Why do cartoon characters have nieces and nephews but not sons and daughters?

Question

I was googling to find some answers but that didnt help so I'm here. Donald Duck has the three nephews then for some reason they shipped between scrooge and him then you got toucan sam, I know I maybe reading too much into this but maybe it has something to do with keeping children from questioning their parents about how babies come into this world or something.

Answer 1

Wow, lol, never really thought that much into it.

Interesting, though, I guess it would be to keep it much more on a kid level--if they had sons or daughters then they'd have to bring in wives, which most kids don't care about romance or even cartoon romance.

And then if they left out the mother, then it'd open up a Pandora's Box about where the kids came from, and then parents wouldn't be happy about their children's questions.

And thirdly, nieces/nephews allows the adult character to not act as a parent. It's more humorous if the adult can act as childish as the children while eliminating the adult figure.

Kids don't want to see adult figures on screen.

Okay, maybe I'm reading too much into this, too?

Answer 2

Well, the reason is already explained here, having a nephew/niece is an easy way to give the character a paternal feature without having him/her being coupled with another character.

Giving the character an orphan to raise is also another easy way to give the character a paternal feature without having him/her being coupled with another character.

Basically, giving a nephew/niece/orphan/etc is a way to give a child to a character without eliminating the character's status of being single.

It's not about 'keeping children from questioning their parents about how babies come into this world or something', since parents in those days were much more open on telling procreation to their kids than today's parents, besides everybody know that 'babies are delivered by storks to married couples'.



Mickey and Donald both have nephews, even Minnie and Daisy also have nieces.

Mickey and Minnie or Donald and Daisy can be married and have children, but that mean these characters have to give up their status of being single.

Plus if they were married, characters like Mortimer or Gladstone will lose their status as romantic rivals to Mickey or Donald, unless Minnie or Daisy choose to have an extramarital affair.



It should be noted that Goofy was once given a child and a faceless wife in one of those old cartoons, though only in the modern Goof Troops that Goofy was portrayed as a widower with a child.

Answer 3

One of th emain reasons is that, unless the toon is intended to be a family show in the first place (like the Jetsons or Simpsons or Berenstain Bears or others like them) the writer and/or publisher wants them to stay in publication a long time, making money for them as long as possible.

So, especially in a case where you have a character with a romantic other (like Superman and Lois, Spider Man and Mary Jane) for a long time they felt that having the realtionship progress to the point of marriage would mean putting an end to the character and people would lose interest and they would lose sales.

Nobody wants to see a super hero with wrinkles or bad hair! They don't want to be seen aging. So that is another reason why they don't have children. Marvel found this out when Reed and Sue (Fantastic Four) got married. They were the second major comic book couple to get married (after Aquaman and Mera).

But when they had a child, Franklin, after a few years, Franklin was growing and people noticed that his parents didn't seem to be aging! So unless the character's super powers involve immortality or being eternal, this wasn't realistic.

For a while, it was the practice of Marvel to either have their characters' children kidnapped or vanish to another dminesion or timeline where they could grow up and then come back as a young adult almost instantly. Presto! New character and super mom and dad don't have to change diapers or be seen getting older (which would impact sales. It's all about the $$$!)

Now, Spider Man and Superman are married, because the earlier generation of readers are married themselves. It's a lot less likely for little kids to be interested in having a married main character. In that respect, Donald Duck's nephews are lke the kids that are reading the stories. Who wants to read a comic book about someone like your mom or dad...?

On top of all that, Marvel now has a separate line of comics about Sider Man, dealing with when he first appeared (so, like when he was 15 or 16, not 30 the way he is supposed tobe when he is married.) So we have two titles, one with him beating up Kingpin for shooting Aunt May (on newsstands today) and another one with Mary Jane in high school, falling for Spider Man and poor Peter Parker can't get her attention. Typical unrequitred teenage love stuff.

So Marvel is trying to have their cake and eat it. Or trying to make money both ways. It's been a long time since they dropped the tag line "Because YOU, the readers, demanded it...!"

13 AUG 07, 1148 hrs, GMT.

Answer 4

simpson have their own kids

3 bears and goldilock (the mom n dad bears have 1 litlle bear)

tell the children a simple sex education like babies come from mom and dad ... when parents are in love, so they get a gift by having babies ..

u nver can avoid kids of asking sort of questions

Answer 5

check out cartoon network..there are plenty of cartoons with kids and their "parents"

Fairy Odd Parents
Jimmy Neutron
Dexter's Laboratory


The Jetsons