"Its a fucking cartoon" - some guy somewhere

In the books, Henry's behaviour is decidedly worse than in the show, and he might actually deserve the title - intentionally infecting his entire class with headlice stands out. Wondering if they toned down his behaviour for the show to avoid giving kids ideas.

I doubt the majority of the people who jumped on the Horrid Henry train had even heard of the show before it popped up on social media. Most generously, a lot of people are genuinely traumatized by their parents because society in general views children as less-than-human. I can see Henry being an easy target to project onto when seeing isolated clips of him being yelled at or demeaned.

What i could gather from this is... The original author does not like the other adaptations of her book, because they dont capture the charm and thought behind how the characters and stories work. People miss the point of what the original stories and characters meant and place their own values onto them. That no matter how my beloved characters are created, they will be ruined by 3rd party companies and the fans

As a British person who grew up with this show, its so strange to me how it's getting popular and especially with an American audience. This is so jarring.

I personally blame the society Horrid Henry takes place in. Do you really think he asked to be given the name Horrid Henry? Did anyone around him ask to be given titles that dictate how they should act, like Perfect Peter, Moody Margaret, Anxious Andrew, or Rabid Rebecca?

Not even watched yet but I have to say something. As someone who is British and grew up reading the horrid henry stories, this twitter discourse REALLY ANNOYED ME. BECAUSE IT WAS CLEAR PEOPLE WERE ONLY TALKING ABOUT THE RECENT SEASONS OF THE ANIMATED SHOW. WHICH COMPLETELY RUIN AND DUMB DOWN THE PERSONALITIES AND DYNAMICS BETWEEN THE CHARACTERS. I still love the books till this day, not only do they remind me of my childhood, but they were extremely important to me as a kid. I'll sometimes still listen to the read aloud dvds, just because I love them so much. Henry in the original texts, is a bratty kid. HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE A BRATTY KID, but the animated and live action adaptations weren't as brave as the books, and really did take life away from the characters. Even though Henry is horrid, you still find yourself liking him, as his situation at home, while it isn't out right abusive, it is an example of unintentional emotional neglect, as the author has stated herself. And that is so important to me. The original stories on there own, already have so much nuance in them: parental favouritism, the effects of it, the sibling rivaly and difficulty forming proper bonds because of it. Even though it is for children and obviously doesn't delve into these topics, the context is all there. The newer seasons of the animated show, really stomps on this and basically ruined the characters. First, Henry isn't horrid anymore, which, IS A HUGE PART OF HIS CHARACTER. but his parents STILL call him horrid, this changes the once misguided and bad parenting with good intentions, into outright name calling and abuse. I watched a few of the newer episodes, and it is so uncomfortable to watch. Because Henry is at BEST cheeky. He's mellow, he's calm, yet he's being treat like the devil's spawn😭😭😭 PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ONLY FOLLOW THE BOOKS, I BEG OF YOU. Will admit, as i kid I devoured the first season of the cartoon. AND THE ORIGINAL BRITISH THEME SONG IS SUPERIOR, ITS LITERALLY IN MY MUSIC PLAYLIST 😭😭

brb writing an episode where horrid henry’s parents go on trial due to miscommunication and gossip

>there’s horrid henry discourse thank god I don’t use twitter anymore

So what I'm understanding is... people think this is British Caillou

“In order to do metatext, you have to actually engage with the text” Damn. As someone who specializes in media analysis, this spoke to me hard. You really did the most with this one. The things you have to suffer through to inform us cannot go unappreciated. I know two people who might like this. Also, REALLY nice use of my favorite OST track from Celeste.❤

Those AI takes are more horrid than anything in the actullal show. Fr tho, Horrid Henry feels like it's written for older kids but it's paced like a baby show.

This behaviour is from the kind of people who project themselves onto cartoons while ignoring the source material to the point where the character they obsess over reads like someone’s diary entry with little to no resemblance to the actual character’s personality. That’s why these people take it so hard (personally) when people point out how weird they’re acting about the character, it’s an attack on them.

