5 Creepy Cartoon Fan Theories That Make Way Too Much Sense

Why It's Not That Crazy:

Let's look at the plot: It starts when the Jewish people (represented by the toys) are left behind by their host nations at the onset of World War II (represented by Andy going off to get high and score in college). At this point the toys' leader, Woody, suggests hiding in the attic, Anne Frank style, but they get caught and shipped off to Sunnyside Daycare -- you know, a place where their kind is "concentrated" and routinely mistreated (only by little children instead of Nazis).

The abusive toys who live in Sunnyside are the movie's version of the Jewish police who helped push their fellow Jews into trains for Auschwitz. Because of them, the main characters end up on a conveyor belt ... headed straight for the incinerator.

Christ, Pixar. There's even a sad scene where the toys grab hands and accept their fate.

And then, of course, they get saved by toy aliens, who obviously stand for the Allies. The protagonists eventually relocate to a new place where "many of their kind already live and have an established foothold" (Israel/a little girl's house). So there you go: The next time someone tells you they heard an awesome theory about the identity of Andy's mom, you can tell them, "Oh, I know. She's the Gestapo who sent the toys away."

The Theory:

The plot we just described is a metaphor for the gentrification and segregation of blacks in Los Angeles, or so claims renowned film scholar " reddit account deleted."

Why It's Not That Crazy:

Short of the filmmakers including a talking crow called Jim to spell it out, the clues couldn't be more obvious. The movie takes place in 1947, at the height of the Jim Crow era, where mandated state and local laws prohibited whites and blacks from having the same stuff or being in the same places. Doesn't Toontown, the city where the toons live near Hollywood, feel a little more sinister in that context?

The villain, Judge Doom, wants to tear down the trolley system to force the toons out of their home so they can build a freeway for the wealthy humans -- that's called gentrification, an issue that remains controversial in LA to this day. Also, most of the cartoons are performers, which of course was one of the "acceptable" occupations for black people at the time. You don't see any cartoon doctors or lawyers ... unless they're pretending to be human, like Judge Doom himself. That makes Doom an Uncle Tom character: a minority who sells out his own race for his personal benefit, like Samuel L. Jackson in Django, only less cartoonish.

Then there's Jessica Rabbit, to whom Eddie is clearly attracted, despite his claims that he hates cartoons. His confusion is representative of the confusion of many white males who lusted after black women despite seeing blacks as inferior.

And finally, in the movie the word "toon" is treated like a racial slur that humans use to offend cartoon characters. Now say the word out loud but replace the first letter with a "C."

We're telling you, once you start noticing this stuff, the world becomes a darker place.

Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory was the envy of every science-minded kid who had to make do with an incomplete junior chemistry set and some hand-me-down LEGO Technics. He had a huge secret lab under his house and seemingly unlimited resources to build anything he imagined -- for instance, his own Dexo-Transformer, which he used to terrorize his bullies in dodgeball.

The Theory:

According to this theory from TV Tropes, Dexter's life isn't as cool as it looks, since he suffers from Asperger's syndrome ... but, you know, so do half the My Little Ponies, probably. If there's one thing the Internet loves more than fake diagnosing itself with Asperger's, it's fake diagnosing its favorite characters with it.

Why It's Not That Crazy:

A strong case can be made for Dexter, though. Look at his personality: He struggles to interact with others socially, has repetitive patterns he adheres to, and has very unique interests -- if Dexter could, he wouldn't leave his lab. These are all signs of Asperger's, as is his baffling pseudo-Austrian accent: A lot of people with this condition sound like foreigners to their own families because they mimic words the way they were pronounced when they first heard them (in many cases, on TV).

OK, so the kid might be an Aspie, but does that change anything in the show? Actually, it changes everything, because we view all the other characters through Dexter's lens, and people with Asperger's have trouble empathizing with others. He views his sister Dee Dee as a huge dolt, but what if he just doesn't understand girls? His mom appears to have constant mood swings, but could it be that Dexter doesn't know when he's making her angry? Meanwhile, his dad is always a bumbling incompetent, but maybe Dexter is simply disappointed that he isn't a world class genius.

Then there's Dexter's rival, Mandark, who is practically a supervillain when we first meet him, but becomes a much more sympathetic character when we're not looking at him from the Asperger's-having protagonist's point of view. At any rate, this makes way more sense than the "Dexter becomes a serial killer on Showtime" theory.

And that's what the show is about, ultimately: Helga's obsession with a strange-headed boy, and how she finds meaning in her otherwise bleak life through him. Hence the title, and the disproportionate amount of screen time for Arnold, a secondary character. It's no wonder that the creators wanted to make a spinoff that was openly about Helga, but it was shot down for being too depressing.

Second, the movie doesn't take place in Sayama, but it's in the same area, and at one point you see the word "Sayama" on a box of tea:

It gets creepier: At one point in the movie, Mei, the little sister, goes missing. We then see her crying at the feet of some Jizo statues, which are a real thing and the protectors of "those who die at a young age." Buckle up, because it only gets more depressing.

In the film, Satsuki asks the totoros for help, so they use Catbus to take her to where Mei is -- according to this theory, the afterlife. Oh, and what does it say on the bus' sign? "GRAVE ROAD."

In the end, the girls return home ... or do they? In the last scenes, they appear to have no shadows, which means they're ghosts, or they're vampires, or the animators cheaped out. In other words, like the real sisters in the Sayama Incident, the little one goes missing and dies, and the older, torn with grief, soon follows her. The totoros are just clever symbolic objects to depict death.

We need to curl up under a bed for a moment now.

Related Reading: Speaking of hidden movie meanings, did you know the webs in the Spiderman movies symbolize man-juice? That one might be a little more obvious than the fact that Aliens was an allegory for the Vietnam war. And if you'd like to know the dark, hidden secret behind Back to the Future, you'd best click here.