About time we get to a good Character Analysis on a cartoon villain! Give it up for the Bad Apple from LarryBoy and the Bad Apple!
-Well... we really shouldn't be rooting for her. Know why? She's the bad guy, that's why!
What makes her more memorable than the other LarryBoy villains (for LarryBoy fans, at least)? What makes her creditable? What makes her top-notch? Well, pull up a couch and enjoy what's tempting candy in your hands...
-I say "tempting" because she symbolizes temptation... BTW she makes that perfectly clear several times in the movie... Don't get it? Well, okay. Scratch that. It's not really tempting candy we're dealing with here...
This is my Character Analysis on the Bad Apple.
When I first heard about the LarryBoy and the Bad Apple DVD in July of 2006,
I wasn't sure how to imagine the villain. I mean, I first envisioned the Bad Apple as a guy...
-...for some reason...
until I got my hands on the DVD and saw it for the first time in September of that exact same year.
-I was in 8th grade when I first saw this movie.
I was surprised to see that the Bad Apple was a woman, and that her character was seductive...
-...well, no sh**! She's temptation!
Unlike the Fib and the Rumor Weed, the Bad Apple has a much bigger personality. She's manipulative; she's deceiving; she's ambitious; and she gets things done. What's symbolic about her is that she can be referenced from the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, where the two were tempted by a serpent to eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Life, which was usually seen as the apple. And guess what: that works to the movie's advantage, as well as its message, because the Bad Apple is portrayed as temptation, trapping people into their temptations and looking to conquer.
Not to mention, this villain is smart as heck! If you look closely at the order of people that she entraps into temptation, you'll see that she takes down the Mayor first.
That makes sense, because the Mayor is the one running the city's tricentennial celebration. So, without the Mayor, the celebration is put on hold.
Next, the Bad Apple goes after the reporter Petunia Rhubarb, because she's reporting on the celebration.
-This was questionable, because the Bad Apple could've gone after the news anchor or the TV station itself. Well, she apparently take over the broadcast some way, but hey!
Then, the Bad Apple sets her sights on LarryBoy, because he's the one that can stop her if both the mayor and the media are put on hold.
-You know, this is like going through a chain of commands here. Just saying...
Eventually, she entraps not only LarryBoy,
but also his butler Alfred,
allowing her to carry out her plan to set up her evil funhouse in place of the city's 300th anniversary, so that she can enslave everyone else.
Plus, her voice! Can you really blame a villain for having a seductive voice? Well, sure, she's not Tim Curry or Benedict Cumberbatch, but it's really Cynthia West...
-(pause) You don't know who she is, do you? And don't try to Google it; there's little known about her.
Anyway, it's like the Bad Apple's voice actor got a tip from Tim Curry or someone in that league to have a scary yet seductive voice. It's that good!
Now... where does the Bad Apple fall flat?
-Well, to be fair, there's no such thing as a "perfect" character, especially in the LarryBoy universe...
-And by "fall flat," I mean what her problem is, other than that she can be a real bi-otch sometimes...
One problem is her sidekick Curly.
I know the movie wanted to create that old apple-with-a-worm imagery, but he has little to no personality outside of being a henchman to the Bad Apple.
-Yeah, and come to think of it, clashing a character with little to no personality with a character that has personality can be conflicting.
Plus, Curly seems less memorable than the other characters.
However, I have a theory that if you just picture him as Oscar the Grouch's pet worm,
if he got fed up with Sesame Street and decided to develop a Brooklyn accent and be in the employment of a cruel mistress.
Another problem is her back-story. We get a back-story alright... but it's told through the story of her great uncle... dated back to the discovery of America... with the Pilgrims.
-Uh, nice thought, but what about the Bad Apple herself. Sure, she got her evil personality from someone, but can you elaborate on her past, like her childhood?
Well, either way, that seemed to be enough to say that she's temptation, and she means business.
Another concern is... do you think the Bad Apple would've been too scary for younger audiences? Well, if the Fib from Outer Space was nightmarish, then the Bad Apple is the queen of nightmarish! She wears a cape at the beginning of the movie. But as the movie progresses, what's under that cape are spider legs that she can walk with, jump with, and even threaten people with.
-Yeah, there was a scene where she nearly stuck one of her spider legs into Curly's neck. Seeing that bit as an 8th grader, I couldn't believe I was watching that!
-Suggestive themes? There are a few, but only minor ones. For example, the Bad Apple stripping her cape to reveal spider legs was... a little questionable on how that was done. But just before that, when she and LarryBoy came down the stairs, LarryBoy was looking at her as if to check her out.
And how close she gets to LarryBoy...
(pause) I mean, seeing a character get that close to the movie's hero...
I mean, we're already trying to stomach that scene in The Pebble and the Penguin where Drake tries to get Marina to choose him or suffer the consequences in that one musical number.
However, in this case, instead of an uncomfortable song, we get an uncomfortable reciting of a random poem, along with an acid-trip-like backdrop.
Well, despite the character of the Bad Apple being, in some ways, a little risky, I still think that she's a great villain that goes under-appreciated.
Yeah, this movie may have took chances and outdid itself, but keep in mind that this was something that brought LarryBoy out of the diet-LarryBoy era of the Cartoon Adventures series. In fact, I present a challenge to Big Idea to bring the Bad Apple back, because... (SPOILER ALERT) her spider leg turning off the TV at the end HAD to have meant something!
Whatsoever Critic
Sources:
LarryBoy and the Bad Apple
Sesame Street (that one pic)
The Pebble and the Penguin (that one pic)
Courtesy: Big Idea; Children's Television Workshop; and Don Bluth.
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