19. Triple Trouble
A discussion on Odyssey's three new bullies.
By David Hilder | August 2, 2014
A discussion on Odyssey's three new bullies.
By David Hilder | August 2, 2014
When you look at the first twenty years of Adventures in Odyssey there seems to be one kid character who never changes. Rodney Rathbone first appears early on in Album 7 and is present in every era until his last appearance in Album 49. The show would not be the same without him and the many schemes he tries to pull off over the years. Now that his character has been retired from the show, you can find elements of his personality in the more recent characters that have been created to replace him. How do the new characters measure up? That’s what I’m going to examine in this editorial.
The character of Rodney is a large personality. Whenever he’s in the room you are bound to notice him and he probably likes it that way. Part of the way he makes sure people notice him is by picking on them. He insults, threatens, and pushes them around, all the while laughing maniacally. And this isn’t limited to his treatment of kids. He’s been known to steal from adults, like when he snitches from Tom Riley’s apple orchard, and even pulls life-threatening pranks on them, like when he tries to put bees into Dr. Hawthorne’s car, who happens to be severely allergic to bees. When Rodney goes for revenge, he shows no mercy. Even so, this self-proclaimed tough guy often needs his gang to do his dirty work for him.
Rodney is the leader of the Bones of Rath, a gang whose members start off as a danger to themselves but eventually become a danger to the rest of society. In their first episode new initiates run across ice to retrieve pinecones, which almost leads to a kid’s death, and by Album 25 they become real criminals when they ally themselves with Dr. Blackgaard, a murderer by the way, and terrorize the town. Even in that situation, Rodney doesn’t change. He’s still the same whiney teenager who doesn’t like taking orders from anybody, which explains his irrational decision to work against Jellyfish and out of pure spite, which leads to the bad guys losing and Rodney being sent to jail. Rodney’s not very smart that way. Whether he’s out in the open or in the shadows, he’s bold and aggressive and isn’t very good at keeping his voice down. In Album 25 he makes mistake after mistake and is scolded by Jellyfish as a result.
Rodney is your stereotypical bully that your parents warned you about. Not only is he the leader of a gang and isn’t too bright in school, but he was also once the leader of an infamous rock band with angry songs like “Who Needs Parents?” And speaking of parents, let’s talk about Bart and Doris Rathbone. Rodney’s parents are not the best role models. They met and fell in love because they were both con artists for crying out loud. Bart in particular is a real piece of work. He can’t stop cheating people, even during a crisis like a tornado scare, and he’s taught his son well. In many episodes Bart actually draws Rodney into his schemes so they can work together as a team. And perhaps Bart teaches Rodney a little too well, because in A Cheater Cheated Rodney pulls a scheme on his own father and betrays him on the Cryin' Bryan Dern Show in exchange for fifty bucks. Apparently that’s all it takes.
Rodney isn’t here to make friends. He’s here to look out for himself and make sure he maintains an advantage over everyone else. He frequently sneaks around, either looking for hiding places for his gang or climbing on top of the roof of Whit’s End to set up a trap for any passersby. Rodney’s life of scheming has given him a twisted perspective on life. He, like Bart, assumes everyone else is just like him deep down and so he can never really trust anybody. He lives in fear of showing real emotion. Even when he does feel a little remorse over the bad things he does, like in the episode Changing Rodney, he has to keep it a secret from his gang because it would destroy his tough guy image.
Rodney got to pick on every generation of kids. His victims span all the way from Isaac Morton to Grady McKay. With all that time on the show, you would think he would have learned a lesson or two along the way. But when you compare Rodney’s first and last episodes, there is no character development to be found. In his last episode Buddy Guard he may no longer have his gang around, but he still entertains himself by mercilessly picking on a kid half his size.
If someone asked you in 2007 who your favorite AIO bully was, chances are you would have said Rodney Rathbone. But things have changed. After the 2010 Relaunch, we now have a wider selection to choose from. In Rodney’s absence, he seems to have been replaced not by one main bully who is exactly like him, but by at least three characters who share certain traits with him, but are all unique in their own way. I’ve identified Valerie Swanson, Jay Smouse and Vance King as the new bullies in town.
