# Start off conventional, end up weird **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 4, 2017, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/start-off-conventional-end-up-weird/800688 "2017-11-04T17:03:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![AI\_Proofreader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@AI\_Proofreader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AI_Proofreader)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2017, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/start-off-conventional-end-up-weird/800688/41 "2017-11-06T05:59:04Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > “Supernatural” started off weird, got weirder, and now has the Winchester Bros. teaching the son of Lucifer the ways of the world. Well, once they’d explored Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, and the brothers had to literally avert the Apocalypse, they didn’t leave themselves a lot of areas to explore. The real “jump the shark” moment though, in my opinion, was when they meet God… and he’s basically writing fan fiction about them. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2017, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/start-off-conventional-end-up-weird/800688/42 "2017-11-06T14:14:23Z")
Bob Dylan started out as a typical early 1960’s folk singer when folk music was the most popular music of the time. His getting the Nobel Prize for Poetry was extremely, jaw dropping, unbelievably are you fucking kidding me? WEIRD. ---
**Author:** ![Lancia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lancia/32/17174_2.png) [@Lancia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lancia)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2017, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/start-off-conventional-end-up-weird/800688/43 "2017-11-06T14:33:35Z")
I’m kinda surprised _Twin Peaks_ hasn’t been mentioned yet. That seems to be the ultimate example IMO. Of course, that show stated off a bit weird, but still was more-or-less conventional (if convoluted) for the first few episodes. The second season is when it went nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2017, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/start-off-conventional-end-up-weird/800688/44 "2017-11-06T14:53:54Z")
Speaking of _Peanuts_, in the beginning Snoopy was a conventional dog. Period. In the end, he was a very very very very very weird dog. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2017, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/start-off-conventional-end-up-weird/800688/45 "2017-11-06T14:59:15Z")
I think that what might be the poster child for this is Chester Gould’s strip **Dick Tracy**. Although the gritty police strip did have its moments of weirdness (like Tracy’s iconic _Two-Way-Wrist Radio_\*, which was well ahead of its time), it’s weirdness was mainly concentrated in his oddball Rogue’s Gallery, with their defining physical characteristics. But in the 1960s, the strip took a turn for the Truly Weird, with the police getting the Space Coupe and meeting intelligent folks from the moon, with antennas and all, including **Moon Maid** : > **[Moon Maid (comics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Maid_(comics))** > > Moon Maid is a fictional alien character from the Dick Tracy comic strip, created in 1964 by Chester Gould. > Gould, hoping to keep the strip evolving with the times, slowly began changing the strip from a crime drama into one whose primary focus was science fiction. Tracy had always been equipped with the latest, most up-to-date police equipment, including forensic science, but with the introduction into the strip of eccentric industrialist Diet Smith as Tracy's friend in the 1940s, Tracy began t... > [@](#): > > The logical extension of this in Gould’s mind was the introduction of space travel. Smith invented the magnetic-powered Space Coupe. With the use of this vehicle, Tracy and company landed on the moon in 1964, finding there an advanced race of humanoids whose high technology meshed remarkably well with that of Smith’s. The Moon race looked like Caucasian humans except for having abnormally large eyes and giraffe-like horns on their foreheads. > > … > > Moon Maid was the daughter of the Moon’s supreme ruler, a male humanoid who was always identified as “the Governor of the Moon”. It is not clear whether he was democratically elected, or some form of hereditary ruler. She served as a liaison between her race and the humans. She and her family became one of the strip’s primary focuses for several years. > > Moon Maid eventually married Junior, the now-adult adopted son of Dick Tracy. Her father the Governor resented this marriage. Eventually, Moon Maid became pregnant by Junior. Her father was anxious that the child be born on the Moon, so as to be legally a Moon denizen. The pregnant Moon Maid, Junior, Dick Tracy and the Governor were all aboard a Space Coupe when Moon Maid gave birth at precisely the midpoint in space between Earth and the Moon. > > The child, a girl, was named Honeymoon Tracy and had slightly over-large eyes, and two prominent tufts of hair on her forehead in the position corresponding to Moon Maid’s horns; we are never told what lies beneath those tufts. The daughter also demonstrated a magnetic ability to attract small metal objects to her hands; this talent never played an important role in the strip. > > During this period, Dick Tracy himself had many adventures on the Moon, notably solving a murder case involving a man named Purdy Fallar who kept two of his fingernails extra-long, claiming they were for harvesting the meat of Giant Escargot: a species of gigantic Moon snails, prized on Earth as delicacies. In reality he used his sharpened fingernails as throat-slashing weapons. > … > > Soon after Rick Fletcher and Max Collins took over the strip in 1978, Moon Maid was murdered accidentally by a man named “Little” Littel who was trying to kill Tracy with a car bomb while trying to collect on a million dollar open contract on Tracy’s