic plays), why Pixel also doubles as the town's only tech guy, and why Mayor Meanswell seems to occasionally take up other job positions such as an airplane pilot.The show is actually an adaptation of Stephanie's heavily-sugarcoated letters to her family
I've seen lots of theories for kids' media where it's about a mundane reality being dolled up due to a coma/drugs/trauma/etc, but because I like to be the odd one out, here's a theory where the inverse is the case. It's a bit of a long one and I apologize for that.Stephanie is a young girl who was growing up in a financially challenged family. Her anxious and stressed parents had a hard time affording to take care of her, so they sent her to live with her uncle while they tried to make enough money to better take care of her. They were alright with her going to LazyTown because they were under the impression it was a nice, somewhat fantastical place to live. When Stephanie gets there, she is greeted by an even more run down town, a more distressed mayor, and more people with issues than what are present in the show. She still starts to change the town for the better, but gets hindered by a villain. Not by Robbie Rotten (I'll explain that in a moment), but by Glanni Glæpur, a separate entity that's more of a threat like he is in the plays. Stephanie recognizes him as a renowned criminal, and has to team up with Sportacus on the regular to thwart his actually dangerous schemes. In between thwarting these plans, Stephanie learns the dark (by kids show standards) history of the town, and the darker history of Sportacus, particularly his backstory of being a former child slave who killed his master (Actual character concept that was planned in production, by the way). Finally, the time comes for Stephanie to write to her parents. She wants to help the town, but know her parents would absolutely not let her stay there if they knew what was actually going on. So, she begins writing letters that downplay the situation heavily. The various elements of the show stem from the way she wrote the letters:- The abstract, cartoony architecture represents Stephanie describing the town as idyllic and fun in a deliberately childlike way
- Sportacus being very kind is her trying to make sure her parents believe a very kind spirit is keeping an eye out for her (he already is, but he's a bit aggressive and a bit of a trickster like in the plays)
- Milford being a silly, bumbling guy is her masking her uncle's genuine fears and stress so her mother (his sister) doesn't find out how he's not doing well
- Robbie Rotten is a character Stephanie created to keep her family from finding out an escaped convict and criminal mastermind (well.. to some degree) isn't trying to do her harm on a constant basis. Furthermore, his bumbling nature and less-than-foolproof plans were to make him seem like he's hardly a threat.
- The puppets represent Stephanie heavily masking their problems and general situations, making them seem silly and goofy... like puppets.
- The lack of characters compared to the play stems from a mixture of Stephanie not hanging out with many people outside of the ones we see on the show, and to hide how many people have issues. Jives occasionally gets passing mentions, which is why his house occasionally shows up in the background, and in unseen letters (I.E events outside of episodes), other characters do get brought up
LazyTown is a TV show in-universe, and each episode is staged for the cameras but is based on actual events that happened in the town, though they've been exaggerated a bit — and given musical numbers — for better storytelling.
"Sportacus on the Move!" opens with imagery of viewer fan mail, which basically provides the roots for this theory. Some businesses in the town were closed for a month or two so that each season could be filmed, and Mayor Meanswell got paid in return. Each character who appeared in a episode was given a debriefing prior to filming. Some of the more dangerous stunts (especially involving characters like Robbie Rotten and Sportacus) were filmed with stunt doubles or recreated with CGI. It took roughly three days to film each episode. This would also explain why the first "year" had only 34 stories, the second had 18, and the third and fourth had 13 each — all the other days in LazyTown in the past year were just ordinary days where nothing quite as interesting happened.