Line #27 Magazine/RangerRick


1	''Ranger Rick'' (''Ranger Rick's Nature Magazine'' before 1982) is a children's magazine published by the National Wildlife Federation [[LongRunners since 1967]]. The magazine mainly features articles, stories, and activities about animals, the environment, and nature. Every issue contains a comic (a short story before 2000) called "Ranger Rick Adventures", starring the titular raccoon, his deputy Scarlett Fox and the reluctant Boomer Badger, among other animals of Deep Green Wood, exploring the world and protecting the environment [[GreenAesop from human exploitation]]. Originally published as a children's book entitled "The Adventures of Rick Raccoon" in 1959, many characters and plot lines have since been created in more than 50 years of publication.
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3	In 2012, ''Your Big Backyard'', a nature magazine directed to preschoolers also published by the NWF, was rebranded as ''Ranger Rick Jr.'' Like its sister series, each issue includes a short story, this time chronicling the adventures of Ricky Raccoon, a younger, separate raccoon from Ranger Rick, and his friends. In 2017, a new spinoff magazine was released for toddler readers, called ''Ranger Rick Cub''. In 2018, the National Wildlife Federation acquired Magazine/{{Zoobooks}}, rebranding it as ''Ranger Rick Zoobooks''.
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7	!! Tropes
8	* AccessoryWearingCartoonAnimal: Ranger Rick wears nothing but a hat, and Scarlett Fox wears nothing but a scarf.
9	* AlliterativeName: Ranger Rick Raccoon, Boomer Badger, Ollie Otter, Sammy Squirrel, the list goes on... Overlaps with SpeciesSurname.
10	* AllJustADream: One 90s story featured Rick and the gang taking it upon themselves to try to get the latest issue of the magazine published on time. After an ink-splattering mishap ruins all of their work, Rick finally wakes up from the dream.
11	* AnthropomorphicShift: In their appearances from the 80s to the 90s, Scarlett and Boomer were illustrated more realistically, running and sitting on all fours. They are nowadays portrayed as standing on two legs and being more cartoony, as with the rest of the cast.
12	* ArtEvolution: The Ranger Rick stories began with a more realistic hand-painted {{Disneyesque}} art style by Lorin Thompson. In 1982, Alton Langford took over, making the characters look more cutesy. By the TurnOfTheMillennium, the stories were replaced by comics. The series was later remade using CGI, and the current design used since 2016 looks a more stylized design reminiscent of ThickLineAnimation.
13	* BadOlBadger: [[AvertedTrope Averted]] with Boomer Badger, who is a friendly CowardlyLion who'll usually try to hide at the first hint of danger, but he will sometimes get aggressive if something threatens his friends.
14	* BearyFriendly: Cubby Bear was a [[CheerfulChild cheerful]] black bear cub who was a regular character until he was [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome inexplicably removed in 2009]].
15	* BearyFunny: Cubby Bear often got in comic mishaps due to his curiosity.
16	* TheBigBadWolf: Wally Wolf was a recurring antagonist during the early run of the stories who was always planning to eat Ranger Rick and friends. He was later phased out as the later stories tended to focus on environmental concerns.
17	* BlandNameProduct: One story from the mid-90s has Boomer Badger wanting to buy a [[Creator/{{Nintendo}} Contendo 6000]] for Christmas.
18	* TheBusCameBack: Odora Skunk returned in the February 2019 issue after being last seen in 2011.
19	* CharacterOverlap: Sammy Skunk from ''WesternAnimation/WildAnimalBabyExplorers'' is a character in the ''Ranger Rick Jr.'' magazine.
20	* EarlyBirdCameo: Scarlett Fox appeared as a one-time character in a 1983 story. She becomes a main character by 1984.
21	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In the earliest stories from 1967 to around the early 70s, Ranger Rick was the narrator and the stories were written in his point of view. It has since been changed to third-person.
22	* FantasticFoxes: Scarlett Fox is intelligent, loyal, and reliable. No wonder why Ranger Rick himself chose her to be his deputy. She has her own section in the magazines where she answers reader-submitted questions about wildlife called "Ask Scarlett".
23	* {{Flanderization}}: Ranger Rick used to be a wise mentor figure with a few flaws here and there, but he has become a bland, smart protagonist without any known flaws. Scarlett Fox used to be a clever and loyal deputy who cannot stand those who disregard order, especially with Boomer, but now her personality is more or less the same as Rick's. And Boomer Badger used to be a lazy and clueless one who cared little about nature who eventually learns his lesson. He acts quite similar nowadays, but now he is obsessed with human technology and gadgets more than ever.
