Post by djnyr on Apr 2, 2021 12:14:25 GMT
Basically, what happens with Manny the Gargoyle is that the Blot IDs him as the Headless Man-Horse of the Apocalypse, Gyro snaps "nonsense, he's just an intern"; the Blot then uses the bagpipe to bring Manny's Scrooge-statute head to life (which I guess is supposed to explain how he can talk, if you can overlook that the head isn't actually connected to his vocal chords or lungs in any way), but then uses the bagpipe to freeze his body. There's some idiotic dialogue in which the Blot rants about how Manny is fated to bring about the End of Days, and Manny protests "People change, man; I'm just trying to live a normal life". Lena and Violet come to Manny's rescue, and Manny, after stating that he swore "never to do this again," grows out a horse head and a pair of wings to the accompaniment of the Gargoyles theme--only to shortly afterwards get captured and put into the containment units in the FOWL arena along with everybody else. There's no more explanation of who or what he was, or why he apparently went around without his wings or head for years when he could grow them out at will--just the theme music and two dramatic deliveries of the line "I live again!" (which, typically, are both undercut with deflating humor a second later) to give a shout-out to Gargoyles fans, who, from what I've seen elsewhere on the Web, are filling in the blanks and assuming that Manny is part of one of the Gargoyle "clans" from that series. When a plot element is entirely incomprehensible except to people who are familiar with the world and backstory of another show, then it has no business being there in the first place.
Of course, Manny was always a ridiculous and unfunny non sequitur of a "character," so I supposed if he had to be there, he might as well be used to give the Gargoyles fans a thrill; it's not like he served any other purpose. As someone else pointed out here some time ago, he's an emblem of several of the abiding flaws of the series--specifically, its mocking and deliberately mundane treatment of the supernatural, and the creators' self-indulgent love affair with their own silly ideas. When I was about seven years old, I built my own Duckburg out of toy houses and cardboard boxes, populated it with vinyl figurines, and, along with my siblings, acted out many Duck and Mouse adventures of my own invention, ripping off a lot of comics but adding some "ideas" of my own. One of my own invented characters was a sentient automobile motor which acted like a dog and accompanied the characters on several adventures; it was a remnant of a Lego vehicle that came apart in one game, and, inspired by the ending gag of the "Mickey's Service Station" cartoon, I had it chase the villain home at the end of the game--but was then so enamored of the idea that I dopily made it a running character, dubbing it "Horsepower;" my brothers and sisters quickly got tired of having it shoehorned into games where it had no business. Manny is Angones' version of Horsepower: a one-time joke which the creator decided was so funny that he had to inflict it on everyone else till it wore out whatever welcome it had--and, unlike me, Angones doesn't have the excuse of being too young to know better.
Of course, Manny was always a ridiculous and unfunny non sequitur of a "character," so I supposed if he had to be there, he might as well be used to give the Gargoyles fans a thrill; it's not like he served any other purpose. As someone else pointed out here some time ago, he's an emblem of several of the abiding flaws of the series--specifically, its mocking and deliberately mundane treatment of the supernatural, and the creators' self-indulgent love affair with their own silly ideas. When I was about seven years old, I built my own Duckburg out of toy houses and cardboard boxes, populated it with vinyl figurines, and, along with my siblings, acted out many Duck and Mouse adventures of my own invention, ripping off a lot of comics but adding some "ideas" of my own. One of my own invented characters was a sentient automobile motor which acted like a dog and accompanied the characters on several adventures; it was a remnant of a Lego vehicle that came apart in one game, and, inspired by the ending gag of the "Mickey's Service Station" cartoon, I had it chase the villain home at the end of the game--but was then so enamored of the idea that I dopily made it a running character, dubbing it "Horsepower;" my brothers and sisters quickly got tired of having it shoehorned into games where it had no business. Manny is Angones' version of Horsepower: a one-time joke which the creator decided was so funny that he had to inflict it on everyone else till it wore out whatever welcome it had--and, unlike me, Angones doesn't have the excuse of being too young to know better.