If there was ever a heyday for easily-accessible yet authentic cutesy-goth culture, it was the early-mid 2000s. Stores and brands like Hot Topic and Tripp NYC, which had opened their doors in the 1980s amid a more niche and intense alternative-fashion scene, were increasingly popping up in malls outside of major cities. The film world was being hit annually— if not even more frequently— with back-to-back-to-back spooky hits that would go on to define a generation of weird kids. The skyrocketing amounts of anime being subbed and dubbed for American viewing was introducing western audiences to the Kawaii aesthetic as well as Japan’s own unique ways of combining the creepy and the cute. All this combined with a golden age of iconic emo, goth, and pop-punk bands, the proliferation of online alternative-culture hangouts such as MySpace, and the ever-so-tempting-to-teenagers maelstrom of parental and otherwise authoritative consternation over the booming goth/emo/scene/alt subcultures, to create the perfect space for a unique, joyful, and delightfully macabre aesthetic movement to flourish. And amidst all of this, on the shelves of stores like Hot Topic, a mascot for the moment was beginning to take shape.
In 2004, a new stationary line began to appear on shelves, featuring a ghostly redheaded girl engaging in a variety of creepily adorable activities. Over the next year and a half, the franchise would expand to clothes, plushies, accessories and even a short book— and then, in 2006, this creepy girl and her gaggle of friends skipped and danced their way onto the small screen.
The setup for Ruby Gloom, which premiered October 13 2006 on the Canadian channel YTV, is simple enough— a group of friends, who are both children (or at least depicted as childlike, as despite the original clothing and accessories being marketed towards the tween-and-up Hot Topic crew, the show had decided to make good use of its friendly-spooky aesthetic and bill itself as a horror-themed cartoon for younger audiences) and monsters, each with their own distinct personalities and interests, live together in a towering Victorian mansion on a perpetually rain-soaked hillside. The titular Ruby Gloom is an unfailingly cheerful little girl with bright red hair, paper-white skin, and eyes decorated with rings of petal-like dots. While it is never specified what she (or most of her friends for that matter) actually is or where she came from, her appearance places her somewhere between a haunted rag doll and a Dia de Los Muertos Calavera. The show’s current fanwiki page lists her as human. With hobbies including crafts, baking, and throwing a party for literally any and every occasion, Ruby does her very best to always be happy. She sees the best in everyone and in every situation— a worldview she tries, with mixed success, bring her friends around to with the phrase “but look on the bright side!”.
As for the rest of the crew, they follow a similar formula of scary concept, cute design, and one-dimensional personality— though to be clear that’s no criticism, as in this family-friendly-spooky show running entirely on vibes and one-liners, the lack of depth is a feature, not a bug. Iris the Cyclops is Ruby’s best friend, a rash and danger-loving adventurer who often tries to rope Ruby or one of the others into her latest risky stunt. Misery is some sort of unspecified embodiment of woe— seemingly something in the very real cross-cultural folkloric tradition of the tragic “weeping woman” ghost or Banshee, given her long trailing hair, veil, long torn dress, pockmarked face and perpetual streams of tears. She also carries a staff topped with a skull-shaped lantern. Misery is part of a family that seems to have been eternally cursed with cartoonishly terrible luck, with her constant outlandish stories of her many ancestors’ horrific and improbable deaths only outdone by her own constant misfortune. Knocking over every item she walks near, getting injured trying to do even the simplest tasks, and, when all else fails, simply being struck by lightning over and over from a spontaneously appearing storm cloud, it’s no surprise that Misery, while kind at heart and even open to fun on occasion, is overall gloomy, pessimistic, and expecting only the worst from each day of her miserable life. The fan wiki lists Misery’s species as Banshee.