Speaking of that birthday episode, it's probably the most random thing in the whole series. Henry is having an existential crisis that he's growing old and Peter is telling him he has to be the pilot of his own life. Bro is legitimately depressed the whole episode until they burst into song and those random mascots appear at his door. I didn't even realize (because the art is so ugly) that those were meant to be The Fimbles! That was such a throwback.

20:13 this really explains why the later seasons of horrid henry are so soulless. there's no passion behind it anymore and the fact like the only writer isn't against using ai for writing the show is sad.

Hold on i’m just finding out there was a horrid henry fandom This was like one of my favorite things to watch when I was 8 or 9, found it at my grandma’s house since they had foxtel and we didn’t, and my uncle would record episodes of horrid henry and send the video files through email, I even bought some of the books

No joke, this video was actually very insightful… I like how you went after everyone and even showed the clips of the original creator doesn’t even like the cartoon let alone the live action film…

I swear you are incredibly underrated. I've been subscribed for a while and every time i'm blown away over your dedication over a seemingly discussion-less topic- like I would have absolutely blown off the Horrid Henry discourse without the context of the source material and the messy production- and how that evolved into a discussion about adaptations and engaging with the source material before you can make a proper analysis on adaptations (and to of course NEVER take anything out of context online, especially on twitter.) I love the energy of "I don't like this show but you guys are hating it for the wrong reasons", there needs to be more nuance on how we discuss media.

i've never heard of the show prior to some clips appearing on my twitter page. and even so, reading the discourse my mind went "yeah, i don't think they'd make and animate a show about two adults abusing their son."

As someone who grew up with this show I find it so sureal to see it get talked about online. Knowing Twitter got there hands on the show and talk about it on and off but even so I find it so weird that so many people know about this British kids cartoon. Of course I love when people find out about obscure stuff from the land of tea and scones espesilly cartoons because not many people know a lot of the lesser know stuff, unless your Wallace and Gromit or Thomas the Tank engine, etc 9/10 no one will ever know about all the other weird obscure stuff that we have to offer unless somehow it was lucky enough to reach other places. Also knowing that this show has over 200 episodes is absurd I had no idea it even lasted that long. But I do feel really bad for Francesca Simon having no control over her own creation and even outright saying she dislike not just the movie but the show too, as I do like how the characters look in the books more. I just hope one day if Horrid Henry ever got a reboot I hope she has more creative control to adapt it in her own way.

Although i heard the author based Henry on her own son and her understanding of how a boy act's like, I've been on reddit and theres literal people who look too deep into this show and post their findings on tge sub reddit like geese calm down its just a British children show that aired on CITV Also rayman music

I used to absolutely love the entire Horrid Henry series when I was a young boy, I was reading the books in like 2002, bought every one that came out and loved the TV show when it dropped, so finding out the CREATOR of Horrid Henry doesn't like the TV show, is my own personal 9/11. (never seen the film, I'm way too old for that nowadays haha)

Hahaha, you did way too much research for this video. It's mostly Americans who have never seen the show & just go off clips on Twitter that are discussing this. If you grew up with it back on CITV, it's pretty normal and Henry got rightfully shit on by his parents. I do admit that in later seasons people seem to just get on Henry out of habit. They can't imagine that he's just mellowed out, so even smaller comments have them doing the same old, "Don't be Horrid, Henry!" shtick.

I have little idea what happened on animation Twitter last month regarding Horrid Henry, but I could take an educated guess people were taking the show out of context. Clumsy as this adaptation seems (I read one Horrid Henry book in primary school and that’s the extent of my engagement with the franchise), it seems to be saying something harsh but useful about parenting that 20 second clips can’t demonstrate. Out of context clips can be hilarious, but if they come at the cost of the reputation of this show’s source material, that’s concerning. Media literacy ain’t what it used to be, and social media is speeding up its decline. (I say this as someone who uses KZfaq to share their media takes, so glass houses, but I hope my videos are more insightful than a 280 character tweet.)

That probably explains why I didn't see Henry as a sad abused kid when i watched it

What the FUCK is woobification

I grew up on this show in the early 2010's. How times have changed. 💀

The Mr.Enter review is the closest to being right about the treatment he gets. Abusive parents aren’t horrid all the time, but that doesn’t mean they’re horrid.

