Recap / The Tail of Flopsy, Mopsy, and Ted

Before we actually had Widget, Wubbzy, and Walden.

The Tail of Flopsy, Mopsy, and Ted was a story illustrated by Bob Boyle and written by his niece, Viviana Ogawa. The book was made for Fred Seibert's children's book contest, but before that, he pitched a book called Hugo and the Really, Really, Really Long String. He turned said book to Eric Homan, and he loved it. Bob then went to Sacramento to meet up with his niece, where they then worked together to make The Tale of Flopsy, Mopsy, and Ted pretty quickly. This would inspire the other unreleased book, Mopsy Flopsy And Ted. After returning to Los Angeles, he pitched it and the contest holders loved the book more than the first one. The comic and the book together would later become the inspiration behind the Nick Jr. preschooler's cartoon Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, which was also made by Bob Boyle.

The comic had original interpretations of the original three characters: Wubbzy (Mopsy), Widget (Flopsy), and Walden (Ted). In the comic, Mopsy comes to Flopsy, telling her that some creature that she describes as a "big long thing" ate her already small tail. Flopsy then takes Mopsy over to Ted's house, where he tells a story about tails.

This comic contains the following tropes:

• Comic-Book Adaptation: Inverted. This is the first book for Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, and after the pitch, the show started development almost immediately.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Apart from the names, the trio looked different from how they look in the series. Flopsy^note Later renamed Widget lacked clothing, had a visible tail, and looked like a square (which is the shape of the later series' Wubbzy) rather than the round shape of her later counterpart. Mopsy^note Wubbzy was apparently a quadruped girl with a round body and looked more like a hamster than the slightly-gerbil-like design. Ted^note Walden looked the most like his later counterpart, though he lacked a shirt and had different legs and feet.
  • Flopsy and Mopsy lacked set personalities. Flopsy was a Flat Character compared to her later Gadgeteer Genius counterpart known as Widget. Mopsy did cry about her tail being bitten, showing some of the over-emotional side of Wubbzy, the character she would later become.
  • Ted lives in a tree stump, but his later counterpart Walden lives in a giant lab.