As for the mansion’s male inhabitants, we first have Skull Boy, a multitalented yet scattered skeleton who spends each episode insisting that he’s descended from a famous historical figure (real or otherwise) relevant to episode’s theme, and getting ridiculously (even a bit offensively at times, as is lampshaded in the series’ later episodes) into character as said historical figure’s descendant as he rushes to discover the full potential of his inherited gifts— only to forget all about it and start fresh next episode, of course. Rock musician brothers Frank & Len serve as the comic relief of the crew while also providing guitar riffs— and even short tunes— that are genuinely good to the point that you will wonder what they’re doing on a kids’ show. The pair are a two-headed composite being of Frankenstein-esque nature, with the blue-skinned Frank being fairly intelligent (though not nearly as smart as he thinks he is) and fond of giving wordy— though often totally misguided— explanations of the plot to his brother Len, who, to put it gently, was clearly not hooked up to the highest-voltage wire in the lab.
Rounding out the cast of Ruby Gloom, we have Ruby’s black cat Doom Kitty, Iris’ gigantic flying worm Squig, the sophisticated and melodramatic raven Poe and his inexplicable beatnik slam-poetry buddies Edgar and Allen, Scaredy Bat— a talking bat who is afraid of flying and of everything else too, Boo-Boo the prank-obsessed ghost kid, Ruby’s possibly-alive toy rabbit Mr. Bun, and occasional guest appearances by the main cast’s family, friends and neighbors. Together, the crew roams their towering, rickety Victorian mansion home and the damp, perpetually-overcast grounds surrounding it— with occasional trips into the town of Gloomsville — doing art projects, baking, having tea parties, having dance parties, reading books, solving mysteries, getting into (lighthearted and easily resolved) friend-group drama, and generally just hanging out finding ways to pass the time.
This charming and uncomplicated cast and formulaic plotline setup allows Ruby Gloom to direct its energy into the show’s strongest qualities— aesthetic, humor, message, and overall good vibes. Taking the style of wholesome horror popularized by the likes of The Addams Family and The Munsters and applying it to the “friend group ensemble” format, Ruby Gloom gleefully indulges in the darker aspects of the setting and characters. While the show includes, and delights in, its gothic, monstrous and macabre nature, there is never anything truly frightening or gruesome or any sense that the characters are in real danger. Feel free to watch with the kids or as a comfort show— there’s no jumpscares, gore or lasting sadness (aside from Misery) here.
In the absence of any true scares, the show’s darker elements mostly serve as comic relief, often presented with a dry, deadpan humor that has aged wonderfully in the 20 years since its premiere. While Misery’s endless list of relatives that died in increasingly baffling ways is one good example, Ruby Gloom‘s graveyard humor isn’t just limited to one character or theme— for example, in the show’s first episode “Gloomer Rumor”, a string of miscommunications lead Frank & Lynn to think that Ruby is terminally ill. Frank, confidently incorrect as always, spends the episode explaining to Lynn that Ruby is going through “The Five Stages of Dying”, thought what he’s describing is in fact the real-life Stages of Grief as conceptualized by the real-life psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. While Frank & Lynn’s grief is genuine and played totally straight, the audience knows that Ruby isn’t actually sick, and older viewers will find something to laugh at in Frank’s total misunderstanding of Kübler-Ross’ model. Such niche references aren’t uncommon in Ruby Gloom either, with episodes regularly referencing the works of Poe, Shakespeare, James Bond, Beatnik culture, and various other social and literary mainstays.
Clever dialogue aside, does Ruby Gloom have interesting plots, complex characters, or exploration of deeper themes? Not especially, although the way that the characters always do their best to respect each other’s wishes, apologize when necessary, and talk things out logically before assigning blame all make it a much better representation of healthy behavior and strong friendships than many shows— before and since— that claim to teach good social values or provide therapeutic lessons.
What Ruby Gloom is, is fun. The characters skip and scurry across perfectly off-kilter backgrounds, the soundtrack goes unreasonably hard, the dialogue is genuinely clever, the characters never cross the threshold of annoyingness despite their one-dimensional personalities, each episode ends happily, and the overall feeling of the mansion and its inhabitants is one of such peace, friendship, and coziness that you’d almost consider living there yourself if it weren’t haunted and full of rambunctious, overexcited monster children (and Misery). So, why not spend your next rainy day with some spooky snacks, and perhaps a black Doom Kitty of your very own, checking in on Ruby and friends? Your own life might be a little brighter for it.