Valerie Swanson clearly follows in the footsteps of the Rathbones. She first appears in the Kidsboro episodes and immediately devises a scheme to become the mayor of the kids’ town, something that would have made Bart Rathbone proud. The stink bomb attacks she plans are at first even blamed on Rodney and the Bones of Rath. Her goal is to gain power and popularity by whatever means she has at her disposal. Her scheme to gain control of Kidsboro even involves her launching a frivolous lawsuit, which should immediately remind listeners of the frivolous lawsuit Rodney files against Whit’s End in the episode A Victim of Circumstance, or even Rodney’s blatant lying when Whit’s End holds court over some money found in the woods in the episode The Scales of Justice.
Valerie is an improvement on Rodney, however, because her schemes are actually quite clever and calculated. In the Kidsboro episodes, Jill Segler eventually dismisses the possibility that the Bones of Rath were behind the attacks because it all would have been too complicated for them to pull off. In Album 54 Valerie creates a scheme to get rid of the substitute teacher Katrina Meltsner. At first she tries silly pranks Rodney would have used, but then she uses her brain and finally succeeds in her plans by tricking her classmates into signing a petition to have Katrina fired. That’s a smart move and it’s a step up from Rodney’s plot to put bees in Dr. Hawthorne’s car, which was plain stupid and could have backfired terribly.
But we’ve had other girls similar to Valerie on the show before. People like Brenda Frazier, Shannon Everett and Alicia (from the episode More Like Alicia) were popular girls who looked down on other people and tried to manipulate them. What is it about Valerie that makes her unique? Not only is she more extreme in her scheming, but another one of her unique qualities is that she doesn’t simply bully people with her words. If that was the case she would never have gotten so far with her Kidsboro plot. No, Valerie has other tactics as well, such as physical abuse. She puts her brother Nelson on the ground and then proceeds to press down on his chest very hard. It hurts a lot and Nelson lives in fear of her as a result. She’s a force to be reckoned with.
We haven’t seen much character development from Valerie yet, but it’s still early. One of Valerie’s friends, however, namely Jay Smouse, does seem to have a promising future ahead of him on the show. Jay is a lot like Rodney in some ways. He seems to gain pleasure by repeatedly tormenting certain people, such as Barrett Jones. He doesn’t put too much effort into studying for tests at school but he puts a lot of effort into trying to find ways to cheat on those tests. We don’t know much about his parents at this point, but we do know he hangs around in the junkyard owned by his uncle Wally Haggler, who used to be a criminal and spent time in prison, and we know his uncle Archie Haggler was heavily involved in the Green Ring Conspiracy. That’s not the best environment to grow up in. Jay can be aggressive on the outside but it can be hard to tell what’s happening on the inside, in contrast to Rodney, who is aggressive on the outside while there isn’t too much happening on the inside at all.
Jay, like Rodney, is bit of a manipulator. As we learn in The Friend Formula, he uses his four I-ings, spying, crying, plying and lying, to get his way. He’s particularly skilled at spying and he really likes hiding in bushes. Although to be fair, spying on people from bushes seems to be something everyone does since the 2010 Relaunch, especially Emily Jones. But Jay is a complex character. In the episode Mistaken for Good, Jay says that “being a good guy can be dangerous” and he doesn’t want a reputation for showing compassion. That reminds me of Bernard, who is always telling people not to let it get around that he’s a good storyteller. Bernard has a heart, but he prefers to maintain his more cynical reputation. Maybe that’s why Jay is so mean to his cousin Cindy. He’s trying to maintain his image. He soon passes off the responsibility of showing Cindy around to his rival, Barrett. This is similar to how Rodney treats his cousin Scrubb. He hangs out with him but remains emotionally detached. And after a short time Rodney’s rival, Eric Myers, is the one who has to look after Scrubb.
Jay may be a bully sometimes, but he’s also a very likeable character. Jay is without a doubt the funniest new character that has been created since the relaunch. He’s a fun, energetic guy to be around and sometimes he can even be a nice guy. Unlike Rodney, I can’t imagine Jay physically beating up someone. Taking money from an old lady in a nursing home who thinks he’s her grandson, however, is not beneath him. But then he shows remorse and actually gets himself in trouble on purpose. Jay is a mystery. He complains to Valerie about learning English literature, but again he could just be trying to preserve his image because he accidentally reveals that he actually paid attention in English class and probably enjoyed it. When Jay hears that Riley has weird hobbies that no one else shares, he says, “Let me get this straight. I bet all those non-friends of yours try to embarrass you about your love for that stuff, right? So, you almost feel like you have to hide your treasures away and can only take them out to look at in secret on rainy days when your mom goes to the store to get more liver and nobody is around to berate your sensitive spirit. Is that what you’re saying?” Jay pretty much just admitted to having a sensitive spirit that he tries to hide to maintain his bad-guy image. And he also gave us insight about his home life. It seems he can’t even be himself when his mother is around.