I love how Francesca was basically like "Fuck the movie and fuck that TV show." She didn't even stutter.😂 I don't blame her, honestly.

I remember watching this show when I was young. Why is it relevant again I hate twitter

Tbh, I prefer Dennis the Menace (the European version) more. But it is kinda funny, I guess.

Why is Horrid Henry getting dissected like an insightful metaphorical literary fable? I watched it as a kid, it's not that deep and it's inheritantly written to be relatable and entertaining to kids. I see Denace the Mennace get brought up in the comments but that was really boring to watch because it had a shallow formula: "prankster appears, prankster does prank, prankster leaves". Franchesca did appear in a few episodes and was definitely involved at points. Oh, and there was a canon? Kid me didn't care, all these characters were primary school arche-types what's to be confused about? Horrid Henry was influential enough to be CITV's top show, like come on how is it "mid"? PS: Family Guy is technically a children's cartoon geared towards teenagers with an adult rating.

When we need him he returned ❤❤❤

I loved Horrid Henry as a kid, both the books and show and even the movie and I've had some nostalgia for it, even cosplayed him along with a friend who did Margaret last year before it blew up the way it did. I don't remember thinking much of it other than it being a fun show I found relatable as a kid, like I didn't like homework, found school boring and would fantasise about being famous or whatver. I know Francesca Simon herself in an interview with Michael Rosen says his parents are the problem if we're going to blame anyone but her overall goal was comedy, the books are meant to be funny, Henry enjoys being horrid, I don't get why it blew up the way it did on twitter, I barerly even watched the later series mainly just 1 (which isn't a bad adaptation of the classic stories), 2 and maybe some of 3. Henry does bad things that's judt true, his parents don't parent him in the best way either, comparing him to his brother and wanting him to be a specific way but people are projecting more onto it than what it actually is and beyond what the author's intentions appear to be. This is why I don't engage much with fandoms and kind of hover by myself in my own circle because fandom culture is exhausting. 😭

I had no idea that the later seasons had so many references to The Fimbles. I used to watch that show as a kid and the Roly Mo Show. :) Seeing him appear as a cameo is very nostalgic for me.

I read a number of the books as a kid and it was weird seeing people try to defend henry when i know the kid rightfully gets shit on by his parents in most of the stories. He is like a lesser version of Dennis the Meance from the Beano comic but Dennis is way more interesting and has more wacky antics and schemes.

I am glad I am not the only one who enjoys the original books and audio books.

the second theme song always existed, it was just used for the US version, and likewise it just became more popular so it became the official one from S3 onwards

What about the time his mother cheered at the idea of that magician making Harry disappear?

When I was little I used to watch horrid Henry but it usually ended with me taking month long breaks enforced by my parents cuz according to them I’d turn into an absolute asshole after watching it. Jokes on them however I was an asshole child regardless of whether or not I watched it

Nomative Determinism is the bread & butter of Horrid Henry's world

I never thought that people would be yelling at others and saying they 'don't understand' Horrid Henry for acknowledging the point that Henry's just an asshole with useless parents but here we are.

Damn I feel old. I was about 4 when the books came out and I had every single one of them. My nan would read them to me. I’m now 22 and look back on those days fondly

Horrid Henry Pisses on Thatcher's Grave

Was not expecting horrid henry discorse today

2:58 Lmao, this reminded me of the Horrid Henry TVTropes page. A couple of the entries on there regarding Henry and Ralph are.....reaches, to say the least. ☠️

When someone sais theyd be delighted for an ai to write scripts for a tv show….REVOKE THEIR LICENSE I M M E D I A T L Y

So the long and short of this topic boils down to people on Twitter largely ignoring context. Why am I not surprised

