# On Muppet Babies, why didn’t they show Nanny’s face? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 22, 2019, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911 "2019-04-22T23:04:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nadnerb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ee7513/32.png) [@Nadnerb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nadnerb)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/1 "2019-04-22T23:04:37Z")
Always wondered why. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/2 "2019-04-22T23:22:43Z")
For the same reason that _Peanuts_ never showed any adult characters (nor their dialog): To ground it totally in the world of the children. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/3 "2019-04-22T23:36:33Z")
Because adults are **EVIL!** :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/4 "2019-04-22T23:48:46Z")
_Peanuts_ was what I thought of as well. TV Tropes [has a page on the topic](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThereAreNoAdults), as one might expect. Surprisingly, though, there aren’t too many “pure” examples besides _Peanuts_ and _Muppet Babies_. Most have occasional exceptions, or perhaps just an episode or two with no adults. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/5 "2019-04-23T11:20:06Z")
There must be another trope page for “why you only hear John Forsythe’s voice, but never see Charlie.” This whole mystery trope is a very cute, focusing cliche. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/6 "2019-04-23T12:23:05Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > _Peanuts_ was what I thought of as well. > > TV Tropes [has a page on the topic](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThereAreNoAdults), as one might expect. Surprisingly, though, there aren’t too many “pure” examples besides _Peanuts_ and _Muppet Babies_. Most have occasional exceptions, or perhaps just an episode or two with no adults. There was “Mammy Two Shoes” on **Tom & Jerry**. Her head and face were shown a few times, but mostly it was just knees down or neck down. Interestingly, in the 60s, for obvious reasons, MGM and Chuck Jones went back and “censored” many of the T&J shorts featuring her, rotoscoping over the old footage and replacing her with a white woman and rerecording her dialogue with an Irish accent. Also interestingly, the character was not entirely erased from the show, but even brought back as “Mrs. Two Shoes” with a lighter skin tone in **Tom & Jerry Tales** , produced from 2006-08. It was also used a lot in **Ren & Stimpy** , but they were most likely doing it as parody of all of the above. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/7 "2019-04-23T12:30:05Z")
I feel like I remember a show where the mom and dad were literally only legs, as in it would show them simply cut off at the waist. Cow and Chicken? ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/8 "2019-04-23T13:00:04Z")
Did anyone else assume that Nanny was wearing some kind of clown makeup? I think the striped stockings gave me that idea. > [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Cow and Chicken? That sounds right to me…I seem to remember the Mom and Dad characters gesturing and carrying out other actions with their feet. I also remember the theme song: - Mama had a chicken Mama had a cow Dad was proud He didn’t care how \* ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/9 "2019-04-23T18:10:07Z")
At first they didn’t show the faces of the parents on _The Loud House_, but then they changed their minds. I wonder why? ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/10 "2019-04-23T18:42:47Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > For the same reason that _Peanuts_ never showed any adult characters (nor their dialog): To ground it totally in the world of the children. Well…, hardly ever. The May 16,23, and 30 1954 strips (but just legs or with indistinct faces) > **[May 1954 comic strips](https://peanuts.fandom.com/wiki/May_1954_comic_strips)** > > May 1, 1954 May 2, 1954 May 3, 1954 (Shermy's last lines until May 10, 1955. This strip is adapted in Good Grief, Charlie Brown: Peanuts, with Lucy replacing Shermy) May 4, 1954 May 5, 1954 May 6, 1954 May 7, 1954 May 8, 1954 May 9, 1954 (Beginning... There were also some strips in the mid 50s that had adults speaking (actual words) from “offstage”. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/11 "2019-04-23T18:51:11Z")
yeah, actually there was a cow and chicken episode or two that showed them as just a pair of legs as the ending joke … edd ed and Eddy had a play of this where the smart ones parents never directly interacted with him and just left sticky notes all over the place Eventually, the leader forged a bunch of them as a joke and had him doing all sorts of dumb stufff ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/12 "2019-04-23T22:21:09Z")
And it seems to me that there might have been one episode of _Peanuts_ that was a tribute to someone who’d just died, which showed him. But still, a mere handful of exceptions over the course of a fifty-year run is pretty safely described as “never”. ---
**Author:** ![Serenata67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/serenata67/32/10646_2.png) [@Serenata67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serenata67)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/13 "2019-04-24T16:40:13Z")
Because the establishment has no face, only rules… ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/14 "2019-04-24T17:58:03Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > There was “Mammy Two Shoes” on **Tom & Jerry**. Her head and face were shown a few times, but mostly it was just knees down or neck down. . . . . The beginning of Who Framed Roger Rabbit was an interrupted short cartoon that showed the mother from the knees down (plus a hand and arm when she threatened Roger). Now I’m wondering what the toon who played her looked like. ---
**Author:** ![Serenata67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/serenata67/32/10646_2.png) [@Serenata67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serenata67)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/15 "2019-04-24T18:45:30Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > The beginning of Who Framed Roger Rabbit was an interrupted short cartoon that showed the mother from the knees down (plus a hand and arm when she threatened Roger). > > Now I’m wondering what the toon who played her looked like. Now that I think about it, she must have been huge. Roger only went up to her thigh, if that. He went up to the chest of Jessica Rabbit, who was about average human height. That mother toon must have been 9 or 10 feet tall. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/16 "2019-04-24T19:47:46Z")
> [@Serenata67](#): > > Now that I think about it, she must have been huge. Roger only went up to her thigh, if that. He went up to the chest of Jessica Rabbit, who was about average human height. That mother toon must have been 9 or 10 feet tall. I remember after they yelled “cut” and pulled back on the set to reveal the cameramen and director that they were pair of prop legs used like stilts by a human character. [Seen at 4:20 here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVTBx8H4QDg) ---
**Author:** ![Serenata67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/serenata67/32/10646_2.png) [@Serenata67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serenata67)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/17 "2019-04-24T20:00:37Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > I remember after they yelled “cut” and pulled back on the set to reveal the cameramen and director that they were pair of prop legs used like stilts by a human character. [Seen at 4:20 here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVTBx8H4QDg) Great catch! I’ve seen that movie a bunch of times and I never caught that! ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/18 "2019-04-25T16:38:53Z")
But her hand! Wasn’t her hand of a size to fit the legs? Dammit. Now I have to watch it again. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Morelin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Morelin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morelin)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2019, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-muppet-babies-why-didn-t-they-show-nanny-s-face/832911/19 "2019-04-27T15:22:20Z")
And Inspector Gadget never showed Dr. Claw, only his hand and the cat.