Ignore the fact I voted on my own poll.
I don't know why it took me so long to get around to posting this, but here is some lore for my in progress Dandy's World AU: Feral Origins.
Basically, the idea is that before Gardenview Center and even the Dandy's World show was conceptualized, there was a lab owned by a scientist who was good friends with Arthur and Delilah. Unbeknownst to them both, he was one to experiment with cruel motives and twisted ideas, and when he first discovered the substance ichor, a substance powerful enough to rip apart and modify the very DNA or design of anything, living or inanimate, his sick mind naturally jumped to all he could achieve using it in his favor.
Operating behind everybody in the shadows, he captured five innocent and unsuspecting animals of drastically varying species: A golden retriever, a tegu lizard, a crow, a spotted hyena, and a timberwolf. Harnessing the knowledge of how ichor worked, he created his first experiment. By molding the bodies of these animals together with human brain elements, he brought to life a creature so confused it could not physically operate as any one of its origins. That creature was named Scout. (Dandy's World oc picture below).
Seeing Scout for the first time was what inspired the idea of Dandy's World as a show. He was the first toon by technicality, though it was not added as an official character until far later in the series, years down the line.
And during those years prior to its introduction, Scout endured torturous tests, experiments, and much more at the hands of his creator. Once the concept of Gardenview was pitched, Scout knew it would only be more suffering for more unsuspecting creatures like himself.
From lizard to fruit, fossils to friend, moth to moon, and dog to rock, the main toons followed Scout's creation as the first official living "toons", although they really were still the same species as their origins, no matter how much they appeared externally, as their contorted and mutilated new designs. The only time they were ever seen as their origins, was when going rogue in a way that they were described as "twisted", which happened unsurprisingly often due to the ichor's power being unstable and still an enigma to science.
As one would imagine, these cruel experiments only went on for as long as they could with sentient, intelligent toons having made their painful existence known. Authorities eventually were alerted of suspicious activities at the lab, leading to the toons being taken far away and isolated, where they were starved, dehydrated, and confined, somehow far less excruciating than the torture they regularly endured that was covered by the facade of science and research.
In the end, no human was found guilty of any crimes, the authorities doubting the allegations of animal cruelty with evidence of quote on quote "living cartoons" from the start. This led to the scientist transferring back to the lab, but upon the agreement him, Delilah, and Arthur would collaborate and absolutely transform it into the Gardenview Center vision they shared.
And the rest was history. Gardenview operated smoothly, with the cruel scientist working successfully around anyone's noticing eyes, ears, or otherwise. Manipulation of the toon's memories, more inhumane DNA practices to create a larger cast of colorful, kid-friendly characters...it all went on smoothly with no cause of consequence...
And it all was just a little sadistically ironic.