I remember the interview where the autor wisited the country that a live in to meet the fans, and she said that she based horrid henry on her childhood, and who siblings had to fight for parents attention and how clueless people where back then. She's very aweare of how begin born as a boomber affected people. The reason why there is such a disconection bettween zoomers and boomers, it's cuz we are really alike. But we have options that other generations didn't have. 60s rewolution failed. So older generations expects us to fail too. We see how the world has changed from then. More people are awere and warm others of how unplanned parenting can affect others. That's why Z gen desn't want to have kids too fast. Even to many of the people born in 2003-2005 already have children.

this is a show i had only heard of because there was a vaguely similiarly named book series i read when i was a kid called horrible harry & i misremembered the name has horrible henry & only found results relating to it. as someone who was not at all familiar with the discourse, & only vaguely knew of the show before this video i wish you would have explained it before instead of assuming we all knew lol. i was able to pick up from complex clues near the end but still.

Horrid Henry VS UK Dennis the Menace This be the Great British fight

Horrid Henry deserves better attention than that..

Between the video being dope af and the What's with Andy reference this got you a subscriber

i still love series 1 and 2 and the books.

This shows art style irritates me for some reason, also I hope you one day elaborate on the Thimbles cinematic universe one day.

I can’t believe Im watching a 34 minute video on a horrid Henry

People on the Internet projecting so much they stop acknowledging the differences between the character and themselves

I haven't seen this show In years, and this new discourse Is wild to me. It's a cartoon about a boy, Henry, and he's horrid. Mischievous, a prankster, does what he wants. That's It and all, sit back and enjoy

8:14 subtitles: "don't be hard Henry"

I for one have been familiar with the TV series since it's beginning. IMO, the early seasons had their charm. Those episodes had actual effort into them, you could tell they got milage from it's source material. Despite how obnoxious it could be at times, I respect it for embracing a child's inner rebel (as children can also be cheeky sometimes). I can't say the same for the last two seasons. By comparison, the show had a seasonal rot where the edge it previously had went dull. You really pointed out the stories felt they were done in one draft, why most of the creative choices make little sense. Any semblance of a good idea is lost in mediocre execution. I don't know what the future holds for Horrid Henry in general, but I think the TV series has concluded. If so, then it's for the best. The fact that it was moved to the UK version of Nicktoons does say something about it. Much like 'Fairly Odd Parents', they kept making more and more episodes to the point it became washed up. I may be critical of a show that's made for children, but it's only cause I see a good show in it, despite my problems with it. At least it had the decency to just pack it in. It's also interesting to see the difference between the author's vision and how it was adapted to television. It's interesting how they have viewpoints for how Horrid Henry should be. If only there was a compromise for a creator to finish a series on their own terms and not overstay it's welcome. Bottom line; I don't think the series is that 'horrid'. It's just that writing a TV show is a lot like raising a child. It takes alot of care, development and responsibility for it to turn out right.

God forbid Henry becomes a civil engineer and gets a late diagnosed brain tumor

I listened to this entire video, and while I understand part of what false woobification is, I still do not understand what you mean by what kind of people are falsely portraying the character Horrid Henry in a sympathetic light, unless I correctly guessed it was about the public discourse against all the times Horrid Henry's parents treated him badly or when Henry was horrid himself. I got very confused about what the main topic is for this video and this title, because this is a 3-part video going over the entire production history of the animated series adapted from the books when you tell us how it differs from the books. Either the false woobification is about defending Horrid Henry when bad things happen to him in the animated series, or people who try to like, defend or recommend the animated series without realizing how it lacks the metatext and the nuance of the source material books. April 5, 2024, 9:50am

I did feel bad for Henry sometimes His parents were awfull

"You read the title" Yeah, but *_what the f@ck does "woobification" mean?!_*

I'd never heard of this show in my life only to be suddenly blasted by loud and emotional discourse for days straight on my twitter timeline. Then it vanished again like it never existed.

That ending gagged me 🤣

i’m upset i had just missed horrid henry resurrection by about two months😣😣 grew up with it

all i know about horrid henry is the one limmy vine where hes sitting naked in the dark watching the show

I loved horrid henry so much when I was younger, it’s unfortunate the original author’s work got twisted into this completely different character

i’m from the UK & me & my brother loved this show lol we’ve seen most episodes like, an alarming amount of times…

I don't think this show is worst thing ever, but I can also say for certain I wouldn't have liked this as a kid. I used to get easily annoyed with cartoons back then, and would stop watching if I didn't like what was happening.

