Line #28 YMMV/RichieRich


1	!!The Comics:
2	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: According to ''Blog/OccupyRichieRich'', Richie Rich is a depraved, creepy sociopath who uses his friends purely for an audience to his ostentatious displays of wealth, wishes to replace the working class with robots, has a large research branch solely focused in fusing animal and plant life with various types of money (and is a genetic monstrosity himself à la T-1000), and has an obsession with money puns which borders on the pathological.
3	* EpilepticTrees: [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Bart and Lisa Simpson]] postulate that WesternAnimation/{{Casper}} is the ghost of Richie Rich, based on their similar appearances; Lisa thinks Richie committed suicide when he realized how hollow the pursuit of money is.
4	* EscapistCharacter: A kid with practically unlimited wealth, a seemingly endless mansion and estate with everything imaginable, loving parents, a supportive entourage including the perfect butler/valet, a do-anything robot maid, a brilliant scientist/inventor, a loyal pet dog and friends his own age, and he (like his parents) isn't a SpoiledBrat or a [[RichBitch Rich Jerk]] but [[NiceGuy fundamentally good-natured]] and used as a {{Foil}} for genuine examples of the former.
5	* MorePopularSpinOff: Richie Rich started out as a supporting feature in the ''Little Dot'' comics. After Richie got his own series in 1960, he became [[Creator/HarveyComics Harvey Comics']] flagship character.
6	* RoboShip: Irona seems ''awfully'' attached to Richie.
7	* ToyShip: Richie and Gloria.
8	* ValuesDissonance:
9	** As time goes on and awareness of the failure of the American Dream spreads, it gets harder and harder to read a comic book about a rich kid who only uses their vast wealth to amuse themselves. Though his ''parents'' are philanthropists and his kid friends are comfortably generic middle-class or above, heavier issues like poverty and social inequalities are simply outside the scope of the comics.
10	** As pointed out by WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic, ''Blog/OccupyRichieRich'' and ''Podcast/WeHateMovies'', a series entirely built around ostentatious wealth which is spent in conspicuous, frivolous ways isn't quite as amusing in times of economic crisis when many people are out of work or struggling just to get by. This is also a possible factor in the Creator/{{Netflix}} reboot flopping.
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13	!!The 1994 film:
14	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: In the 1994 movie, Ferguson probably feels unappreciated with his service, as shown when Cadbury threatens him for manhandling Richie. Hence why Ferguson is willing to serve Van Dough.
15	* EscapistCharacter: Downplayed from the comics since Richie is shown to suffer a bit of burnout and loneliness. But still, Richie is a kid with access to both a rollercoaster ''and'' a [=McDonalds=] in his own house.
16	* FairForItsDay: While the movie is criticized for glorifying massive wealth, an enormous taboo in the less prosperous years of the 21st century, it is much deeper than given credit.
17	** While the Rich parents aren't perfect, they promote good benefits and job security for their workers and donate large amounts of wealth to the community. [[spoiler: The fact that their family treasure is their happy memories, not wealth, is a good swipe at those who put cash above anything else]].
18	** The film often lambasts downsizing and outright corporate fraud, with Reginald and Van Dough being rightly regarded as bad for pushing both strategies.
19	** Richie can come across as spoiled, but he is shown to be NiceToTheWaiter: he treats Cadbury as a second father and attacks one of his bratty classmates for mistreating his butler. He finds friends to be just as important as the money in his bank.
20	* GeniusBonus:
21	** The scheme Reginald describes to avert a hypothetical dismissal, lying about a potential takeover, is known as a "pump and dump," in which disinformation is spread to artificially jack up the price of a stock. Enron and Stratton Oakmont (made famous by ''Film/TheWolfOfWallStreet'') are notorious examples of firms that kept themselves afloat through manipulation.
22	** Richie and his father wanting to do good while running the company reflects the importance of goodwill: in accounting, goodwill, the reputation assigned to a company or brand, is considered to be as much of an asset as the physical properties of that company.
23	* HarsherInHindsight: A ''lot'' of the jokes and plot points in the movie have gone from being "silly" to "unexpectedly sharp political commentary" since the TurnOfTheMillennium.