24	* {{Foil}}: Boomer's recklessness serves as this to the more serious Scarlett.
25	* GreenAesop: Many stories and comics are about conservation of nature and protecting the environment. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] as the magazine is published by the National Wildlife Federation.
26	* LazyBum: Boomer Badger prefers to sleep or play games than taking care of the environment. Many stories has Boomer learning his lesson, [[AesopAmnesia only for him to forget it by the next story.]]
27	* ALizardNamedLiz: Odora Skunk. She is affectionately nicknamed "Odie" by friends.
28	** Wise Old Owl from the older issues certainly qualifies.
29	* LongRunners: The magazine's first issue was in January 1967, and is currently running for more than 55 years.
30	* TheOwlKnowingOne: Wise Old Owl, Deep Green Wood's resident knowledgeable one during the 60's and 70's.
31	* PlayfulOtter: Ollie Otter (and his SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Reggie Otter) love fun and splashing in the water. He used to host the activity pages for a brief time in the 60s.
32	* RascallyRaccoon: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] by Ranger Rick, who was quick and cunning in older stories, but never outright antagonistic. [[AvertedTrope Averted]] in more recent issues, as he is portrayed as a generic NiceGuy.
33	* ReptilesAreAbhorrent: This magazine, of all places, used this trope off and on:
34	** Uncomfortably applied in one issue. There was a short story in which Rick and his gang help an Ocelot in Texas and are menaced by an alligator, who was explicitly described as a villain. This was jarring considering it was the only time an animal filled the antagonistic role; usually HumansAreBastards (they staunchly used the Humans Are Misguided subtrope). Even worse? The very next issue Rick and co. head to Florida to help... alligators.
35	** The magazine also had a series of nonfiction books about animals and of those, one of the most beloved is ''The Unhuggables''. It did all it could to discredit this trope (though it's telling that snakes get their own chapter to themselves) as well as CarnivoresAreMean and (as you could probably guess from the so-close-to-being-the-[[TropeNamers TropeNamer-title]]) WhatMeasureIsANonCute.
36	* RecapEpisode: The June 1994 story involves Ranger Rick and the gang recalling the events of previous issues. Also doubles as a WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue as it shows the aftermaths of their efforts since time passed.
37	* {{Retcon}}: In the January 2017 comic retelling Ranger Rick's origin story, when he first entered Deep Green Wood, Boomer Badger and Scarlett Fox were already residents. In the original stories, Ranger Rick already lived there, while Boomer and Scarlett joined the gang during The80s.
38	* RoleCalled: '''Ranger''' Rick, Deep Green Wood's park ranger.
39	* SmellySkunk: Odora Skunk, [[ALizardNamedLiz right down to her name]].
40	* SpeciesSurname: Almost all of the residents of Deep Green Wood follow this naming convention.
41	* TokenHuman: Ranger Tom was a human park ranger whom Ranger Rick often asks for advice. He was a supporting character from 1967 to the early 1980s. It is [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness understandable]] as to why he was removed, as later stories tended to portray Deep Green Wood as a MouseWorld of sorts.
42	* UnderTheMistletoe: The December 1990 issue has the characters meeting and interviewing Alton Langford (the illustrator at the time). As a gift to Ranger Rick, he draws [[https://sites.google.com/site/classicrangerrick/christmas-with-ranger-rick Rick getting kissed by Scarlett under the mistletoe]].
43	* WhatMeasureIsANonCute: One issue had a short story (later adapted into a comic in 2023) [[LampshadeHanging that pointed this trope out]] rather directly. The animals of Deep Green Wood propose holding a support group for all severely endangered animals. Everyone is all for it, except for Boomer Badger, who was extremely unsympathetic to the plights of the less cute and cuddly animals like the Komodo Dragon. That night, Boomer has a nightmare in which badgers had been put on the world's cut list and would go extinct unless Boomer alone could plead their case, and he realized his hypocrisy.
44	-->"I matter ''because I'm here!''"
45	** There was also a ''Ranger Rick'' book entitled ''The Unhuggables'', and it was all about the animals unfairly affected by this trope, so good on National Wildlife Federation.
46	* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: In one story from the 1990's, Scarlett was shown to have a fear of leeches. When questioned about it, she said that everyone had something they couldn't stand, and for her, leeches were it.

Context Magazine / RangerRick