But the main reason behind Jay’s need to play the part of the bad guy seems to be Vance King. Vance is the kid who is the real villain on AIO since the relaunch. He himself says that he’s not an amateur bully, but that he deals in advanced psychology. And it's true. He’s very dedicated to his bullying career. He has a bullying schedule and everything. And when he’s not picking out targets at random, he’s a hired bully who works for money. His tactics include fear and intimidation, and he’s infamous for showing no mercy. He’s the kind of person I could see becoming a real criminal in the future. And not a bumbling criminal trapped in adolescence like Rodney, but a cold, calculating criminal.
Unlike Rodney, Vance is pretty clever. He is overly polite in public and he usually never leaves any proof of his guilt. He even has the school fooled. The teachers think Vance is a good kid because he gets straight A’s and has good behavior in his classes. He is the best at manipulation, and that includes when it comes to Jay. Whenever Jay hangs around Vance, Jay tries his hardest to be the tough guy. He wouldn’t be so much of a bully if he wasn’t “friends” with Vance. But Vance doesn’t have real friends. In Album 55 Vance encourages Jay to continue stealing from Mrs. Wilson and then when Jay gets a conscience Vance simply blackmails him. He’s willing to turn on anyone for the right price. He doesn’t need to resort to beating people up like Rodney would. He can control others in far more sophisticated and subtle ways.
In conclusion, we are listening to a new era of AIO which might be called The Golden Age of Bullies. Rodney Rathbone was a good character for the time he was created, but he overstayed his welcome and did not develop as a well-rounded character. He was simplistic and predictable. But now since the 2010 Relaunch we have at least three new bullies and these characters are all more complex and have more potential than the Rodney. It seems the writers put a lot more thought into the creation of these characters. I think Jay, Vance and Valerie are great additions to the show and will hopefully change and grow in years to come. Jay Smouse in particular stands out as someone who could be very relatable. He embodies what it means to be a kid bullied into being a bully. Jay is a complex person, an entertaining and at times mysterious character, and is a perfect fit for the show.
The character of Rodney is a large personality. Whenever he’s in the room you are bound to notice him and he probably likes it that way. Part of the way he makes sure people notice him is by picking on them. He insults, threatens, and pushes them around, all the while laughing maniacally. And this isn’t limited to his treatment of kids. He’s been known to steal from adults, like when he snitches from Tom Riley’s apple orchard, and even pulls life-threatening pranks on them, like when he tries to put bees into Dr. Hawthorne’s car, who happens to be severely allergic to bees. When Rodney goes for revenge, he shows no mercy. Even so, this self-proclaimed tough guy often needs his gang to do his dirty work for him.
Rodney is the leader of the Bones of Rath, a gang whose members start off as a danger to themselves but eventually become a danger to the rest of society. In their first episode new initiates run across ice to retrieve pinecones, which almost leads to a kid’s death, and by Album 25 they become real criminals when they ally themselves with Dr. Blackgaard, a murderer by the way, and terrorize the town. Even in that situation, Rodney doesn’t change. He’s still the same whiney teenager who doesn’t like taking orders from anybody, which explains his irrational decision to work against Jellyfish and out of pure spite, which leads to the bad guys losing and Rodney being sent to jail. Rodney’s not very smart that way. Whether he’s out in the open or in the shadows, he’s bold and aggressive and isn’t very good at keeping his voice down. In Album 25 he makes mistake after mistake and is scolded by Jellyfish as a result.
Rodney is your stereotypical bully that your parents warned you about. Not only is he the leader of a gang and isn’t too bright in school, but he was also once the leader of an infamous rock band with angry songs like “Who Needs Parents?” And speaking of parents, let’s talk about Bart and Doris Rathbone. Rodney’s parents are not the best role models. They met and fell in love because they were both con artists for crying out loud. Bart in particular is a real piece of work. He can’t stop cheating people, even during a crisis like a tornado scare, and he’s taught his son well. In many episodes Bart actually draws Rodney into his schemes so they can work together as a team. And perhaps Bart teaches Rodney a little too well, because in A Cheater Cheated Rodney pulls a scheme on his own father and betrays him on the Cryin' Bryan Dern Show in exchange for fifty bucks. Apparently that’s all it takes.
