My Thoughts on "Ruby Gloom"
Note:
This was originally written on Thursday January 12, 2023, and was posted on DeviantART on Thursday January 26, 2023. I decided to write this review because I had watched Wednesday, that live action Addams Family spin-off series on Netflix focused on Wednesday Addams, the most popular character in the Addams Family franchise. I probably should've have posted that before this, but I can always repost it later on in the month. It's not really required reading to understand this, but it just helps give context for why I decided to write about this show. Besides, I want to repost my WALL•E review first because I have some things to say about Pixar in the note for that review that I haven't really been able to say since I haven't had any reason or excuse to vent about Pixar.
But anyway, watching Wednesday not only made want to watch more Addams Family related material, but it also made want to watch other gothic movies or shows, particularly gothic cartoons. I mention this at the beginning of my review, so I won't bore you with reiterating what I said since you can just read what I said down below, but basically, I revisited Growing Up Creepie 🕷️🕸️, a gothic cartoon that originally aired on Discovery Kids, and was about a goth girl ♀︎ named Creepie Creecher who was adopted and raised by a family of talking insects. Her mother is a talking praying mantis and her father is a talking mosquito 🦟. He's a male mosquito ♂︎🦟, so that means that he doesn't drink blood 🩸 and only drinks flower nectar 🌼 since it's only female mosquitos ♀︎🦟 that drink blood 🩸 since they need the protein to produce and lay eggs. But, he still talks like a stereotypical East European vampire 🧛♂️ like Dracula though. He even refers to his human daughter as "Creepula."
That was the only gothic cartoon that I really only watched and got into as a kid, as I couldn't really into the other gothic cartoon that every goth kid loved watching in the 2000s, Invader Zim. So, when Wednesday got me in a bit of a goth kick, I decided to watch some episodes of that show, and it was through rewatching episodes of that show on YouTube that I was introduced to Ruby Gloom. I only found about this show because I was watching a Jordan Fringe video about Growing Up Creepie 🕷️🕸️ at the time, and I saw all kinds of comments mentioning this show I had never heard of before called Ruby Gloom, and they said that it was just like Growing Up Creepie 🕷️🕸️.
Naturally, I was curious, and I decided to watch a few episodes, and I actually really liked it. I won't write about my full thoughts on it here in this note since that's what the review is for. What I will say is that I was struck by how the characters in the show are really nothing like that other goth characters in other cartoon shows. In fact, they aren't really goth at all since they're all monsters or spooky animals like crows 🐦⬛, bats 🦇, or a Venus fly trap looking thing. The only characters who are actually dress in a typical goth style and could be considered goth are Ruby herself, Misery, and Iris. Misery is probably the most typically goth out of the three of them. But even then, these characters really aren't anything like other goth characters you typically see in other cartoon made for kids, or even for adults.
Most goth characters in animation tend to be very cynical, misanthropic, and sort of like activist types. Like, how many goth characters have you seen in media meant how they're vegetarians or how they talk about how bad capitalism is, or how they care about environment and also love animals more than people? I've seen a lot. They also tend to be kind of mean, and very dismissive of people who aren't like them. Two of the most well-known and prominent goth characters in animation would have to Sam from Danny Phantom and Gwen from the Total Drama franchise, and they both have the qualities I mentioned, especially the stuff about being vegetarians and being activist types and being mean and dismissive of non-goths.
Wednesday also fits into this too, only she isn't vegetarian, she isn't a blazing liberal or leftist activist, and she couldn't care less about the world. I mean, she loves it when bad things happen, and she loves inflicting pain and torment on others, especially her younger brother, Pugsley. Need I mention that she uses grenades to catch fish 🐟? She's definitely no animal lover, except for spiders 🕷️ and scorpions 🦂. Wednesday is mostly in a category of her own, but she does sort of fit into the archetype of the mean and misanthropic goth character.