24	** In the 1994 film, jokes about the U.S. President looking for a loan aren't very funny in light of the Economic bailouts during the 2007 recession. One of said jokes has Mr. Rich telling the President "[[CaptainObvious when a country spends more than it earns, it goes into debt]]", with the latter looking utterly perplexed by this. Again, pretty uncomfortable with sovereign debt crises all around the world. The ability of a prosperous businessman to bribe the chief executive also is painful in the wake of Citizens United and the increasing power of corporations over politics.
25	** Van Dough gushes at the idea of shutting down the local tool factory to break the union. With the passage of [=NAFTA=] the year the movie came out and China's entry into the [=WTO=] the next decade, millions of factory workers who didn't have a generous employer would undergo this fate.
26	** In general, Van Dough's ruthless corporate policies, which [[ObviouslyEvil already made him an archetypical 1990s villain]], have led to the decline and outright collapse of major companies like General Electic with terrible consequences for the American working class.
27	** Cadbury's "they're probably not even vaccinated!" comment seems a little less overtly paranoid after anti-vaccination stances entered the public eye in TheNewTens. The UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic only adds to this.
28	** Reginald's hypothetical strategy for avoiding a dismissal is lying about a takeover and then selling his shares. Within a decade of this movie's release, corporate scandals like Enron would reveal companies pulling similar scams to raise the stock price.
29	** Van Dough planned to kill Cadbury and made it look like a suicide by hanging. In 2019, finance and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his jail cell from an apparent hanging, with many people suspecting foul play and a staged suicide.
30	** The Riches' plane getting blown up is even more uncomfortable to watch with the growth of international terrorism since the late 1990s.
31	* InferredHolocaust: While the film ends triumphantly, with Richie enjoying money ''and'' close friends, he will likely be traumatized by all the horrors he and his parents have been through.
32	* MoralEventHorizon: If Van Dough trying to kill the Richs by bombing their plane, and later framing Cadbury for it, wasn't bad enough, Van Dough definitely sails over the horizon when he finds out the mountain doesn't have the Rich's money stored in it. He [[VillainousBreakdown loses it]] and tries to kill the Rich family, pretty much just ForTheEvulz.
33	* {{Nightmare Fuel}}:
34	** Keenbean's adhesive is inherently terrifying. It's strong enough to stick a large anvil to a wall, no dry/cure time required. Ferguson gets a towel stuck to his face and has to carve it off with a knife, and there's still a few bits left and plenty of bloody cuts.
35	** The [[ConveyorBeltODoom molecular reorganizer]] in the movie.
36	** The 'Dad Link' for the brief moment that the eye pupils of the virtual face get bigger.
37	** Van Dough is willing to ''blow up'' his boss, the boss' wife, and the boss' son to make himself richer. He even is willing to shoot the parents, and Richie, in cold blood.
38	** Ferguson, the man in charge of the Rich family's security, is the one who betrays them.
39	* OneSceneWonder: Ben Stein makes much of his short screen time as Richie's business professor.
40	* SignatureScene: [[spoiler: The scene where the Rich Family Vault is opened and is revealed to be full of momentos instead of hoarded wealth is considered to be a great moment in an otherwise average movie.]]
41	* TearJerker: [[TearJerker/RichieRich See here]].
42	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter:
43	** Reginald appears as Richie's pompous and bratty rival in several scenes. The movie seems to set up the rivalry from the comics, but he vanishes from the film after two scenes.
44	** The kids from Richie's school, despite not having free time to hangout with him, not only like him but can probably relate to him better than Gloria and her friends. This would automatically solve the LonelyRichKid subplot, but they are absent for contrived reasons.
45	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: The business school for rich kids only appears for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZlL0LLfjKY one scene]] in the film. Overall, the only purpose the scene serves is to make it clear to the viewers that Richie is unable to properly hang out with other rich kids as friends after school. One does have to wonder though how different this movie would have turned out if the film focused more on the business school setting of Richie's life rather than going the "rich kid befriends normal kids" route.