Rodney isn’t here to make friends. He’s here to look out for himself and make sure he maintains an advantage over everyone else. He frequently sneaks around, either looking for hiding places for his gang or climbing on top of the roof of Whit’s End to set up a trap for any passersby. Rodney’s life of scheming has given him a twisted perspective on life. He, like Bart, assumes everyone else is just like him deep down and so he can never really trust anybody. He lives in fear of showing real emotion. Even when he does feel a little remorse over the bad things he does, like in the episode Changing Rodney, he has to keep it a secret from his gang because it would destroy his tough guy image.
Rodney got to pick on every generation of kids. His victims span all the way from Isaac Morton to Grady McKay. With all that time on the show, you would think he would have learned a lesson or two along the way. But when you compare Rodney’s first and last episodes, there is no character development to be found. In his last episode Buddy Guard he may no longer have his gang around, but he still entertains himself by mercilessly picking on a kid half his size.
If someone asked you in 2007 who your favorite AIO bully was, chances are you would have said Rodney Rathbone. But things have changed. After the 2010 Relaunch, we now have a wider selection to choose from. In Rodney’s absence, he seems to have been replaced not by one main bully who is exactly like him, but by at least three characters who share certain traits with him, but are all unique in their own way. I’ve identified Valerie Swanson, Jay Smouse and Vance King as the new bullies in town.
Valerie Swanson clearly follows in the footsteps of the Rathbones. She first appears in the Kidsboro episodes and immediately devises a scheme to become the mayor of the kids’ town, something that would have made Bart Rathbone proud. The stink bomb attacks she plans are at first even blamed on Rodney and the Bones of Rath. Her goal is to gain power and popularity by whatever means she has at her disposal. Her scheme to gain control of Kidsboro even involves her launching a frivolous lawsuit, which should immediately remind listeners of the frivolous lawsuit Rodney files against Whit’s End in the episode A Victim of Circumstance, or even Rodney’s blatant lying when Whit’s End holds court over some money found in the woods in the episode The Scales of Justice.
Valerie is an improvement on Rodney, however, because her schemes are actually quite clever and calculated. In the Kidsboro episodes, Jill Segler eventually dismisses the possibility that the Bones of Rath were behind the attacks because it all would have been too complicated for them to pull off. In Album 54 Valerie creates a scheme to get rid of the substitute teacher Katrina Meltsner. At first she tries silly pranks Rodney would have used, but then she uses her brain and finally succeeds in her plans by tricking her classmates into signing a petition to have Katrina fired. That’s a smart move and it’s a step up from Rodney’s plot to put bees in Dr. Hawthorne’s car, which was plain stupid and could have backfired terribly.
But we’ve had other girls similar to Valerie on the show before. People like Brenda Frazier, Shannon Everett and Alicia (from the episode More Like Alicia) were popular girls who looked down on other people and tried to manipulate them. What is it about Valerie that makes her unique? Not only is she more extreme in her scheming, but another one of her unique qualities is that she doesn’t simply bully people with her words. If that was the case she would never have gotten so far with her Kidsboro plot. No, Valerie has other tactics as well, such as physical abuse. She puts her brother Nelson on the ground and then proceeds to press down on his chest very hard. It hurts a lot and Nelson lives in fear of her as a result. She’s a force to be reckoned with.
We haven’t seen much character development from Valerie yet, but it’s still early. One of Valerie’s friends, however, namely Jay Smouse, does seem to have a promising future ahead of him on the show. Jay is a lot like Rodney in some ways. He seems to gain pleasure by repeatedly tormenting certain people, such as Barrett Jones. He doesn’t put too much effort into studying for tests at school but he puts a lot of effort into trying to find ways to cheat on those tests. We don’t know much about his parents at this point, but we do know he hangs around in the junkyard owned by his uncle Wally Haggler, who used to be a criminal and spent time in prison, and we know his uncle Archie Haggler was heavily involved in the Green Ring Conspiracy. That’s not the best environment to grow up in. Jay can be aggressive on the outside but it can be hard to tell what’s happening on the inside, in contrast to Rodney, who is aggressive on the outside while there isn’t too much happening on the inside at all.