And I guess that one girl ♀︎ from Bless the Harts, Violet Hart also counts too. I mean, she's kind of goth, but not really, she's more punk girl ♀︎ or emo, and emos are considered a different thing from just being goth. But, she's a vegetarian, and is cynical, and dismissive towards her family who are not like her at all. So, she has a lot of typical goth girl ♀︎ traits and tropes, and is kind of a clichéd character. I've never seen Bless the Harts, I'm just going by what was shown in the trailer, but it really didn't look all that good, and Violet really didn't leave a good first impression. Let's just leave it at that.
The only goth character who isn't like that is Creepie. Creepie's a goth, yes, but she is actually really nice, and is open minded, and doesn't judge others and just wants to get along with everyone and live in peace. The only people she's sort of hostile to are Carla and Melanie, but that's because they're mean and obnoxious popular girls ♀︎ who are always bullying her and her friends. And she's also hostile towards anyone who tries to harm insects, especially anyone in her family. So, you could say, she's an animal lover, but she's mostly just an insect lover, and she doesn't love insects over humans, she likes humans too so long as they don't harm her, her family, or any innocent bug who isn't doing anything wrong.
Another goth character who isn't like that basic archetype I laid out is Lucy Loud from The Loud House. Sort of like Creepie, while she is a goth, she's very nice and polite, and is open-minded, most of time. She's quiet and introverted, but she's not a depressed shut-in, and while she does have a dry sense of humor, she isn't cynical or misanthropic. She also isn't particular political either like some goth characters tend to be. Her only passions are poetry and the macabre. She's really into death 💀, and is really passionate about the mortician field.
She's practically, a mortician already since she's always providing funeral service for anyone in Royal Woods who wants it. She's also a fortune teller and likes to read tarot cards and look through magic balls. And she can cast magic spells and communicate with ghosts and spirits 👻. She is dismissive of other non-goths, and her group of friends in the Mortician's Club refer to non-goths as "normies," but they eventually grow out of this, and learn to stop judging people and accept them for who they are. They also learn that just because you're goth, that doesn't mean you can't enjoy things are not typically goth, like going to the beach 🏖️.
Also, she's not a vegetarian. She's eaten meat on quite a few occasions. I mean, you can't exactly be a vampire 🧛♀️ if you're against the idea of eating animals or animal based foods. Blood 🩸 comes from animals, and humans, and despite the movie, Daybreakers, there is no such thing as "synthetic blood 🩸." And that's one of the things Lucy always talks about. She always talks about wanting to be a vampire 🧛♀️, or at the very least, marry a vampire 🧛♂️, specifically, her favorite fictional vampire character 🧛♂️, Edwin from her favorite vampire TV show 🧛, Vampires of Melancholia, or VOM for short. I guess all of my favorite goth characters in fiction tend to be ones who aren't mean and aren't vegetarians.
But anyway, so there are certain traits and tropes associated with goth characters in fiction, particularly animation, and while there are exceptions like the ones I mentioned, this is how most of them are. But, the characters from Ruby Gloom are completely different, even from those exceptions that I mentioned. They are very nice, polite, welcoming, trusting, and hospitable. They're very trusting of others, perhaps a little too much. They're not cynical or pessimistic, they're very optimistic, pure, and innocent, almost to a sickening degree. They're very extroverted and happy-go-lucky, the complete opposite of most goth characters you see in fiction.
This is the most exemplified in the show's title character, Ruby. She has a very warm and bubbly personality, rather than a gloomy one like her last name would suggest. She sort of has that "big sister energy," where she's the main caretaker of the house they all live in, and she's always trying to take care of her friends, who are more like siblings than her friends. They're sort of like a family, and Ruby is definitely the matriarch of that family. She has a maturity to her that the other characters living in the house don't have.
In all honesty, if Ruby wasn't there to bring order and calm to the chaos that is the Gloom house, the whole thing would fall apart like a house of cards. That's how dependent everyone in that house is on her. She's always trying to help others, and others are always asking for her help because she seemingly always knows what to do. The original pilot, if that video I link to in the review is the actual pilot, presents Ruby in a much more typical gothic fashion, where she lives up more to her last name and is very dark and gloomy. I am so glad that they didn't go in that direction with her in the series itself, as it makes her more unique.
