What-a-Mess
What-a-Mess is a series of children's books that was eventually adapted into an Animated Series by DiC Entertainment. Both series focus on the eponymous Afghan Hound, What-a-Mess, and his interactions with humans and other pets. The show, in particular, had a pretty catchy opening song.
The late Frank Muir, author of the original books, was an English comedy writer also known for his work on BBC radio.
Tropes used in What-a-Mess include:
- Animal Talk: All the animal characters can understand each other.
- Author Avatar: The elderly English Sheepdog, Frank, is voiced by creator Frank Muir himself.
- Cats Are Mean: Felicia the cat is self-centered and occasionally malicious.
- Cross-Dressing Voices: Averted with What-A-Mess, as he was voiced by (at the time) child voice actor Ryan O'Donohue.
- The Danza: Frank Muir as Frank the Sheepdog.
- The Faceless: An odd trope in this kind of series. The faces of human characters are always deliberately obscured by things like camera angles or objects and no human faces are ever seen.
- Five-Man Band:
- The Hero: Whatamess
- The Lancer: Norton
- The Smart Guy: Frank
- The Big Guy: Trash
- The Chick: Felicia
- Team Pet: Baldwin
- He Cleans Up Nicely: In a subversion version of this trope, the male What-a-Mess is bathed and groomed on rare occasions and actually looks like a pedigree Afghan Hound rather than his usual scruffy self.
- Hey, It's That Voice!: Some of the voice actors who worked on What-a-Mess include Jim Cummings, Michael Bell and Charlie Adler.
- The 1995 cartoon has Randall Weemes as the title character.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Trash, who acts like a street-smart tough guy most of the time, but can be quite nice when push comes to shove.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: What-a-Mess's real name is actually Prince Amir of Kinjan, but in practice he is rarely called this. Even his mother calls him What-a-Mess most of the time.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Inverted. Well-groomed Afghan Hounds naturally have long hair on their heads, and long hair that tends to make them look like they're wearing fancy clothes. Despite all that, What-a-Mess is a male dog. Played straight with the cat, Felicia. She has long eyelashes and a bow.
- Truth in Television: Afghan Hounds have notoriously high-maintenance coats. Any owner of an Afghan Hound who grooms their dog anything less than constantly will end up with a dog looking something like What-a-Mess. Frank Muir owned several Afghan Hounds when he wrote the series, which was probably an influence.
- Unreliable Narrator: The narrator often says the exact opposite of what is really going on.