YMMV / Mafalda

• Anvilicious: Of course, this is due to it being a product of its time, during the time period when South American nations were often ruled by military dictatorships.
• Awesome Music:
  • The 1972 album "El Mundo de Mafalda" has a few decent songs performed by Argentenian singer Francis Smith based on dialogue and scenes from the comics. Stand out examples include "El Manicomio Redondo" ("The Redondo Asylum"), "Me Haces Feliz Si Sonríes" ("You Make Me Happy If You Smile"), "En Tus Tiempos" ("In Your Times"), "Otra Ves Sopa" ("Soup Again"), and "Nunca Está Demás Vivir Un Poco" ("It never hurts to live a little"). The last song is actually an extended version of the show's original theme song.
  • The theme song to the 1982 series (which is also used as background music) is very catchy and energetic.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: This◊, with a dream sequence starring what appear to be Moon inhabitants discussing the "bestiaplanete" ("bestial planet", or "planet filled with beasts", as in "stupid people") nearby. Mafalda even reacts with an "?". (later, they were featured in another strip after the Apollo 11 mission)
• Fan Nickname: Mafalda's dad was never officially named, but "Alberto" and "Pelicarpo" seem to be accepted by some fans.
• Fandom Rivalry: The majority of Mafalda fans despise the comic strip Comic Strip/Gaturro and his author to Nik due to him plagiarizing Quino's strips, with the late Quino openly expressing his disdain for Nik during his lifetime and refering to him as a shameless thief.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Though only released a couple years back, the comic proved to be a hit in Indonesia due to its relevancy with current events in the country. In fact, in the foreword the publisher mentioned that this was the exact reason they decided to publish the series.
• Growing the Beard: Mafalda spends a lot of the first strips antagonizing her parents. She becomes much more likable with the introduction of Felipe and Manolito, and the True Companionship is fully formed with the arrival of Susanita. By the time Miguelito is introduced, the strip has really hits its stride.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • A strip where Manolito asks if school teachers still hit their students, Felipe replies that's no longer true, and Manolito, with a wide smile, exclaims "Now students hit their teachers?" Given that there's been a rise on student on teacher violence in the last decades, one could say that Manolito's guess became Metaphorically True.
  • The Norway strip. Mafalda wonders why nobody talks about Norway and concludes that "violence has a bigger rating than codfish". In July 2011, terrorist shootings/bombings took place in Norway.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In one strip, Mafalda wondered why a woman couldn't be president. A year after Quino retired the strip, Isabel Martinez was sworn President of Argentina, and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was elected in 2007.
  • The "Mafalda's jetpack" Running Gag became even funnier in 2017, when Dubai firefighters started using water jetpacks to trek through fires.
• Movement Mascot: Mafalda has been chosen by UNICEF (United Nations' children protection area), no less, to represent Children's rights worldwide. The comic strip has been labeled as "Peanuts with politics", and Mafalda herself represents the children's voice and left a mark not just in Latin America but the rest of the world, reason more than enough to be chosen by UNICEF as their fictional representant.
• One-Scene Wonder: While most adults react to Mafalda's questions or bizarre metaphorical statements with awkwardness, terror and/or annoyance, one elderly locksmith manages to outsmart her:
  Mafalda: Good morning! I'd like a key to happiness, please.
  Locksmith: [smiling] Certainly, miss. Do you have the original?
  Mafalda: [Thinking to herself, visibly mystified] Clever ol' codger!
• Strawman Has a Point: In one strip, Mafalda starts mentioning to Susanita again of the horrible things that happen in the world; Susanita, who had a look of being fed up of this, responded her with this, even if at the end she kinda ruined it.
  Susanita: And are we guilty of that? No. Can we fix it? No. All we can do now is say "how terrible".
  Susanita: HOW TERRIBLE! Okay, now you yell "how terrible" and let's go play in peace.
• Tear Jerker: One animated short from the 1990s series shows Mafalda and Felipe sadly watching news about various problems around the world (such as riot guard beating protestors, pollution, and starving people). Mafalda sadly turns off the TV to check on her globe to check if it's fever has went down. She then looks at Felipe and shakes her head letting him know it hasn't gone down.
• Values Dissonance:
  • While Mafalda's second-wave-like ideas on women's rights were advanced by the standards of The '60s, they come as more rude and stuck-up than well-intentioned to modern readers and third-wave feminists. Specially when tells her Housewife mother Raquel that she's "useless" and "merely average" because she chose to raise Mafalda at home rather than juggle with work/college and motherhood (once comparing her disfavorably to Libertad's working mother, to her very face). See The Woobie.
  • Also, the multiple references to Manolito being physically disciplined by his dad (and at least once by his mother), as well as a couple of strips where it's implied that Mafalda and Miguelito got spanked, can be seen less humorously depending on your sensibility about corporal punishment.
  • While this was not the strip's original intention, several moments may nowadays be seen as quite politically incorrect outside of the Spanish speaking world, such as a few strips where Mafalda pulls her eyelids back with her hands to look Asian. Also the Spanish idiom trabajar como negro/a (to work like a black person) is used a couple of times in a matter-of-fact way. "Trabajar como negro/a" is still used nowadays, but it's less "work like a black person" and more along the lines of "work like a slave"... not that it's better, depending on who you ask. Many of the people using the idiom are descendants of slaves themselves, so it often is a form of sociocultural retrospective.
• Unintentional Period Piece: For The '60s. Most strips avoid this, but enough of them make enough references to place them in that time period; among them:
  • The hairdos and attire of female background characters.
  • Mafalda's dad having been a fan of Bing Crosby in his youth.
  • The design of some appliances that are no longer made even if some may still be in use.
    • The new TV that Mafalda's dad buys is a square box model television with dials and no remote control.
    • Every character has rotary dial land-line telephones at home.
    • Mafalda's dad owns a brand new Citroën 2CV which stopped production around The '80s.
  • Almost all the children are Beatles fans.
  • Guille has a thing for Brigitte Bardot.
  • Allusions to the US space program include remarks about Gordon Cooper, the Mariner probes and the Moon landing.
  • Constant mentions about the Cold War (The USSR-USA rivalry, Vietnam, the Berlin Wall, the Japanese economic miracle, fear of Red China, and the possibility of atomic war...)
• The Woobie: Raquel veers into this territory whenever Mafalda scolds her for having dropped out of college to marry Dad (going so far as calling her "frustrated" and "average").
  • A particular painful strip had Raquel finding her old pieces of sheet music while cleaning and reminiscing about her piano teacher who thought Raquel would become a great pianist... then, with a sad face thinking "That poor woman... (beat) Poor her?"
  • Another one is when Mafalda has a dream about having the power of flight... and sees Raquel sadly waving at her from the ground, chained to her laundry machine. Thankfully, it's followed by a Heartwarming Moment: Mafalda wakes up, quietly goes to her parents's room and gives the sleeping Raquel a kiss on the cheek before going back to sleep.

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