To put it simply, these characters are less like the Addams Family and more like the Munsters. There's a reason why I called this show the "gothic Winnie the Pooh" in the review as you'll see. But, that being said, Misery kind of holds the same position within the Ruby Gloom series that Wednesday Addams does in the Addams Family franchise where she's the most popular character and overshadows every other character.
In this way, you can definitely tell that this show is Canadian 🇨🇦. Not just in terms of the accents and how the characters pronounce certain words, but in how they're portrayed and how they behave. They don't have a single mean or cynical bone in their bodies (no pun intended). They're nice to a fault. I mean, Growing Up Creepie 🕷️🕸️ is kind of a Canadian show 🇨🇦. It was more of a Canadian-American co-production 🇺🇸🇨🇦. But, this show is way more Canadian 🇨🇦 than that show.
In fact, this show's more Canadian 🇨🇦 than Total Drama, even though Total Drama is set in Canada 🇨🇦 (most of the time), and all the characters are Canadians 🇨🇦. This truly is the most Canadian show 🇨🇦 I've ever seen. The fact that this show was never aired in the United States 🇺🇸 to my knowledge adds to its credentials. But, the fact that it was never aired in the US 🇺🇸 is probably one of the reasons why it is so obscure, and why so few people remember it or have even heard of it.
With that out of the way, I'll you get on with the review. I'll let it speak for itself, and I'll let you read what I have to say about this obscure gothic Canadian cartoon 🇨🇦 from the 2000s. BTW, I don't think I say this in the review itself, but in case you were wondering what Misery is supposed to be, she's supposed to be a banshee. That's why she looks the way she does. Although, I'm not sure if her powers or her susceptibility to bad luck and misfortune are anything like actual banshees in legend.
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Watching Wednesday not only made me really want to watch more Addams Family stuff, including the two animated movies by Illumination, but it also made me want to watch some other goth shows as well. Whether it was rewatching a few episodes of Growing Up Creepie, or watching this show that I'm going to talk about today, Ruby Gloom. In fact, it was through rewatching some episodes of Growing Up Creepie that I discovered Ruby Gloom, because not only was it in the related videos section, but there all of these comments on Growing Up Creepie videos (like the review by YouTuber, Jordan Fringe) mentioning it. They said it reminded them a lot of Ruby Gloom.
I had never seen this show before, or even really heard of it before I saw these comments, or saw the episodes in the related videos section, and that kind of intrigued me. So, I decided to talk the dive and watch this show for the first time. And I ended up really enjoying it. It really feels like a show that my older sister might've watched, if she knew about it, and if it actually aired here in the US 🇺🇸. This is a Canadian show 🇨🇦, you can definitely tell just by hearing the voices and hearing the way they pronounce words like "about," "tomorrow," or "sorry," and I don't know if it ever aired in the US 🇺🇸 or not.
Some Canadian shows 🇨🇦 do end up being aired in the US 🇺🇸 like Total Drama. That's a Canadian show 🇨🇦, but it was aired in the US 🇺🇸, and it was extremely popular in the US 🇺🇸. Same with 6Teen, which was aired around the same time as Total Drama. But, I don't think that this show was ever aired in the US 🇺🇸. I didn't see anything saying that it did, no Americans 🇺🇸 saying that they watched it on TV as a kid, nothing. So, this was probably one of the Canadian cartoon shows 🇨🇦 that stayed in Canada 🇨🇦 until now when the whole thing was uploaded to YouTube.
The best way I can describe Ruby Gloom is that it's like a goth version of Winnie the Pooh, hear me out on this. The show may look gothic and spooky on the outside, but if you look past the shell, you'll see that it's a very light-hearted and wholesome show about a bunch of fun, lovable and somewhat naïve characters with distinct personalities all living together in this huge Victorian or gothic-style mansion, hanging out together, going on relatively low-stakes misadventures, and learning valuable life lessons on the inside. It's just as theme song says, it's the bright side of the dark side.