head by elderly crime lord “Big Boy” Caprice. Littel would later be killed himself in an explosion when Junior Tracy goes to his shop looking for revenge on his wife’s murder. > > Although Honeymoon Tracy survived—though all references to her moon heritage were forgotten—it was understood that this moment represented the termination of the strip’s Moon years. > **[Moon Period](https://dicktracy.fandom.com/wiki/Moon_Period)** > > The Moon Period (also referred to as "The Moon Era") was a period of the Dick Tracy comic strip that involved characters traveling to and from the Moon using Space Coupes. Several Moon-themed characters were introduced, most notably Moon Maid, a... - [2-Way Wrist Radio | Dick Tracy Wiki | Fandom](http://dicktracy.wikia.com/wiki/2-Way_Wrist_Radio) ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2017, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/start-off-conventional-end-up-weird/800688/46 "2017-11-06T15:54:59Z")
**Out of the Dark** by David Weber definitely qualifies. It starts out as a military sci fi novel… aliens invade earth, they have more advanced technology, but humans (particularly Americans, of course) are purer of heart and spirit, and do their best to hold off the aliens, with American military tech described at nearly-pornographic length. But… the aliens are just too advanced, and they’re going to win, until humanity is saved by… …introduced reasonably late in the book with basically no foreshadowing… Dracula. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2017, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/start-off-conventional-end-up-weird/800688/47 "2017-11-06T16:00:49Z")
They didn’t go full weird, but Maverick was originally one of many standard westerns in a sea of standard westerns. But one day, some writer put stage directions about Maverick looking at someone “with his beady little eyes” and Garner thought it was hilarious. From then on, Maverick was much more a comedy, and a legend was born. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2017, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/start-off-conventional-end-up-weird/800688/48 "2017-11-06T16:04:02Z")
_NewsRadio_ is another example of a sitcom that got weirder (in a good way) as it went along. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2017, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/start-off-conventional-end-up-weird/800688/49 "2017-11-06T16:06:25Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Bob Dylan started out as a typical early 1960’s folk singer when folk music was the most popular music of the time. > > His getting the Nobel Prize for Poetry was extremely, jaw dropping, unbelievably are you fucking kidding me? WEIRD. Dylan didn’t change. The world did. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2017, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/start-off-conventional-end-up-weird/800688/50 "2017-11-06T16:30:02Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I think that what might be the poster child for this is Chester Gould’s strip **Dick Tracy**. Although the gritty police strip did have its moments of weirdness (like Tracy’s iconic _Two-Way-Wrist Radio_\*, which was well ahead of its time), it’s weirdness was mainly concentrated in his oddball Rogue’s Gallery, with their defining physical characteristics. > > But in the 1960s, the strip took a turn for the Truly Weird, with the police getting the Space Coupe and meeting intelligent folks from the moon, with antennas and all, including **Moon Maid** : > > [Moon Maid (comics) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Maid_(comics)) > [Moon Period | Dick Tracy Wiki | Fandom](http://dicktracy.wikia.com/wiki/Moon_Period) As mentioned in both the wikipedia and Dick Tracy Wiki articles you link to, the current creative team, Joe Staton and Mike Curtis, have reintroduced a lot of older elements from the classic Tracy strips, including some of the moon-related material. Honeymoon Tracy, complete with antennae, has become a more prominent character again. And as recently as the [October 18](http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2017/10/18) strip, a space coupe carrying what is apparently a visitor from the moon has landed on earth. Nothing further has come of this plotline yet, but it looks like they’re gearing up for a genuine Moon Period-style adventure. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2017, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/start-off-conventional-end-up-weird/800688/51 "2017-11-06T17:55:38Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > As mentioned in both the wikipedia and Dick Tracy Wiki articles you link to, the current creative team, Joe Staton and Mike Curtis, have reintroduced a lot of older elements from the classic Tracy strips, including some of the moon-related material. Honeymoon Tracy, complete with antennae, has become a more prominent character again. And as recently as the [October 18](http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2017/10/18) strip, a space coupe carrying what is apparently a visitor from the moon has landed on earth. Nothing further has come of this plotline yet, but it looks like they’re gearing up for a genuine Moon Period-style adventure. After the first new team first killed off the whole story line off when they took over the strip. It looks as if history may be repeating itself – looking for more interest, the current team is going from “conventional” (well, Dick Tracy Conventional) to Weird again. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2017, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/start-off-conventional-end-up-weird/800688/52 "2017-11-08T01:17:29Z")
You know, _It’s Always Sunny_ started off pretty normal and went real far off the rails soon after. In the first couple episodes, Charlie isn’t retarded. I think once Frank came along, all bets were off. That last season was damn near unwatchable. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/start-off-conventional-end-up-weird/800688.md?page=2)