This show was my childhood :)

The rigs look so uncanny, I'm so glad they went for unrigged animation when i watched this as a kid

Gonna have to put you with the worms for this one mate

They could never make me hate Henry 💪🏼

Horrid henry was a very very present part of my childhood. I used to collect all the DVDs too! I even watched the movies and bought the joke books.

good video, I loved Horrid Henry as a kid but have also been part of the Twitter thing, posting some clips from the show while I revisited it, I think some people forget that Henry and his parents are nuanced Henry once tried to sell Peter in an episode, so he can do bad things he can sometimes have good intentions but either he's misguided or his parents misunderstand however in the later series, his dad tries to be more understanding and he has more of a connection with him I don't think all the "reinterpretations" are bad, but some do reach quite a bit I do really enjoy the tv show but I disagree with their stance on AI art, the rigs don't have the surreal vibe of the old series

I hear the Rayman Hoodoo theme in the background, I sub.

i found out about horrid henry because i was browsing steam db to look for unlisted games, and then coincidentally this show blew up online right after?

I remember watching the episodes on youtube, its so weird seeing this show get popular.

Henry was my favourite thing when I was literally 6 - 11 and I still love the show now. It’s my favourite thing about my country 😭

I remember back when I was little I was literally obsessed with horrid Henry lol never watch it anymore though I’ve simply long grown out of it

When I was six my friend-ish showed me an episode of horrid Henry. I got bored super fast but I had to watch it cause I couldn’t just LEAVE.

You sound a bit young yet the video and script feel so professional, I’m really impressed.

That Horrid Henry impression is spot on.

I remember i was at a friends, friends house and horrcid henry was on the tv and the mum changed the channel saying the show had a bad influence on children which even as a child i thought that was just ridiculous

This goes much deeper than i thought it would lol

I replied to some Horrid Henry posts and then in comes the tsunami of Horrid Henry with a bunch of "Man this is child neglect." "Terrible parents" "He's just doing some stuff, why's his parents so mean?" I GET IT!! SHUT UP!! YOU'RE IN YOUR 20s COMPLAINING ABOUT A CARTOON!!

Simply put, the book characters and show characters are just different. Their personalities are different. The books show Henry as a genuine asshole kid, but the show has him be a bit older and mellow out, to the point that the "Horrid" part is largely only carried by his established reputation, and as his response to that reputation. They're both simple ideas (it is a series for kids after all) and the show often embellishes his misery by reducing his actual horridness, as a way to use him as a buttmonkey. It's funny for kids. The book and the show just execute the same premise in completely different ways

Subbed. I can tell this channel’s gonna blow up 😎

I use to watch this show so much, not sure if I ever liked it I just watched it whenever it came on the telly….also 23:05 I never expected Horrid bloody Henry of all shows to have a rocky horror picture show reference, seriously though what the hell lmao?

9:47 Proof That Horrid Henry Is Harry Potter

i was fixated on this show for nearly 3 WHOLE years. (don't know if it can be attributed to my autism or not) i was OBSESSED with this and went through experiences in the fandom i can't talk about here and will probably need a therapist to talk to about cause it goes so deep unfortunately. i don;t know why i liked it looking back. the production team didn't gaf about anything.

That "..wE liVe iN a socIeTy.." was so out of nowhere and still so fitting that I laughed, worth leaving a like on a video I don't really want the algorithm to base my front page on, but that was good enough as media ananlysis and comedy to deserve the thumbs up though that will most likely bite me in the foot later

i did not just watch a fucking 34 minute video essay on horrid henry 💀

Horrid Henry is goated I used to come home from school and watch it on CITV I will not tolerate any slander

I had so many Horrid Henry dvds as a kid

Rayman 3 music in the back?? banger video

Dog gone it! That dang dog done did another banger of a video!!!

8:08 i only know noticed taht tihs Show Just has 5 seasons With 250.+ Epesode