2020-12-23

brightknightie: Natalie and her cat Sidney (Pets)
2020-12-23 08:01 am

Pets in FK and HL

Something that [personal profile] leela_cat said made me realize for the very first time: There are no pets in all 6+ seasons of HL, but there are fairly many pets in 3 seasons of FK, for a TV show.

To be more precise, except for those with the K-immie in "Leader of the Pack," I remember no named or otherwise non-utilitarian animals in all of HL. We have many horses, of course, but the horses are strictly transportation, less thought-of than the characters' modern-day cars.

Granted that the animals in FK are also less thought-of than some of the characters' cars -- ahem, Caddy ;-) -- nevertheless, Natalie has her cat, Sidney, who appears in one episode and is referenced in 2 more (if I remember correctly). While Perry is a working dog, he is named and a character unto himself, and Nick's Ralegh is surely a pet. Tracy refers to getting a puppy as a gift for someone else. Schanke makes a joking reference to a pet dog (the line is something like, "gotta get home, kiss the wife, kick the dog").

Animals are difficult to have on set. Movies, TV shows, theaters all tend to avoid animals when not absolutely necessary to a story. And neither HL nor (much more so) FK were rolling in funding in '90s syndication. But FK's writers repeatedly referred to pets in their story universe. HL's did not.

Interesting! What do you think?