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Shout Outs
One can observe an interesting trend in Calvin & Hobbes: The Series' Shout Outs.
- Season 1 often used outright plagiarism from sources the author is known to like - this ends up blurring the line between "plagiarism" and "shout out".
- Season 2 mostly used what are obviously references, as most other works do.
- Both Seasons 1 and 2 use the following series for shout outs: Spongebob Squarepants, Hank the Cowdog, and Garfield.note
- They also use pretty blatant Product Placement and parts of the original strip, though the latter could be excused as a series of Call Backs (and indeed, it already has been).
- Both Seasons 1 and 2 use the following series for shout outs: Spongebob Squarepants, Hank the Cowdog, and Garfield.note
- Season 3, while mostly being the same as above, also has the mostly blatant plagiarism yet - "The Five Calvins", a completely random adaptation of "The Five Doctors". Though there's enough new material to stop accusations of plagiarism, there are still some rough edges (i.e. the title - there are only four Calvins! note )
- Seasons 4 and 5 are pretty much the same as the above - no rip-offs here!
- Seasons 3, 4, and 5 all display a shift in tone, and the author's new favorite media was perhaps an early indicator of this - Doctor Who and Red Dwarf are more prominent. On the flip-side, Mystery Science Theater 3000 is referenced with the same frequency as the former two, and there are two separate references to Pajama Sam of all things.
- This may also have something to do with his co-author garfieldodie, whose portfolio is mostly fanfics of these series, while Swing 123 is mostly the aforementioned Nick cartoons and comic strips.
- Seasons 3, 4, and 5 all display a shift in tone, and the author's new favorite media was perhaps an early indicator of this - Doctor Who and Red Dwarf are more prominent. On the flip-side, Mystery Science Theater 3000 is referenced with the same frequency as the former two, and there are two separate references to Pajama Sam of all things.
Timeline
Given that the story is basically a Continuity Cavalcade based upon the two authors' earlier works, it's no surprise that references to both series come up a lot. But there's a problem - Calvin and Hobbes III: Double Trouble and Trouble Island both had endings that directly contradict the major Cassandra Truth themes on this story! This means that they're probably in Canon Discontinuity. ("The Transmitter Conspiracy" referenced Attack of the Teacher Creature, mind you.) Or it could simply be that the events of Double Trouble and Trouble Island simply haven't happened yet within the show's continuity.
