BoJack Horseman Clean-up -- Revision and Trope Misuse

Some of them might fit, but many of them are plot tropes, and a few are ZCE (like Thousand-Yard Stare and Unable to Cry). Some other examples I think could go, just looking really quickly:

• Ephebophile, because BoJack isn't really attracted to teenagers, just younger women - even in the Penny instance, it was implied that he only tried to sleep with her because she was attracted to him, and if anything he was fulfilling his attraction to Charlotte.
• Even the Guys Want Him, because besides Herb, it's Shipping Goggles. (Also I don't get people who cling to that one guy during the "BoJack screaming naked" scene who's covering himself - it's so subtle it might just be lazy animation.)
• I don't think CamelCase is for names with one capital letter in the middle, but for longer sentences with capital letters. Am I correct?

Might as well ping ~Suave Augustine here as they're adding most of these.

Ah, then the description's kinda confusing.

Edited by mightymewtron on Feb 4th 2021 at 9:21:52 AM

For CamelCase, capital letters in the middle of a name do count.

Is it just me, or is the BoJack/Mr. Peanutbutter section on HoYay.Bo Jack Horseman very gushy? There are valid examples but it feels quite padded, with many of these examples just describing their friendship moments without any mention of what makes them come across as romantic.

This was added to Characters.Bojack Horseman Main Characters:

• Berserk Button: Never tell him Beatrice is a good mom.

ZCE aside, Is this really correct usage? Berserk Button is meant for massive overreactions, and I don't know if "abuse victim gets mad when someone says his abusive mom was a good mom" is really inaccurate. The only case he's depicted as flipping out irrationally in response to someone saying his mom is good is the doll thing.

I don't even remember that ever happening on the show (though based on your comment, it apparently did). So without any context, I would say no, that wouldn't count as an overreaction, but I think it would depend a lot on what Bojack's reaction actually was.

For context, the only really significant bad reaction he's had to hearing his mom's a good mom was throwing her baby doll (which she treated as a baby due to her dementia) off a balcony. It was too harsh, but a Berserk Button has to be repeating, and I don't think he ever did anything that bad in response to hearing Beatrice called a good mom ever again.

Right, it's also not like people were going around saying she was a good mom all that often anyway. I think that entry should be removed.

I found this in GrowingTheBeard.Western Animation

• The first few episodes of BoJack Horseman did little to impress people, looking like a fairly typical adult cartoon with an asshole protagonist and lots of crass humor. By the second half of the first season, however, episodes like "Say Anything" and "The Telescope" came to reveal a surprising amount of dramatic heft, shifting the tone to a nuanced dramedy that became a critical darling in the second season onwards.

Wasn't it intentional for them to start off like the typical adult cartoon, only to subvert itself into a drama? I think the writers had the finger on the pulse from the very start, because you can't just suddenly decide to switch directions like that mid season without reason.

As I said in the other thread, it's still valid even as an Intended Audience Reaction. The fandom is pretty much in agreement that the first few episodes are funny but not as well-constructed and thought-provoking as the later episodes. Plus, Cerebus Retcon is not always synonymous with Growing the Beard.

This, but I think maybe mentioning that this is indeed the Intended Audience Reaction as part of the example might help.

Someone added Entitled Bitch to Diane's page, which I'm pretty sure is misuse and just complaining about her character. She never expects special treatment, and most of what she does ask for is depicted as a legitimate cause.

Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 20th 2021 at 4:55:50 AM

She feels entitled to Bojack's emotional intimacy. When she hears a second-hand garbled account of what went down in New Mexico, she badgers him to share it when he clearly isn't ready and finally writes it into the show the two of them work on together as a passive-aggressive dig at him.

That said, Entitled Bitch / Bastard requires it to be a central part of their characterization, and I don't think it is. She doesn't act entitled more often or more severely than any other character, and less than most. I support the cut.

I mean, she was under the impression that he actually had relations with an underage girl with little other clarifying context. I think she had the right to want more information. Writing it into the script was haphazard of her though, and I wish the show addressed it better, but it stemmed from impulsive rage. Consistently, like you said, she really isn't an Entitled Bitch.

Anyone can "want" anything they want. It makes sense that she WANTED more information. But she wasn't entitled to it.

The show, and indeed the character, has a bad habit of not fully addressing Diane's shitty behavior. Leaking the chapters of One Trick Pony was also massively unprofessional and not okay, no matter how shitty Bojack's reaction to reading the first draft was, and it doesn't feel like Diane ever fully cops to how shitty that was of her.

There IS a pattern of behavior there, and there might be a trope that describes it, but yeah, Entitled Bitch isn't quite right.

Edited by MaiBaloney on Nov 21st 2021 at 1:35:40 AM

I found this entry in Hollywood Pu- sorry, I mean Hollywoo Pudgy.

• BoJack has a beer belly and gets flak from both others and his own brain for his fatness, but is actually in okay shape considering he's a middle-aged alcoholic who struggles with even light exercise.
• Hollyhock's got a bit of a girth, but considering her type of body, it's barely noticeable. Doesn't stop her from becoming self-conscious about it among all the skinny Hollywoo girls. Nor did it stop Beatrice from secretly slipping her some weight-loss pills. By the end of the season the pills have resulted in her visibly losing weight and her clothes not fitting properly along with eventual amphetamine addiction.
• Little Beatrice is said to be overweight by everyone from her classmates to her father, but due to Generic Cuteness and the fact that most of the people in that time period have unreasonably high standards for women, she doesn't look like it.

The last two in particular stick out to me, since looking at her design, Hollyhock is clearly more chubby than the entry implies. And Beatrice as a kid being mocked for her weight is Deliberate Values Dissonance.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Dec 10th 2021 at 5:05:35 AM

Yeah, those all look iffy to me. Bojack has a noticeable belly, Hollyhock is drawn noticeably heavier than other characters (but skinnier as Beatrice' diet pills kick in, in such a way that you don't even notice it on a first viewing), and smol!Beatrice is, as you say, Deliberate Values Dissonance.

Cross-posting with the Self Demonstrating Cleanup Thread, has SelfDemonstrating.Bojack Horseman and SelfDemonstrating.Mr Peanut Butter been brought up here?

These are pages made during the zenith of "MUST MAKE INDIVIDUAL PAGES FOR EVERYTHING BOJACK" and while there's certainly... effort... here, they wind up being pretty dull Self-Demonstrating pages as they come across as less "pages in the unique voice of this character" as "first person pages with a conversational tone."

Mr. Peanutbutter is probably the worst since I think the character might have a tone that can translate to a TVT page but it's just... not there.

Edited by Larkmarn on Nov 14th 2023 at 2:38:12 PM

Wouldn't mind seeing those cut.

A BoJack self demonstrating page would work if he was trying to advertise himself and his work, Season 1 style. He did edit his own Wikipedia page in a similar manner in a promo video.