46	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece:
47	** This is the 1990s, so hardly any kid or adult is depicted as holding a smartphone or using a laptop, minus a scene with a StatusCellPhone. Richie's [=DadLink=], technology a super-rich kid could possess in the mid-90s, comes across as ridiculously outdated since even the average Joe had access to Skype and Bluetooth since the 2000s. A cutthroat businessman like Van Dough might be seen checking his stocks on a laptop or an app on his phone.
48	** Richie's "poor" friends have a stable middle-class life that has become increasingly out of reach over the 21st century.
49	* ValuesDissonance:
50	** Richard Rich is depicted as a good guy because he helps out his employees and donates much of his wealth to charity. In the 90s, men like Richard Sr. were celebrated as capitalist heroes. In recent years, more significant skepticism and scrutiny of corporate philanthropy mean that Richard comes across as paternalistic ''at best'' while others might see his charity as a [=PR=] facade.
51	** A movie about a kid with a ton of wealth to throw around isn't as entertaining in the early 21st century, with income inequality and rising living costs a significant issue.
52	* ValuesResonance:
53	** The conflict between Richard and Van Dough over what a corporation owes its employees, with Richard supporting high wages and Van Dough supporting cutthroat capitalism, has gained more relevance in light of the Great Recession and ''especially'' the Great Resignation as millions of Americans have quit their jobs after years of stagnant wages and rising living costs, putting the policies of people like Van Dough under greater scrutiny, especially as these policies have led to once reputable companies like General Electric and Lehman Brothers declining or outright collapsing.
54	** The fact that Reggie is disliked for not merely being a SpoiledBrat, but for being a wannabe CorruptCorporateExecutive that would pull scams is relevant in light of numerous acts of corporate malfeasance in the 21st century.
55	* VindicatedByHistory: In light of the poorly received Netflix reboot, some people have begun looking at the 1994 film a bit more fairly, saying that while the Richie of that film was still pretty spoiled and stereotypical, at least he showed some vulnerabilities.
56	* {{Wangst}}: Richie comes from a family wealthy enough that have their own personal Mount Rushmore...and yet we're supposed to pity his lack of friends for after school play dates.
57	* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: The film is supposedly a light-hearted 90s movie about friendship...as well as corporate fraud, conspiracies, assassination, and a kid being shot '''in the chest'''. [[note]]He survives, but still[[/note]]
58	* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical:
59	** While the film is mostly light-hearted, at multiple times, it takes a huge swipe at downsizing and yuppie capitalism and makes a strong defense of employer-guaranteed employment. The former, embodied by Reginald and Van Dough, is not just bad for the working man, but detrimental to the bottom line in the long run. The latter, embodied by Richie and his father, not only helps the working man but is more sustainable for the bottom line.
60	** Furthermore, the film also had a fiscally conservative Libertarian tone. This is more pronounced in a scene where Richie Rich told a joke to the president about national debt along with focusing on employers being the ones who should be responsible for their employees.
61	** The fact that Reggie could walk away from a potential scam due to being a minor is also a swipe at rich people having greater impunity from the law than most people.
62	* TheWoobie: Despite being the "Richest Kid in the World", Richie is unhappy with his life. Mostly because he has no real friends. His classmates in school are always too busy and find Richie odd for wanting to "hang out" like "normal kids". He tried to make friends with regular kids, but at first they tell him he doesn't "belong".
63	* {{Woolseyism}}: In the French dub, Van Dough's line "Thank you, Beavis and Butt-Head" is replaced with "Looks like Homer and Marge." Which works a lot better.
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66	!!The Live-action series
67	* FanonDiscontinuity: Fans of the original comics don't want to acknowledge [[Series/RichieRich the 2015 live-action series]] even existing because it's [[InNameOnly nothing like the comics]].
68	* RetroactiveRecognition: Creator/JennaOrtega went from playing an amoral friend of a rich, eccentric family to playing an [[{{Series/Wednesday}} amoral member of a rich, eccentric family]].
69	* {{Squick}}: Audiences were apparently supposed to find it funny that a prepubescent kid had a robot maid who he dressed according to his fetishes.

Context YMMV / RichieRich