Jay, like Rodney, is bit of a manipulator. As we learn in The Friend Formula, he uses his four I-ings, spying, crying, plying and lying, to get his way. He’s particularly skilled at spying and he really likes hiding in bushes. Although to be fair, spying on people from bushes seems to be something everyone does since the 2010 Relaunch, especially Emily Jones. But Jay is a complex character. In the episode Mistaken for Good, Jay says that “being a good guy can be dangerous” and he doesn’t want a reputation for showing compassion. That reminds me of Bernard, who is always telling people not to let it get around that he’s a good storyteller. Bernard has a heart, but he prefers to maintain his more cynical reputation. Maybe that’s why Jay is so mean to his cousin Cindy. He’s trying to maintain his image. He soon passes off the responsibility of showing Cindy around to his rival, Barrett. This is similar to how Rodney treats his cousin Scrubb. He hangs out with him but remains emotionally detached. And after a short time Rodney’s rival, Eric Myers, is the one who has to look after Scrubb.
Jay may be a bully sometimes, but he’s also a very likeable character. Jay is without a doubt the funniest new character that has been created since the relaunch. He’s a fun, energetic guy to be around and sometimes he can even be a nice guy. Unlike Rodney, I can’t imagine Jay physically beating up someone. Taking money from an old lady in a nursing home who thinks he’s her grandson, however, is not beneath him. But then he shows remorse and actually gets himself in trouble on purpose. Jay is a mystery. He complains to Valerie about learning English literature, but again he could just be trying to preserve his image because he accidentally reveals that he actually paid attention in English class and probably enjoyed it. When Jay hears that Riley has weird hobbies that no one else shares, he says, “Let me get this straight. I bet all those non-friends of yours try to embarrass you about your love for that stuff, right? So, you almost feel like you have to hide your treasures away and can only take them out to look at in secret on rainy days when your mom goes to the store to get more liver and nobody is around to berate your sensitive spirit. Is that what you’re saying?” Jay pretty much just admitted to having a sensitive spirit that he tries to hide to maintain his bad-guy image. And he also gave us insight about his home life. It seems he can’t even be himself when his mother is around.
But the main reason behind Jay’s need to play the part of the bad guy seems to be Vance King. Vance is the kid who is the real villain on AIO since the relaunch. He himself says that he’s not an amateur bully, but that he deals in advanced psychology. And it's true. He’s very dedicated to his bullying career. He has a bullying schedule and everything. And when he’s not picking out targets at random, he’s a hired bully who works for money. His tactics include fear and intimidation, and he’s infamous for showing no mercy. He’s the kind of person I could see becoming a real criminal in the future. And not a bumbling criminal trapped in adolescence like Rodney, but a cold, calculating criminal.
Unlike Rodney, Vance is pretty clever. He is overly polite in public and he usually never leaves any proof of his guilt. He even has the school fooled. The teachers think Vance is a good kid because he gets straight A’s and has good behavior in his classes. He is the best at manipulation, and that includes when it comes to Jay. Whenever Jay hangs around Vance, Jay tries his hardest to be the tough guy. He wouldn’t be so much of a bully if he wasn’t “friends” with Vance. But Vance doesn’t have real friends. In Album 55 Vance encourages Jay to continue stealing from Mrs. Wilson and then when Jay gets a conscience Vance simply blackmails him. He’s willing to turn on anyone for the right price. He doesn’t need to resort to beating people up like Rodney would. He can control others in far more sophisticated and subtle ways.
In conclusion, we are listening to a new era of AIO which might be called The Golden Age of Bullies. Rodney Rathbone was a good character for the time he was created, but he overstayed his welcome and did not develop as a well-rounded character. He was simplistic and predictable. But now since the 2010 Relaunch we have at least three new bullies and these characters are all more complex and have more potential than the Rodney. It seems the writers put a lot more thought into the creation of these characters. I think Jay, Vance and Valerie are great additions to the show and will hopefully change and grow in years to come. Jay Smouse in particular stands out as someone who could be very relatable. He embodies what it means to be a kid bullied into being a bully. Jay is a complex person, an entertaining and at times mysterious character, and is a perfect fit for the show.
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