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18 Dark Fan Theories About Otherwise Light Movies And TV Shows
18 Dark Fan Theories About Otherwise Light Movies And TV Shows,Come on in and read more about Tarzan's loincloth than you thought you ever would!

18 Dark Fan Theories About Otherwise Light Movies And TV Shows

So, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, there are a whole lot of dark fan theories out there on the internet for films and TV shows — but I’ve found that some of the absolute darkest fan theories are about some of the most light-hearted content!

CBS

So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at some seemingly innocent movies and TV shows that people have theorized might have much darker things going on beneath the surface:

1. In Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka is a serial killer.

Warner Bros / Via giphy.comWilly Wonka is sensation-seeking, lacking remorse and guilt, impulsive, controlling, and predatory…oh wait, my bad, I was reading characteristics straight off the FBI’s list of common serial murderer traits. 

But would we really be surprised if old Willy had some chocolate-coated skeletons in his closet? That’s what this theory is asking! The mere fact that he brings children to his factory and intentionally presents them with dangerous temptations before his employees mock them speaks for itself. And remember those spies at the beginning of the movie? Were they truly stealing candy recipes, or were they the real heroes trying to take this sick man down?

2. And, speaking of Willy Wonka, there’s a theory suggesting Wilford in Snowpiercer is a grown-up Charlie Bucket from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

Paramount / giphy.com, The Weinstein Company / giphy.com

This theory was created by YouTuber Rhino Stew, and his video breaks it down with some pretty convincing evidence. The theory boils down to the idea that Charlie Bucket was inspired by Willy Wonka — who, let’s be honest, was a controlling ruler who used brilliant inventions in a way he saw best for the world. Bucket goes on to do the same, renaming himself after Wonka (going with the more mature “Wilford”) and constructing a train that houses the last of humanity.

Rhino Stew points out that both movies deal with fantastical structures (the train in Snowpiercer and Wonka’s factory), and both movies slowly pick off the cast of characters. In Willy Wonka, it’s the spoiled children that steadily drop off, and in Snowpiercer, it’s Curtis’s allies. The video also points out that Wilford’s train, like Wonka’s factory, is self-sustaining — but how is each system sustained? Well, in Snowpiercer, children must be used to maintain the engine because of their small size. Who else utilized small beings as a workforce? That’s right! Rhino Stew suggests that once the Oompa Loompas died out, Charlie Bucket (now Wilford) turned to kids.

3. The events that unfold in the Harry Potter series are the delusions of a malnourished and abused young boy locked in a closet. In reality, Harry never leaves the Dursleys.

Warner Bros / Via giphy.com

It’s noted that Harry would often go without food at the Dursleys, and we see that they’re not above locking him in the cupboard under the stairs. As Harry gets older and more restless, the Dursleys’ punishments get more severe. And we see in The Order of the Phoenix that Dudley becomes a physically abusive bully. So, this theory suggests that the magic of Hogwarts is in Harry’s head, created as a coping mechanism for his life with the Dursleys. After all, who wouldn’t want a giant even bigger than Mr. Dursley to break down the door and whisk them away to a school of wizards, where they are the Chosen One meant to save the world?

4. In Inspector Gadget, the Inspector Gadget we see is not the original cyborg detective, but a robot who thinks he is.

Paramount / Via giphy.com

So where is the original? Well, according to this fan theory, sticking countless gadgets inside of a man is a tricky process. It’s easy to screw up, and that’s exactly what happened with the first Inspector. He was horribly disfigured when he came to, losing a hand and suffering damage to his vocal chords in the process. With a raspy voice and metal appendage, he started to go by a different moniker while vowing to destroy the robot that replaced him.

His new name? Dr. Claw — that’s right, this theory suggests the main antagonist of Inspector Gadget is actually a failed first attempt!

5. The reason the vehicles in Cars have human characteristics is because they adopted themselves after humans before murdering all organic life.

Pixar / Via giphy.com

The youngest of viewers might have a pretty obvious question while watching this Pixar classic: Why do the cars still have doors? Even if there was some explanation for the doors (i.e. that’s where they carry their young like a kangaroo, it’s storage space, etc.), there’s another problem. These cars have tongues and eyes, so they must have at least some kind of internal organs mixed up with their machinery! So, even if those doors did open, wouldn’t it just lead to their horrifying, Pixar-animated guts?

