History TearJerker / MyFriendlyNeighborhood

** What's also telling is how much his speech also applies to the puppets as well, given how none of the puppets are able to resolve their own issues until an adult figure like Gordon came along. Ricky is very likely the only one who is aware enough of the situation, and this ends up being a huge reason why he's so desperate to keep the antenna up, and later on for Gordon to help him with returning the show to glory: He ''wants'' so badly to help his friends and to help Gordon, but is limited in what he's able to do by himself, and he knows it.

** What's also telling is how much his speech also applies to the puppets as well, given how none of the puppets are able to resolve their own issues until an adult figure like Gordon came along. Ricky is very likely the only one who is aware enough of the situation, and this ends up being a huge reason why he's so desperate to keep the antenna up, and later on for Gordon to help him with returning the show to glory.

'''Ricky:''' I'm talking about our show, Gordon! We show them how to be friendly, and they hate that because they're not friendly.\\

--->'''Ricky''': Gordon, you don't have to do this!\\

'''Ricky''': For what? Gordon, look at this city! The buildings are dark and the streets are empty! No one knows how to be a friendly neighbor! It's a city of shuttered-up hearts, and they need someone to let in the light!

** The corporation who abandoned them aren't some secret evil organization hellbent on demonic rituals or mad experiments; they're just typical companies who left them because they weren't making them any money anymore. It's a far more realistic kind of sadness because of how banal it all is. Even the CEO is shown to have some small degree of sympathy for the puppets in their final letter to them, telling them not to give up hope.

* Ricky, your primary guide and effective face of the puppets initially comes off as the vaguely helpful but also suspicious advisor character, but it soon becomes clear that even he's much more cynical and saddened than he wants to admit, underneath his colorful cheerful exterior. Out of all the puppets, he's entirely aware of how much the horrors of the outside world have made people not only jaded, but unwilling to confront their problems. His bitterly curt speech as George shuts down the antenna speaks for itself:

** Goblette is revealed to be deeply depressed, having no idea how to process complex emotions in relation to war movies that she's been seeing. George's talk with her ends up being very valuable in helping her learn how to process these complicated feelings.

'''Ricky''': For what? Gordon, look at this city! The buildings are dark and the streets are empty! No one knows how to be a friendly neighbor! It's a city of shuttered-up hearts, and they need someone to let in the light!\\

* The puppets themselves, and their backstory. With how many other MascotHorror stories tend to go, you'd expect they are demons or the souls of children who possessed the bodies of puppets they once loved, or that the corporation who created them were doing twisted evil experiments of some kind. But they're none of those things. They're just sentient, formerly loving puppets who fell into madness because they're basically ''children'' who were abandoned and left to rot after their show was cancelled. Combined with them accidentally finding out the horrors of the world by watching television that they weren't mentally ready to deal with or had an adult figure to help them process the more complex elements of the world meant that their minds couldn't take it, and just...broke from it.
** Even the corporation who abandoned them aren't some secret evil organization hellbent on demonic rituals or mad experiments; they're just typical companies who left them because they weren't making them any money anymore. Even the CEO is shown to have some small degree of sympathy for the puppets in their final letter to them, telling them not to give up hope.