LazyTown/Headscratchers

• Why does Stephanie say "I like riding in trains" in 'Welcome to Lazytown' when asked how her trip was, even though none of the multiple aerial town shots per episode have ever shown a train line, and the show is probably set in Iceland, which has no train lines anyway?
  • It was a nonsequiter caused by the same brain damage which makes her see most of the people around her as puppets.
    • Oh, ::blows raspberry::. The puppet thing was a creative decision, and the only reason Stephanie, Sportacus and Robbie aren't puppets is because they're too physical to portray easily that way.
  • She didn't take the train all the way to lazy town and completed the last part of the trip some other way?
  • The show is not set in Iceland. The mix of races, use of American English and slang shows that it's probably set in a loose approximation of Fantasyland. They also got raided by pirates despite being nowhere near an ocean, what do you expect? Like Springfield, Lazytown is wherever the plot requires it to be. (Maybe Stephanie was just trying to hint to her uncle to buy her a train. Or maybe she mispronounced "plane".)
    • Translation Convention could explain the Americanised speech, and everybody sleeps with a duvet, which is, as I understand it, much more common in Scandinavia. Plus, there's the whole being adapted from a work explicitly set in Iceland.
  • I'm more confused as to why Stephanie, an energetic person by any standards, would notably enjoy a mode of transportation that involves sitting around for hours and hours.
    • Pretty much EVERY form of long distance travel involves sitting around for several hours, and trains offer a better view of the scenery than most other modes or travel.
    • What were you expecting her to do? Run the whole way to Lazytown?
• Given they only have time for two songs an episode, why is the second one always "Bing Bang"? There is such a thing as playing a song too much.
  • It's a theme song. And in season one, when Stephanie's wardrobe hardly varied, it was an excuse for reused footage.
  • Even with reusing songs, both from previous episodes and the Icelandic plays, there would still be extra composing for Mani Svavarsson and singing for the human and vocal casts, which would raise the per-episode cost of what is already the most expensive children's program on the market.
  • Any six-year-old will tell you there is no such thing as playing a song too much.
    • And everyone over six will correct that sadly mistaken belief.
      • Everyone over six is outside LazyTown's demographics. So shush.
• Why does Stephanie have to be so hot for a supposedly-eight-year-old?
  • Dawson Casting (though, the actor was only 13 in the first season, which is still a kid.)
  • She's not hot. You're just a pedophile.
    • More like a hebephile, but hey.
    • Can't it be both?
    • The Jailbait Wait For the record, Julianna Rose Mauriello turned 18 on May 26, 2009.
      • Yup, and the last filming of LazyTown fans know of took place in early 2008, to produce LazyTown Extra. She was 15 for the last season of LazyTown proper and 13 for all the stuff that went Memetic Mutation. Perving at footage of a young actor doesn't becomes any less lolicon just because the real youngster has grown up since.
        • SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY, DO NOT WANT!
• Is it just me, or does Robbie look like a bizarre genetic hybrid of Bruce Campbell, Elvis, Jay Leno, Jim Carrey, and Pee-Wee Herman? With the fashion sense of a Time Lord, no less.
  • No, it isn't just you, and I also suggest that he's the grumpy, loser brother of Kooza's Trickster. Either way, I dig the stripes and give Robbie props for pulling off a robe like that with such aplomb.
• Am I the only one bothered by the guy playing Sportacus being such a bad actor? How can that man possibly inspire anyone to do anything, let alone exercise and eat right? If I had seen this as a kid I would have been with Robbie Rotten all the way. Evil Is Cool after all.
  • I'm not particularly bothered, though I am aware Stefan is a better actor. However, Magnús only has the role because the intellectual property is his, and the main page says the character might be a mary-sue. In the original stage plays stunts couldn't be produced with camera trickery, and so the role had to go to an athlete like him, and I guess he decided to keep it. Mind you, there's only ever been one Íþróttaálfurinn/Sportacus since the beginning of the property, but there were at least two Solla Stirða/Stephanies before the TV show was even considered.
  • And well, in Iceland, he did. Regardless of your opinion of his inspirational qualities.
  • I'm guessing you haven't seen the fanbase then? Kids are crazy for Sportacus.
  • His acting was pretty good in The Spy Next Door...even if he was playing a sucky character.
  • His Big Ham style and stilted action suits the fact that he's an elf, and it also is justified due to the fact that he's not speaking his native language, and at this point, it's quite deliberate.
• Why is eating, say, a carrot much better for energy than food WITH CARBOHYDRATES in it, in this show? Yet all foods with sugar and carbs in them are portrayed as bad on this show, but vegetables might be healthier but give you next to no energy. For example, in one episode Sportacus ate some chocolate and then after running quickly for 10 seconds he just comes to a standstill.
  • Foods where you digest the carbohydrates quickly, like sugar, white bread and rice, and potatoes, can lead to reactive hypoglycaemia, which Sportacus's 'sugar meltdown' is clearly an exaggerated mimic of (despite only ever the result of foods made primarily from sugar, not, say, white rice or bread, even though carbs from those aren't much less empty, and digested quicker).