This theory suggests that self-driving cars became sentient and adopted the personalities of their drivers. Then, in typical AI horror movie fashion, they got fed up with us, merging with humans, absorbing our bodies, and turning themselves into reverse-cyborg abominations.

6. And a similar theory exists for Thomas the Tank Engine. When a toy was released showing Thomas wearing a space helmet, comedian and writer Heather Anne Campbell pointed out: “The implication here is that the face breathes, which means it has lungs and blood.”

u/shadowjournalist / giphy.com

This opens the door to so many more questions. And unlike the Cars universe, there are actual humans in Thomas & Friends, which is so much more scary than there being none. Is he an experiment gone wrong (or right)? Is he in pain? Who named him Thomas?!

7. Buddy from Elf is a straight-up pervert and bully.

New Line Cinema / Via giphy.com

This is a quick theory, but it doesn’t make it any less odd: Remember when Buddy walked in on Jovie in the women’s locker room while she was singing in the shower? Well, after she catches and confronts him about it, Buddy claims that he didn’t know she was naked in the shower.

But then how do we explain the scene above, where Buddy is shown taking a very normal (if cramped) shower in the North Pole? So, when he tells Jovie, “I didn’t know you were naked,” he’s sitting on a throne of lies himself! And, if Buddy’s lying about that, just how naïve is he really? When he’s making fun of Miles Finch, calling him an angry elf, does Buddy also know what he’s doing? Is he just a cruel bully and a peeping tom?

8. In Back to the Future, Doc Brown — having scammed terrorists and become the laughing stock of the scientific community — was ready to end it all and take Marty with him should the DeLorean have failed to travel back in time.

Universal Pictures / Via giphy.com

It’s easy to think of Doc Brown as being brilliant because he invented time travel. But think of when Marty goes to see him in 1955. Doc opens the door wearing an absurdly large metal headset, claiming he’ll be able to read Marty’s thoughts with it. Doc was just a crackpot scientist before the DeLorean. After hitting his head and getting a vision of the Flux Capacitor, he spent the next 30 years building the time machine.

He clearly never told Marty about it in that time, perhaps ashamed that it would become just another foolish failure. He got in deep, scamming terrorists and spending his entire family’s fortune on his new project. If the DeLorean failed, what would he do next? Well, this theory from Reddit suggest that — since Doc knew the Libyans must have been after him around that time — he took action. He called up his one friend in the world and had him stand in the way of the car as it hurtled toward them. Either the Flux Capacitor would work once the car reached 88 miles an hour, or the DeLorean would kill Doc and Marty.

9. Even though Tarzan was raised by naked animals in Tarzan, he still wears a loincloth. Why? Because he’s ashamed of his massive penis.

Walt Disney Studios / Via giphy.com

I’ll leave the explaining to u/SummerandTinkles, who came up with the theory on Reddit:

“Over the years, many people have vocally wondered how Tarzan knew to wear some form of clothes. He was raised by gorillas, and gorillas don’t wear clothes — they have their genitals proudly exposed for the whole world to see. Well — a lot of people don’t know this — but humans are actually unusual for having proportionately huge penises compared to other ape-derived species, possibly as an adaptation for walking upright. Seriously, a gorilla’s penis is only two and a half inches in length when fully erect. Even when he was younger, Tarzan likely would’ve had a bigger penis than the other gorillas, and he was already freakish enough with his lack of fur. So, my theory is that he’s not being modest, but instead that he ended up choosing to cover up to avoid further bullying.”

10. In The Breakfast Club, the students are in purgatory, coming to terms with their lives before passing on.

Universal Pictures / Via giphy.com

“They’re in purgatory” may be a common fan theory, but in my opinion, this one has legs. The characters begin the movie with their defenses up, comfortable with their labels and set in their ways. Stuck in the library and lorded over by Vice Principal Vernon, they open up to each other, reveal secrets, and grow — but this theory says that the members of the Breakfast Club died before the movie even started, and they’re unknowingly helping one another find peace with the lives they left behind in purgatory. “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” indeed.

11. In Frozen, Sven the reindeer’s mother was killed by hunters when he and Kristoff were young. The hunters then gave Kristoff a pelt made of Sven’s mother’s fur.

Disney / giphy.com, Disney / giphy.com

Frozen has a surprising amount of fan theories surrounding it, but this is one of the darkest. We don’t know exactly what happened to Sven’s parents, but Kristoff’s pelt looks suspiciously like the animal’s fur. We know Sven and Kristoff go way back, but could the reindeer’s love partially be due to the pelt’s scent?

