Perhaps a bit off topic here, but I wouldn't say that era is necessarily the single most important factor in determining one's musical tastes. After all, I'm a late 80s/early 90s kid, and most of the bands and musicians I'm into hark back to the 60s and 70s, in many cases even earlier. An awful lot of them are currently dead or doing reunion tours.

I think that Wilt is a reggae lover, myself. He threw in a pretty nice reference to a Bob Marley standard in the episode "Blooooo".

CAUTION: DeviantArt reply by Craig McCracken on Deviation "Wilt Development".

http://comments.deviantart.com/1/76338091/644705214

No. Way. :wiltshock:

Uh, pardon my ignorance but I'm not seeing anything new, here. :terrconf:

THIS is what I'm talking about. =P

Well, '76 is gonna throw off some of my numbers, but I'll adapt.

Mildly off topic here, but I want to know: In Foster's Goes to Europe, we learn that Wilt has some sort of asthma-based allergy (I specifically refer to the part where he's "condensing" his suitcase and is leaving pretty much everything at home. He's pulls out an inhaler and announces, "Allergy medication." Or something to that effect). Any ideas what this allergy may be to?

I'm thinking something along the lines of dust or pollen. I highly doubt that it's fur or something similar, because then Eduardo would trigger a reaction, would he?

Actually, no one is allergic to fur, per se. Most animal allergies are due to reactions to dander, which is protein-rich dried animal saliva combined with skin secretions, in the animal's fur. Since cats wash themselves more than dogs, cats tend to produce the worst allergic reactions, but animals that have lanolin-type skin oils, like sheep and big cats(tigers, lions, etc.)and reindeer, can produce some really bad and even life-threatening asthmatic reactions in sensitive people. That's why I can't wear wool and can no longer keep big cats(yeah, I actually used to). Wilt is around a lot of feline IF's(though I really can't picture Bloppy Pants washing himself like my cats do, lol), with no problems, so he's probably allergic to dust(or dust mites, rather)and pollens, and probably some mold spores. Those are the biggest allergins with most sufferers, myself included. I have to carry one of those inhalers with me everywhere I go, just in case.

Wilt is a couple years younger than I thought, but I was in the ballpark. That means that basically, he and Jordan were together for roughly two years before that ill-fated game, if we're to assume that his "timeline" is the same as the other characters'(note that Mac is still eight, even though the series debuted in 2004, for instance). That would be about right, giving enough time for Wilt to turn his creator's lack of self-confidence around and help him develop his basketball skills to the point where they could take on other teams and begin to win, prior to reigning for a whole year before that game against Foul Larry and his creator.

I have found it rather odd, though, the number of people who have NOT seen Good Wilt Hunting, and upon seeing the designs for Wilt, still assume that he was created that way, with one arm and a messed-up eye, or that his creator abused him.

pitbulllady

Once again, I do the poor choice of words thing-- in my little bit of research into allergies (ahem, reading a National Geographic article a year or so ago), I knew that dander was the allergen as opposed to the fur and meant dander here. Once again, sorry about the confusion. The only reason I was able to rule out dander was for the reason you stated-- because of Wilt?s day-to-day interactions with IF?s with fur.

Switching gears now, it would seem we were both in the ballpark concerning Wilt?s age-- personally, I had pegged him for being created in ?73. (The basis for my math was that he was 31 when the series debuted in 2004. A simple albeit effective system.)

There is an interesting dilemma about Wilt?s appearance-- I can?t speak for everyone, but when I first saw Wilt, I didn?t really ponder too deeply into his lack of an arm and eye. I never really pondered too deeply into it, in fact-- I just accepted it. I dunno, that?s just me.

Yeah, I had figured that he'd have been created around '73-'74, too. I can distinctly remember that decade, and by '76, the Afro hairstyle had pretty much gone out, finis, good-bye. That was very much an early-seventies style. '76 was the Disco Era(ugh), with the immaculate hair and leisure suits, although one aspect DOES point to Wilt-the patriotic Bicentenial fervor that peaked in that year, in which EVERYTHING was red, white and blue. Still, those socks had gone out with the early seventies, too, and they were another reason I'd had Wilt pegged as a "'73 model". One of the things, though, that pointed to that fateful game in GWH as being post-'76 is a Star Wars poster on the wall behind the basketball court, though from the screen cap, it isn't clear if it said "STAR Wars" or "STORE Wars", referencing that earlier Foster's episode. Oh, well...Craig has spoken, though, so '76 it is!

One of the reasons I started watching Foster's in the first place was out of curiosity to find out what had happened to Wilt's arm and eye, after seeing some fan art of him and realizing that his left arm was mostly missing, and his eye was, well..."wonky". I never doubted that SOMETHING traumatic had happened to him, due to the presence of suture scars and the surgical precision of the injuries, and his evasive response to Bloo's comment about "you must play basketball" in the pilot, which seemed to indicate that this was venturing into memory territory that Wilt would rather not tread. I never bought into the "he was imagined that way" theory, and I never really thought that his creator was responsible for that arm and eye. Initially, I figured that Wilt's injuries were the result of some unfortunate accident, perhaps not even connected with his creator at all, but as the series moved on, and it became more and more obvious that Wilt was struggling with more than just PHYSICAL scars, I had to wonder if his injuries hadn't resulted from deliberate violence against him, or a past that included abuse from someone, or if they'd been incurred as a result of something bad HE did. I'd always suspected that Wilt spent some time on his own before arriving at the safe haven of Foster's, and we all know that someone who is forced to cope with life-or-death survival on a daily basis will do whatever it takes to survive, and if that means involving oneself with bad and dangerous situations, so be it. I WAS right in that Wilt DID spend several years on his own, but this was after his arm and eye were injured, and the situation that resulted in those injuries was one of pure selfless heroism, not self-serving at all.

pitbulllady

Well, first off, just because a certain thing has gone out of style, doesn't mean kids don't still think it's cool. Jordan may have just been a bit behind the times. I didn't see any other afroed kids there. Also, regarding Wilt's scars, he probably did get roughed up by standing up to someone or something viscious, I mean, like on how he took on a pack of wild dogs in Phone Home, only without the experience to know to bring the steak.

Wilt's scars, both the ones on the stump of his arm and on his face, are very precise and "clean", not the sort of scars you'd get if you got roughed up by someone or someTHING. Only a surgical procedure will produce scars like that. Obviously, his badly broken arm would have required amputation and the stump would have been sutured/stapled closed, probably after padding the bone end with muscle from some other part of his body, which is standard procedure. It's done to prepare the stump for use of a prosthetic limb later, which in Wilt's case, would have been pretty tough to obtain.

There also were many kids back in Wilt's old 'hood wearing Afros, such as the two older kids that show up and challenge Wilt and Jordan to a game. One has a sweatband around his head, though. Believe me, I KNOW these kids, having lived and taught school in similar environments, and they are VERY fashion-conscious and aware of trends/fads, and if something is yesterday's news, they're the first ones to know and not have anything to do with it. If it's out of style, it's most definitely isn't cool, not to them.

pitbulllady