#junebug is adorable imo her being annoying just adds to it

[thesaturn1nez]

Can I get some Junebug HC?

yaay the lil cutie :] was waiting for someone to request her!

Junebug 🪲

• she was made much later in The Neighborhood. the city network urged them to make a character that could appeal to little girls who were more fond of girly things, so Al came up with the idea of a preteen girl who could teach kids about being responsible and independence while still having time for fun.

• so many parents HATED her character. the thing that saved her from being removed was the fact that 97% of the children watching loved her and actually started doing tasks their own parents couldn’t get them to do just because she did them.

• staff actually liked her a lot. her silliness and genuine innocence managed to overpower most feelings of distain.

• bad habit of going places she wasn’t supposed to be. there’s a bunch of bloopers in the archives where she ruined the mood by running in front of the camera, yelling out something random, or doing something in the back when she wasn’t even supposed to be there. one of the funniest examples was Junebug in the background of a shot, awkwardly trying to climb down a tree, only to give up and crash to the ground with Richie trying his hardest to stay in character.

• to everyone’s confusion, she’d sometimes ended up in the offices: the main theory being she wiggled her way through a vent. the writers would let her explore before taking her back to the set before anyone figured out she was missing. this was so common, she got into the habit of bringing stuff as ‘gifts’ with every visit. the explanation for the prop food in the cabinets.

• oh, her handler was STRESSED. she was an older woman, well into her 40s, who never married (fiance died in the war) or had children. she’d lightly joke about how Junebug gave her the full experience for free.

• was the wrong height for the first few months of her being around, around four feet tall. this was a mistake, as she was meant to be around the other puppets height, yet didn’t even go past Norman’s chest. she was eventually fixed, to everyone’s dissapointment. the other puppets still ‘mourn’ how tiny she used to be.

• although she brings up her parents and mentions living with her mom, they were never played by anybody. her mother was just a puppet hand that was being controlled by a puppeteer offscreen and her dad never made a physical appearance whatsoever. it took her a long time to understand she wasn’t supposed to point out that this yellow felt hand wasn’t even attached to anything but a stick and to just play along for the skit.

• George filled in the role of an uncle for her both onscreen and off. they became really close buddies despite it all being scripted, with Junebug seeing him as this cool adult she wanted to be like and George just wanting to help her out in any way he could.

• can’t stay still, insists she’ll die if she tries. Gordon would prove her otherwise by yelling, ‘the floor is lava.’

• Junebug was intentionally written to be neurodivergent. Al never told anyone this, mainly because the network did not approve of other suggestions he tried to include in the show and doubted they’d be open to the idea.

• became a bit more sassy after the shutdown. likes talking back to Ricky just because she knows he can’t do much about it.

• Gordon constantly has to pry her mouth open because she’s always eating something she isn’t supposed to. he’s not sure whether she learned this from Goblette, the pups, or even some sort of commercial from the television, just that he’s tired of her spitting it all back up an hour later. if you shook her around, it would sound like a bag of marbles.

• all the Junebug duplicates made a little club for themselves. unfortunately for everyone involved its Rule of Rose 2.0.

• her mask being the ‘agony’ one is exactly what was going on in her head after watching tv. she did not take what she saw well at all, even if there had been an adult figure to help her through it, she would have the most trouble trying to accept it all.

• in the show, she was the ‘oldest’ out of all the other younger puppets, acting like the responsible older sister for them. she’s the only one left, as most of those kids ended up in the unfriendly neighborhood. this is the main reason she has duplicates.