Cad Piggum

This pic was partially inspired by Chris Bucci's review on the TurboGrafx-16 game incarnation of Darkwing Duck. There is a little gameplay element within the game on top of the game's problems: there is not only a lot of cheap hits and poor jumping controls, but you've also got to keep moving because it's also one of those games that "punishes" you for just making Darkwing stand still for too long. You can see the review for yourself at this [link]

On Disney's 101 Dalmatians: the Series, one of the most popular characters in the show that was not characterized in any of the Disney movies is a character named Cadpig. For those unfamiliar with the character, she was originally the true runt in Dodie Smith's book; her character was basically written into Lucky.

She had proven herself to be a serious fan-favorite, with her unique New-Agey personality and sarcastically biting sense of humor. Some fans of the series were a little disappointed though, in that Cadpig seemed to have the least emphasis in the series. If you were to count all the character focus episodes in the series, you would probably have, most to least:

1. Lucky
2. Rolly
3. Spot
4. Cadpig

This was taken from Belchic's review of "Shake, Rattle n' Woof/Cadpig Behind Bars":

Cadpig is the favorite of most fans of this show, and this episode happens to have her as the central focus character. The entire series had plenty of episodes with either Lucky, Rolly or Spot as the central focus character, but it really lacked episodes for Cadpig.

There are some episodes that are 11 minutes long and others that are 22 minutes. Lucky, Rolly and Spot all seemed to have at least one or two half-hour episodes, but all of Cadpig's episodes are only 11 minutes long. I think that even if Disney was to make characters like Jewel, Patch and Two-Tone prominent characters, and upped the episode count from 65 half-hour episodes to 130 half-hour episodes...I still think Cadpig would have gotten the lowest number of episodes in the series.

Having said that, I think there was probably a plausible reason why Cadpig seemed to have the least compared to the other three--she is easier to take in short bursts and often needs the others to be more subdued...in short, she deserved the least.

As a character, Cadpig is a new age puppy that happens to enjoy spouting metaphysical metaphors to her friends. I would think this is one reason why: the 'metaphors' that Cadpig likes to use would be ultimately difficult to come up with, and if used too excessively, they would not have the same impact. It would start brilliant and funny, but later on it would dissolve into being "just another Cadpig quote" and meaning little.

The second aspect is the wide array of emotions she expresses. Sometimes she is cheerfully happy, other times she is bitter and sarcastic, other times she is violently angry...you know. The writers probably figured that if overexposed, Cadpig would probably leave some viewers to think as a character, she is just grating, obnoxious and inconsisent.

Ultimately, I feel that her character is like Ralph Wiggum on the Simpsons: a great character...in moderation.

Cadpig (c) Disney
Ralph Wiggum (c) Twentieth Century Fox