They are a writer, and they thought their talent would simply consign them to a few pages, writing the histories of others, while their own was eventually forgotten. Their talent, however, was more than noticed. After all their writings gave lessons, and those lessons were saving many lives. -- Anon Guest
History is a complicated beast. It's difficult to believe that the first wonders of the world were not only rising from the ground, but had been standing for centuries at the same time that others were still hunting megafauna on the steppes.
It's taught as a straight line of progress. From stone tools and bear skins to metal and clay, and then to buildings, cities, and all the other trappings of civilisation.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
It should be taught that progress is not linear. That would help a lot more people than the easy way to understand things. When you looked at history the right way, it was practically a comedy.
That Horace Walpole. What a nut.
But it wasn't just history. It was the people throughout history who thought they were special enough to avoid repeating the same mistakes people did before. And when you looked, there were a lot of dumb ways to die for people who didn't know a few basic things.
There had to be a way to get people to remember this kind of information.
There were famous entities. Stock characters used for various stories already. People known for seeking various things. What they lacked was a character who was guaranteed to do the stupid thing. And since it was a cartoon, the audience wouldn't ever question why they returned from cartoon death.
Enter... Wilderness Wally. And his counterpoint Smarty Sam. Of course some were wont to complain because Sam was a girl, but some people would complain about anything. The majority appreciated it, especially some of the gross depictions of what Wally's stupid decisions did to him.
Kids appreciated cartoon gore. Sam's factoids were slid in as part of the key frame. So that those who came there for the gore would also pick up the real facts at the same time.
They never anticipated it being such a huge hit. All of a sudden, kids in snowy countries were making accurate igloos, and kids in drier areas were making Pit Stills to make water. Much to the annoyance of the parents who found out what the kid was doing with one specific vessel.
One irritated parent was very annoyed that their child was using decorative stones from the garden to make stone tools. Which they then tested on an uncle's car tyres.
They had to make special pages about how to test their works safely, and thereby get into the least amount of trouble. There were other special pages, on how to spot frauds - Horace Walpole featured in the Market Bubble one. There were others about the varied evils of the modern world, and very careful to avoid using problematic words.
The one that was most banned was the special page about how to spot and disarm fascism.
[Photo by Caspian Dahlström on Unsplash]
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