The show even has its own Eeyore, in the form of Misery, who is hands out the best character in this whole show. Then of course, while we're still doing Pooh comparisons, Scaredy Bat 🦇 is basically this show's equivalent to Piglet, where he's nervous and jumpy all the time and gets scared easily. Poe is basically the show's equivalent to Owl 🦉, and Iris is pretty much the Tigger equivalent. And there is no Mr. Rabbit 🐇, Kanga and Roo 🦘, or Gopher equivalent in this show, so the Pooh comparisons really stop there. This show is certainly it's own beast, despite having some minor similarities to Winnie the Pooh and having the same sort of lightheartedness, wholesomeness, low-stakes, slice-of-life, and innocence of that franchise. Because Pooh is more than just a show or book series 📖, it's a lot more.
The other characters in this show with no Pooh analogues include Skull Boy, Frank and Len, Doom Kitty, Mr. Buns, and Boo-Boo. Skull Boy is basically as his name would suggest, he's a living, talking skeleton 💀 with eyeballs 👁️ who's like a wannabe thespian. He's always putting on different costumes, putting on different accents, and he's always super dramatic. The reason he does all that is that he always believes that his ancestors were different things or he's descended from different kinds of people, and he wants to be like them or follow in their footsteps.
So, for example, one day, he might believe he's descended from a long line of firefighters 🧑🚒👩🚒, so he'll dress up like a firefighter 🧑🚒 and start doing firefighter things 🧑🚒. Another day, he'll believe that he's descended from a line of milkshake/malt makers, so he'll take up being a milkshake/malt maker and run a milkshake/malt store, which actually did happen in one episode that I watched recently.
There's also this thing between him and the main character, Ruby Gloom, like a romantic thing ❤️. When I was watching certain episodes, I was like, "Is there a thing between these two or what?" Like, it seemed to me that these two characters had feelings for each other, but never went the extra mile and started dating; probably because they don't want to make things weird or awkward around the house, since all of these characters live in the same house.
There's Doom Kitty, Ruby's pet cat 🐈⬛. Doom Kitty is interesting because all of her sounds are musical based 🎵. Like, every time she moves or does anything really, she makes a violin noise 🎻. There were other musical sounds she makes, but I don't really remember, but is mainly violin sounds 🎻. She sounds like a violin 🎻, which is definitely unique, that sets her apart from other fictional cat characters 🐈.
She's also by far, the smartest character in this show, and I'm sure the people behind this show would likely agree with me on that. Her only limitation is her inability to speak, but she can communicate through sign language or through charades, but hardly anyone understand her when she tries to communicate in that way. Ruby's the only one that really understands her.
But, Doom Kitty isn't the only companion that Ruby has, she has a stuffed bunny 🐰 named Mr. Buns, who may or may not be alive. Sometimes, it seems like he is alive, and other times, it seems like he's just a regular stuffed animal. Not much to say about his personality as you can imagine.
There's Frank and Len, who are actually apart of the main cast, unlike the next character I'm going to discuss after them. They're basically a two-headed Frankenstein's monster-type character, hence the names, Frank and Len, like they're literally two heads sharing the same body, but they each have different personalities. They're also the musical ones of the group 🎵, like Doom Kitty may make musical sounds 🎵, but Frank and Len are ones who make music 🎵 and are passionate about music 🎵.
They mostly make rock music 🎵, like they have an electric guitar 🎸, an amp, and I think they even have a drum set 🥁. They're probably my least favorite characters in this show though, just because they are so dumb and oblivious. It's very hard to make characters like that likable or endearing, and for me, this show didn't strike that balance with Frank and Len. Len is a lot worse than Frank, like he's the dumbest out of the two of them, but even Frank has his dumb moments.
