You may be wondering what a Greatest Living Author watches when he’s not writing. Well, how about a classic 90s cartoon that should technically be called “Grotesques”?
Allow me, if you will, to get this bit of pedantry out of the way first.
None of the gargoyles from Gargoyles are, in fact, gargoyles.
By definition, a gargoyle is specifically a carved monster that also functions as a water spout to direct water away from the building to protect from water damage.
A statue that is just a decorative monster is properly called a grotesque.
That being said, for the vast, vast majority of people “gargoyle” does simply mean “architectural monster.” Very few people are aware of the distinction and even fewer people will actually care.
Still, now you’ve learned something about medieval masonry…
With that out of the way, let’s get to Disney’s 90s cartoon Gargoyles, which I’ve been getting re-acquainted with thanks to Disney Plus.
It’s funny, I remember Gargoyles — I had the action figures of all six of the main Gargoyles, I remember the theme music, I remember playing the Sega Genesis video game where I couldn’t get past the first level, because I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to be doing — but re-watching the show for the first time since about 1999, I’m amazed at how little I remember about Gargoyles.
I remember the six gargoyles: there’s the leader, the veteran second-in-command, the cocky one, the big one, the nerdy one, and the, uh, dog one. I remember that they end up awakening in New York after a thousand years as statues. I remember the bad guy’s goatee and ponytail.
Gargoyles: Disney.
But, clearly, I’ve forgotten enough of the plot of the show that I’m basically experiencing it all for the first time again. I did not remember why the gargoyles spent a thousand years as statues, for example.
By the time I started on this post, I only got partway through the first season, but I’m liking what I’m seeing so far.
I’d especially forgotten the fact that the characters are using actual guns, rather than clumsily-implemented, poorly-explained, or haphazardly-edited lasers.
Gargoyles: Disney.
That was shocking to see for the first time in about 20 years, largely because I can only think of exactly other one example of a kids’ cartoon with actual guns — in Captain America’s World War II flashbacks in The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, everyone is using real-world, more or less period-accurate firearms (my understanding is that the censors gave the writers the choice of having Cap fight Hydra with real guns, or fighting real Nazis with lasers).
Long story short, I’m pretty surprised that a 90s cartoon managed to get away with giving its characters real guns.
Though it does become a plot point; early in the first season, the main human character ends up getting shot by accident and the whole episode becomes a valuable and unflinching lesson about guns.
To the show’s credit, the message is more nuanced and insightful than simply “Guns are bad” and comes across more as”Guns are dangerous; don’t treat them like toys.”
I’m constantly surprised by how deep, thoughtful, and occasionally dark Gargoyles consistently manages to be. I can’t really remember another cartoon I’ve watched recently that manages to do that.
Also notable, especially a 90s cartoon, is the fact that the human lead is not only a woman, but a biracial African-Native American woman.
Sidebar: She also kinda looks like Carmen Sandiego…
Gargoyles: Disney.
I feel like that character would be a hard sell to the studio even in 2021, so I’m especially impressed Gargoyles was able to pull it off nearly 30 years ago.
Also, she’s pretty badass She’s an NYPD detective, so she’s got physical ability and a lot of intelligence and guile.
There’s also the show’s recurring bad guy (voiced by the guy who was Riker on Star Trek), who is surprisingly nuanced and realistic for a Saturday morning cartoon villain.
For one thing, he’s not really evil, so much as Machiavellian and primarily focused on always coming out ahead. He’s essentially an Iron Man-esque billionaire industrialist whose primarily goal is to maintain his business interests.
He’s not really a villain, so much as merely an antagonist to the gargoyles because he has conflicting goals and methods, though he does have lines he won’t cross. Even while in conflict with the gargoyles, he still respects them and honours his deals with them. And he will work with the Gargoyles against mutual antagonists or threats.
Now, cartoonishly evil supervillains with zero nuance do have a place (especially in, you know, cartoons), but I do enjoy an antagonist whose motive is something other than “be as evil as possible, just because.” Straightforwardly, simply evil characters are enjoyable and can be even be intetesting with good enough writing, but I do have a soft spot for pragmatic, goal-oriented antagonists who aren’t necessarily the Bad Guy — it’s why Cao Cao is my favourite Dynasty Warrior. He’s more openly ruthless than either Liu Bei or Sun Quan, but his end goal is still to reform China, end the constant wars, create a meritocracy that rewards the talented, and purge the Imperial system of corruption. He’s just going to squash everyone in his way.
Look, I don’t want to turn this into a whole “My childhood was better; there hasn’t been a good cartoon since 1997, etc, etc” nostalgia-laden rant about the long-vanished glory days of children’s entertainment. I haven’t really been keeping up with enough children’s entertainment to be able to make that call.
Also, like I said, I remember so little of Gargoyles that I wouldn’t even consider myself nostalgic.
Though, for what it’s worth, my assessment of the whole “My childhood was better” thing is that no, no it wasn’t — you were just younger and dumber and didn’t know any better.
Gargoyles is a good show. But you can recognise that it’s good without being smug and insufferable about the current state of cartoons.
Also impressive is the amount of research the writers have done into real-world history and mythology.
The gargoyles get their start in 10th-century Scotland, end up frozen until waking up in 1990s New York, then fight and/or befriend various immortal historical figures and mythological and folkloric characters and monsters.
And while the writing does occasionally play fast and loose with the details of those characters and monsters, it’s clearly the result of the writers deciding to play only as fast and loose as they need to move along the story.
I can’t quite decide if they’re getting the details right and ignoring the broad strokes, or getting the broad strokes right and ignoring the details…
Either way they clearly did their homework, but they also clearly recognise that a functional story takes priority over accuracy to obscure folkloric details.
Now, Gargoyles is nearly 30 years old (man, that’s a lot to take for someone born in 1991…), and it’s clear that animation has come a long way since then.
Gargoyles: Disney.
That’s not to say it’s badly drawn or animated — though I’m pretty sure they reused the exact same footage of the gargoyles busting out of their stone forms every night each episode (but, hey, Sailor Moon and Power Rangers constantly reused the transformation sequences). But it’s very noticeable how much clearer and cleaner current animation is.
Of course, for what it’s worth, current animation feels almost too clear and clean and came come across as lifeless and sterile.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is don’t get turned off by it just because it’s old. Of course, if you’re old enough to have watched it the first time around, you’re probably nostalgic enough to want to watch it anyway.
All that is to say, go watch Gargoyles. Even though none of them actually are technically gargoyles…
The rest of my recommendations are here.
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