The Complainer Is Always Wrong/Quotes

"Oh, we are the Buddy Bears, we always get along Each day, we do a little dance and sing a little song If you ever disagree, it means that you are wrong Oh, we are the Buddy Bears, we always get along!" —-- Buddy Bears theme song, Garfield and Friends

"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher regard those who think alike than those who think differently." —Nietzsche

(The doors of the Great Hall burst open and a wall of water crashes through, knocking the Vikings off their feet. There is little doubt that the whole of Hy-Brasil is sinking see a street go down, a statue sink and then we Cut to a close-up of King Arnulf. He is standing at the top of the Forum steps addressing a crowd of anxious citizens. They are keeping surprisingly good order considering they are already standing ankle-deep in water, and the whole town is rapidly sinking around them.) KING ARNULF: Now, I know what some of you must be thinking... the day has come.... we're all going down, etc. etc. But let's get away from the fantasy and look at the facts. Fact One - The threat of total destruction has kept the peace for one thousand years. Fact Two - The chances of it failing now are therefore one in three hundred and sixty-five thousand. Fact Three..." (By this time the water is up to people's knees, and several have crowded onto the lower steps to avoid getting wet.) KING ARNULF: "Fact Three - Our safety regulations are the most rigorous in the world. We are all nice to each other, we never rub each other up the wrong way or contradict each other, do we?" CROWD: "No." (Rumble. The buildings sink and masonry falls.) CITIZEN: "We... er... do seem to be going down quite fast, Your Majesty - not trying to contradict you, course." KING ARNULF: "No, of course you're not, citizen. But let's stick to the facts. There has never been a safer, more certain way of keeping the peace. So whatever's happening, you can rest assured, Hy-Brasil is not sinking. Repeat, not sinking." —Erik the Viking

In another part of [Mark Evanier]'s site that you probably won't find, Mark makes a comment about an earlier show he worked on that, though he might not have realized it, reveals the exact reason for the existence of three bears who were constantly trying to force a lesson down Garfield's throat; the lessson of "if you ever disagree, it means that you are wrong." When you think about it, that was a strange message to be constantly delivering. "You must always agree with the group" is something I've never heard preached in any real educational show. And why would it be? All those shows shout the opposite: to Be Yourself. And what if the group wanted to take drugs or something? It was actually an inside joke. Listen to Mark tell about his experiences writing for 80's cartoon shows:

Consultants were brought in and we, the folks who were writing cartoons, were ordered to include certain "pro-social" morals in our shows. At the time, the dominant "pro-social" moral was as follows: The group is always right...the complainer is always wrong.

This was the message of way too many eighties' cartoon shows. If all your friends want to go get pizza and you want a burger, you should bow to the will of the majority and go get pizza with them. There was even a show for one season on CBS called The Get Along Gang, which was dedicated unabashedly to this principle. Each week, whichever member of the gang didn't get along with the gang learned the error of his or her ways.

--Platypus Comix's Garfield and Friends Supapage

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better." —Attributed to Theodore Roosevelt