Like, in the very first episode of this show, where Ruby's trying to plan a surprise party 🥳, and Iris reads her diary 📔, and mistakenly thinks that she's moving out of the house, and there's this game of telephone 📞 where the message gets muddled as it travels further and further from the original source, and when it gets to Frank and Len, they think that Ruby's dying. And even after Ruby reveals that she was just planning a surprise party 🥳, and clears everything up, Frank and Len still think she's dead 🤦♂️, even though she's standing right in front of them talking to them! 😤 They also have a tendency to make things worse, like in the Friday the 13th episode, when Ruby is trying to get a cake stand for the cake 🎂 at the party, Frank and Len just start playing music 🎵 underneath the ladder 🪜 that she's standing on, and end up causing her to fall down. Though, that is far from the only example.
There's also Boo-Boo, the Casper-like ghost character 👻. I don't know if Boo-Boo is supposed to be a boy ♂︎ or a girl ♀︎, though the character is voiced by a voice actress as most kid characters are, even if they are supposed to be boys ♂︎. Most woman ♀︎ have naturally higher-pitched voices, which makes them uniquely well suited to voicing kid characters in animated shows or movies, especially boys ♂︎, boys' voices ♂︎ get lower once they hit puberty. So, an adult male voice actor ♂︎ would probably not be able to voice a boy character ♂︎ convincingly. I do believe they did refer to Boo-Boo as a he in the episodes I saw him in, so I'm going to refer to him as a he from now on. He's not really in the show that much, like all of the other characters I've mentioned so far appear in a lot more episodes than Boo-Boo does.
So, there's really not a whole to go off to in terms of his personality, other than he likes to scare people and prank people (in fact, he likes to prank people more than he does scare people) because you know, he's a ghost 👻, but not with the most 😉. If you get that reference, I'll applaud you 👏. Also, when I hear the name, Boo-Boo, I just think of Boo-Boo from Yogi Bear, it really impossible not to, especially if you're in any way familiar with Hanna-Barbera cartoons like me. That, or I think of that cheap low-budget 1960s superhero movie that Brandon Tenold reviewed on his YouTube channel, Rat Pfink a Boo Boo. It's kind of funny that I mention Brandon Tenold, considering that he's a Canadian YouTuber 🇨🇦, and I'm writing about a Canadian cartoon show 🇨🇦.
And then there's Ruby Gloom herself, the title character of this show. She's sort of supposed to be a rag doll, like a living rag doll, sort of like Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas 🎄🎃. You wouldn't really know that from her design or what they do with her in this episode. They don't do anything with her being a rag doll, like she doesn't lose any of her legs and have sew them back on 🧵🪡, and we don't see if she's full of stuffing, whatever that they stuff they fill dolls and stuffed animals with is called. Maybe, if this show were more edgy, they would've done stuff like that.
You not think this from hearing or reading her name, but she is actually optimistic, bright, and nice. She's probably the nicest and friendliest character in the whole show, and probably even the most selfless character in the whole show. She's always trying to help everyone in the "Gloom house" (I guess you can call it), even when they don't always appreciate it as much as they should, and even when she has little to gain from helping them. She tries to see the good in everyone, even when they do bad things, and have little good in them. She's also always trying to encourage those around her, even when they're doing things are completely ridiculous, illogical, or unnecessary. And very few things actually bring her down, and make her sad 😞, she manages to keep a smile on her face 🙂.
So, the times when she does get sad and down 😞, are a lot more meaningful and powerful than if she always got sad 😞 or cried all the time 😢. I really like her, she's probably my second favorite character in this whole show, next to Misery. She's a really a great title protagonist, and she's a perfect embodiment of the phrase from the opening theme song that I mentioned earlier: "The bright side of the dark side."
Speaking of which, the opening theme song of this show is great 😁👍. It's genuinely one of the best opening theme songs for any cartoon show that I've ever heard, and there are a few great ones out there. I actually like the opening theme of this show more than the opening theme for Growing Up Creepie, the other goth cartoon that's more well known than this one. I really wish that this song was available on iTunes, but unfortunately it's not, not even an instrumental version 😞. But, it is on YouTube, but in its original form with lyrics, and an instrumental version, both in 1080p HD quality 😁.