Plus, even though energy = calories in a scientific sense, vitamins and minerals are needed for the well-being required to feel up to using that energy constructively instead of storing it, and when he talks about 'energy', he's really does seem to mean 'well-being', not 'calories'. And carrots and apples have some carbs too, they just have more vitamins. You do see him prepare to eat a potato once, but the way the segment is constructed, it doesn't seem like he intends to cook it.

• • • I hope he reconsidered, since eating raw potatoes is not particularly healthy.
• Stephanie looks nothing like her uncle. At all. Even ignoring the puppet-human issue.
  • The human/puppet issue is clearly supposed to be ignored as part of the suspension of disbelief, and well, I don't look all that much like my brother, so I don't imagine the theoretical children I'm never having would either.

That said, Meanswell's gone grey, so his hair could easily have been some reddish/pinkish colour once, and they both have brown eyes. Taking into account the puppet thing, it looks like he's supposed to have a pointy chin and upturned nose like Stephanie/Julianna, so there is facial resemblance. His cheeks are chubbier, but so's the rest of him. Though there is the fact he's Ambiguously Brown, and she's pretty darn white-looking.

• • • Maybe Stephanie's mother married a man who was adopted by black puppets. Or, he himself is a black man (adopted by black puppets). Sometimes people of mixed race heritage can look as though they only belong to one racial category. Or maybe Stephanies parents are dead, and she was adopted by black puppets.
  • Is it common to look like one's uncle though? I don't look anything like either of my uncles. Maybe if the mayor was Stephanie's dad, this complaint would make more sense. But even then, there are plenty of people who bear little resemblance to their parents.
  • Has anyone considered that maybe Stephanie isn't blood related to Maxwell? Perhaps her ACTUAL aunt died or something.
• Ok I have a problem with the nutrition message of this show, I know they try to say candy is not very healthy, good, but it's like they're rabbits, how about telling kids to eat fish, milk, bread, cereal, meat or anything else besides fruits and vegetables.
  • Probably because those things aren't that difficult to get most kids to eat. It's pretty cliche to hear a kid complaining about eating his veggies, and/or feeding them to the family pet. Not often does it happen with other food groups. Granted this doesn't apply to all children, but for a majority...
• If Sportacus were to head down to a tropical island, would he be able to eat sugarcane?
  • For that matter, what about sugar beet? Hell, fruit is sweet tasting because it has lots of sugar!
  • This troper thinks that since Sportacus is Ambiguously Human, his metabolism only rejects processed sugar. I mean, he eats an awful lot of apples, which are very sugary. I think he'd consider sugar cane and sugar beets to be very edible.
• Robbie hates the sounds of the kids playing right? So, how come he has those speakers that broadcast the sounds of them?