12. In My Neighbor Totoro, Totoro is Death coming to collect the souls of those who have passed.

Studio Ghibli / Via giphy.com

Toward the end of the movie, Mei disappears. Some have theorized that this represents her death, with Satsuki taking his own life to join her. To make it even darker, the girls’ mom sees Totoro out of her window. Does that mean she’s next?

13. The Flintstones doesn’t take place BEFORE The Jetsons at all.

ABC / giphy.com, ABC / giphy.com

There are two fan theories regarding the timing of these two shows. One theory suggests that The Flintstones takes place in the far future, after The Jetsons. After most humans abandoned Earth, the last of humanity restarted civilization. This theory would support reasoning why The Flintstones had futuristic concepts like cars and television.

But my personal favorite theory is that The Jetsons and The Flintstones are actually happening simultaneously. In the distant future, the rich buy tickets off of a dying Earth and leave the rest of humanity to save themselves. Those in space flourish with new technology, while the folks back home descend into chaos, eventually becoming a hybrid of modern and prehistoric society.

14. In Men in Black, the MIB is a corrupt organization that harasses intergalactic refugees and profits off of stolen alien technology.

Sony / Via giphy.com

We’re meant to believe that the MIB is keeping Earth a neutral zone for extraterrestrials, but Agent K mentions that velcro, microwaves, and liposuction were all made possible by alien technology. Considering the MIB’s headquarters, vehicles, and weapons, the bureau seems much more well-funded than other government organizations. This could be because the US government cares about these particular federal employees, or — as this theory suggests — this could be because federal employees got fed up and started selling seized assets for profit.

15. Sandy and Danny meet and fall in love during those summer nights in Grease, but Sandy drowns shortly after. The rest of the movie happens in her mind the instant before she dies.

Paramount Pictures / Via giphy.com

In the song “Summer Nights,” Danny lists that he “saved [Sandy’s] life, she nearly drowned.” This theory takes that line and posits that Sandy actually did drown that day, and is instead imagining a storybook ending where Danny does pull her from the water, they have a contemptuous-yet-cute falling out upon meeting each other at school, then fall even more deeply in love. And, when they take off in the car at the end of the movie, it’s never explained why they suddenly start soaring into the clouds. This could be where Sandy is slipping away, ascending to heaven.

16. The shipwrecked survivors on Gilligan’s Island are trapped in hell, prevented from leaving the island by the devil — aka Gilligan himself.

CBS / Via giphy.com

This theory states that — not only are the passengers being kept in agony for eternity — but they each represent a deadly sin:

Ginger is lust, Mary Ann is envy, Thurston Howell III is greed, Mrs. Howell is sloth, the professor is pride, and the skipper is both gluttony and wrath.

17. The trunk Del is carrying in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles contains the corpse of his deceased wife.

Paramount / giphy.com

Throughout this classic John Hughes comedy, Del talks lovingly about his wife. At the end of the movie, Del reveals that his wife has been dead for eight years. Well, this extremely dark fan theory suggests that Del has been carrying her corpse around in his trunk for those eight years. Del’s trunk is a massive burden during the men’s travels, but we never get to see what’s inside. Considering Del has been living on the road and speaking about his wife as if she were still alive, could he be unable to let her go…literally?

18. And finally: This is my own personal fan theory based off the Pixar Timeline theory — which suggests all Pixar movies take place in the same universe. My theory states that, if Toy Story happened in WALL-E’s past, then all the toys we see on the post-apocalyptic Earth are sentient, immortal, and living in a never-ending hell.

Disney / youtube.com

We know from Toy Story that toys crave the love of children more than anything else. When we see Wheezy in Toy Story 2, he was placed on a shelf and forgotten about for being defective, but he didn’t age, because he’s a toy. This (and the fact that they’re made of plastic) suggests that toys will never die of natural causes. So, when all the children that those toys want to play with leave the Earth in WALL-E, they lose their purpose.

The toys are clearly scared of WALL-E and EVE, since they remain motionless in their presence. For the 700 years humans are gone in WALL-E, the toys just exist in the polluted wasteland that Earth has become. Or, maybe it’s even worse. Perhaps after hundreds of years, the toys aren’t choosing to stay inanimate, but have forgotten how to come alive and de-evolved into inert hunks of plastic. It’s a shame, because WALL-E would 100% be the perfect companion for sentient toys.

What are your favorite dark theories about innocent classics? Let me know in the comments!