Heeeeey, brotheeeeer!
Jay, today....
I am....
matching your wall. (Great commentary)
Jay, after seeing "Finding Dory," I became OBSESSED
with trying to figure out one of THE most important characters
of the entire film:
Gerald.
And, as it turns out, there is a simple three word explanation
for Gerald's character:
Cloud
Cuckoo
Lander.
*Super awesome intro music*
Jay and Ben: Hey, brother!
Gerald honestly just felt a little out of place to me.
Don't get me wrong, he is hysterical, but
while ALL of the other characters are just cartoonized versions of their living counterparts,
Gerald kind of seemed like a cartoon character...
within the cartoon.
Like, he was unrealistic even in a fictional world.
Maybe it's his stunning eyebrow, or vacant gaze, but
he really has no
purpose in the plot of the movie, so what is he doing here?
You could make the argument that he is solely there for basic comic relief.
And that does seem to kind of be the case. He does serve that purpose, but...
this is Pixar we're talking about, and I felt like there just HAD to be more of an explanation as to how this character came to exist.
As I wondered, I started to notice that Gerald was not one of a kind.
Lots of other movies were using characters similar to him.
Like, Footless Fran in "The Good Dinosaur,"
this weird looking chicken in the "Moana" trailers,
heck, even just Becky in "Finding Dory."
Noticing a trend of weird looking birds while we're at it.
Which is kind of fitting, because all these characters come from the same place:
Get it? "Cuckoo," like...
cuckoo bird?....
[Whispering shamefully] Yeah, it's a bad joke...
Unikitty:...and I welcome you all to Cloud Cuckoo Land!
And, before you get ahead of yourself,
no, all of these companies are not making a direct nod to "The Lego Movie,"
nor are any of these characters found in that scene.
The fact that "The Lego Movie" named their place where everything is crazy and positive and awesome...
♪ Everything is awesome! ♪
'Cloud Cuckoo Land' is kind of like how "Avatar" named their unobtainable element:
unobtainium.
Both are tropes used to describe common story elements in fiction.
So, "Lego Movie" using the name of the trope as the name of place IS a little on the nose,
but whatever.
That movie is still awesome.
♪ Everything is awesome! ♪
Getting back on track,
Gerald is just a small example of a character that would come from Cloud Cuckoo Land,
and would be known as a:
And, he is in pretty good company!
Other characters that have been known to come from Cloud Cuckoo Land include:
Kari, the babysitter,
Unikitty,
Kronk,
the Pet Collector,
Dory herself,
and the Queen of all Cloud Cuckoo Landers, Luna Lovegood.
Cloud Cuckoo Landers exist in a story to offer a weird and different perspective than the accepted world view of the other characters.
Like, for example, if you had a character that was highly concerned about how their hair looked
when their parachute wasn't opening.
Their motives may or may not be connected to the actual plot,
like Gerald's desire to sit on a rock.
And, while they may come across as crazy,
they are not.
Everything a Cloud Cuckoo Lander does
makes sense from their point of view
As a result, they make for great comic relief because they behave in such unexpected ways from everyone else.
For example, Luna wears a rather unusual necklace.
Luna: It's a charm, actually.
Luna: Keeps away the nargles.
The key difference here is that Luna is not wearing the pendant to be funny,
she's wearing it to ward off nargles.
It's the fact that WE know that nargles aren't real that makes it funny.
They also serve as great tools to, not only throw off the other characters,
but YOU as the viewer or reader.
Luna: You're not going mad.
Luna: I can see them too.
And often they are, in fact, very smart, they're just very poor communicators.
Ninety percent of the time, they come across as crazy, but
the other ten percent of the time, they're the smartest person in the room.
So, for example, when everyone is getting together to create a plan,
it could be the Cloud Cuckoo Lander that has the best idea, or even has the best solution to a problem.
But because that plan comes specifically from these characters,
it can be discounted by the other characters or even you as the reader or viewer.
So, what is the point of Gerald?
Yeah.....mostly....comic relief...
*disappointed face*
OR IS IT?
Maybe we shouldn't be asking "what is the point of Gerald?" but
what is the point of "Finding Dory?"
Reuniting Dory with her parents? *psh*
No! It's to get Gerald on that rock.
At least from his point of view.
For my question of the day: are you familiar with this type of character? And
who are your favorite Cloud Cuckoo Landers?
Be sure to let us know in the towel section down below.
And, if you would like to learn more about this archetype, we will be sure to leave some articles in the description down below.
Guys, thanks for watching! Be sure to like this video. Subscribe to the channel if you haven't already.
If you'd like to check out more Dory content from us,
you can click right here to find out whether or not Dory should be a Disney princess,
or right here to get Dory's memory loss explained.
Jay, that is everything that I've got for you today, though, man. I will see you on Tuesday.