This show was very different from its pilot episode. I mean, that's not really unusual, a lot of shows end very pretty different from their initial pilots because of the increased amount of time, money 💵, and resources, including the time to refine certain ideas, characters, or storylines. But, no pilot was as different from its final product than Ruby Gloom, like it's literally night and day.
The pilot episode (which can be found on YouTube), if it is indeed genuine, was CGI animated, rather than 2D Flash animated like the final show, and it was a lot darker, morbid, and eerie in tone than the final show. The only characters in the pilot were Ruby herself, Doom Kitty, Mr. Buns, and the crows, Edgar, Allen, and Poe. If this is the real pilot, then I'm guessing the other characters like Misery, Iris, Skull Boy, Frank and Len, and Scaredy Bat hadn't been conceived of at that point.
Ruby's design was also quite different from what it is the final show. For one thing, she had lips 👄, which the final design does not have, and she wearing a black dress of some kind with stripped socks or stockings, rather than a black t-shirt and a pair of striped pants. Her hair was longer, her eyes were shaped different, and she had less eyelashes and they were thick.
Her narration is very dark, kind of macabre, and foreboding, like she talks about how she's living in a Victorian-style mansion by herself, with a few crows, a cat, and her stuffed bunny, and how she rides her tricycle on the roof. And then at the very end she says, "Even though, I'm frowning, I'm happy in my own way. In fact, I am so happy that I could just die." She comes across as more lonely or introverted character in this pilot than she does in the final show. There's like this bluesy jazz song playing in the background.
I don't think I've ever seen such a drastic shift in animation, look, or tone from a pilot to a show than this one. Some people were even joking in the comments on this pilot on YouTube that this pilot is full on emo, and the show is bright and sunny. The fact that this pilot was so dark and dreary compared to the actual show that was made from it, has led a few people to speculate that it was meant to a show for older audiences like teenagers or even full-on adults.
That's probably unlikely since according to the Wikipedia page, this show started out an apparel line. Everything from pencil boxes, backpacks, clothing, keychains, and plush toys. Those are all products that are mostly made for kids, so I highly doubt that when they made a show out of it, that they would make it for teens or adults. If this is the real pilot, my guess as to why it was changed was that they realized that this might be too dark or too scary for kid, and they might need to tone it down a lot, make it more light-hearted and fun rather than dark or dreary.
They might've also felt that it strayed too far from the original intent of the brand by its original creator, Martin Hsu, and the company owned it, Mighty Fine. As for why they switched from 3D animation to 2D animation, my only guess is that they felt that it didn't look good in 3D and looked better in 2D, or they felt that the technology wasn't good or advanced enough to do what they wanted to do, or a combination of both.
If this show ever gets a reboot, which, every older show from the 1990s and the 2000s is getting a reboot or continuation at this point, then they should do it in 3D CG, just as it was originally intended in the pilot. Only this time, it will actually look pretty good, since the technology has advanced so since the original pilot was released, back in 2003.
They probably wouldn't do this, considering the reason why likely made the changes in the first place, but I think it would really cool if they did go with a slightly darker tone for a reboot than the original show. They don't have to go all the way like the pilot did (if it's the real pilot), but maybe tad darker than the original show in its original run. They could even age up the characters to adults if they want, that would be cool to see.
Another cool idea would be if they made movies of the show. They could go the route that Winnie the Pooh did, by giving all the characters (or at least the most popular characters) their own movies. They could make a Misery movie, an Iris movie, or even a Frank and Len movie, though I personally would prefer Misery movie or an Iris movie than a Frank and Len movie 🙄.
But, the show, as it is, is pretty good. It's a very fun and wholesome show, and I do recommend you watch it, even if you aren't necessarily into gothic stuff. For something that looks gothic on the surface, it isn't very gothic in nature. It's not a show that's very hard to find either, pretty much all the episodes (or a good number of them) are on YouTube as I said before. They were uploaded there by the YouTube channel, Treehouse Direct.
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