Why we never got to see these cartoon character’s faces when we were kids

Cast your mind back to the simpler times of Saturday-morning cartoons - have you ever noticed something odd about the characters?

I mean, aside from the fact that they were regularly made up of talking animals, impossibly-proportioned humans, or generally magical beings.

Okay, maybe I'm being too vague. Have you ever noticed something strange about the characters' faces - or rather, the lack of them?

No matter how many times you might have watched Tom and Jerry, Cow and Chicken or The Powerpuff Girls, there are some characters I can guarantee you won't have a clear picture of, because as viewers, we were basically never given the chance to see them.

Let's start with Tom and Jerry. The mischievous pair were always running around the house causing havoc, much to the dismay of Mammy Two Shoes.

The character would regularly scold Tom for his antics, but we only ever saw the bottom of her legs while she was doing so.

Now on to Cow and Chicken. There's not enough time in the world to get into the questions of why the two animals were siblings living in a house rather than on a farm, so let's jump straight to their parents - which were, even more confusingly, humans.

We never saw their faces, but we saw two pairs of legs - one dressed in a spotted skirt, and one wearing green trousers. It probably wouldn't have been all that surprising to learn that their upper halves were a cow and a chicken, but we'll probably never know for sure.

Finally, we have The Powerpuff Girls. We saw a few humans in this cartoon, especially given the main characters were magical little girls themselves, but one person we never got a good look at was Ms. Bellum, the Mayor's secretary and deputy.

We saw the majority of Ms. Bellum, but her large red hair always covered her face, making her an enigma to viewers.

So, now we come to the real question - why did we never see their faces? Well, there's a few explanations.

Given that so many of these cartoons were focused on animals or kids, they're also often presented from an animal's or kid's perspective. Meaning, if they were to look straight ahead, they'd only see the lower half of the adult, rather than their face.

Just think about how much time cats spend twirling themselves around your legs - Tom didn't need to know what Mammy Two Shoes' face looked like, he just needed to know when she was storming into the room, so he could try to get out of whatever mess he was in.

Another reason for keeping faces out of frame is because the characters didn't always make regular appearances, meaning there was rarely a need for the cartoonists to create entire looks for them, only for them to be used once or twice.

Finally, there's the point that kids might find themselves struggling to follow too many people if every character was depicted in full.

By hiding certain faces, it kept the focus on the stars of the show and allowed for storytelling that was even more simple to follow - it also meant that the creators could easily change the script for the adults if necessary, without having to reanimate the whole thing.

Some of these characters' faces did get a brief bit of time in the spotlight in one or two episodes - and I'm taking a couple of seconds, if they were lucky, so if you were a very devoted fan, you might have a vague idea of their features.

All in all, though, they remained hidden - and now we know why!

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