Kingpin wrote: ↑June 13th, 2021, 5:10 am Whilst I agree that traditional rattails are usually thinner, I wouldn't use its thickness in a cartoon as the ultimate yard-stick to qualify or disqualify because they're not going to draw it so it's realistically depicted, they're going to draw it in a way that's easier for them to render, and easier to see on-screen (that's largely the same reason you don't see lots of wires hanging off of Ecto-1 and the Proton Packs like are visible on the actual props, and even why the XGBs didn't have a ghost in their no-ghost logo patches half the time). It may look like a slicked-back mullet in the example of that episode (is that The Hole in the Wall Gang?), but as I noted earlier, Egon's haircut is not depicted typically in that episode as it is throughout the majority of the show:
Very good, it
is The Hole in the Wall Gang. And it's true, that is not how his hair is normally depicted. You could argue that it's simply an animation mistake in a show riddled with animation mistakes, but for what it's worth, that's not the only scene in the episode where his hair looks like that. It seems to fluctuate between these two states:
It's as if he has to slick his hair back whenever it gets too out of place. My hair type (although brown) is very similar to Egon's, so I know the constant battle of trying to make it sit right. Perhaps Egon was just having a really bad hair day during that episode.
Kingpin wrote: ↑June 13th, 2021, 5:10 am Here's Egon's hair style as depicted in some of the earliest series model sheets, his "tail" starts roughly around the nape.
I confess, it does look more rattail-like in those particular sketches. The confusing thing is that even in those sketches, there remains the demarcation line of fringe around the crown of the head, suggesting that everything below it constitutes a separate section of uniform length hair. In the third sketch, there is linework around the nape, but it looks less like a separate section of hair, and more like a crease within the
same section of hair. Possibly suggesting a hair tie. It looks like the tail's roots extend up to the crown on top, and to the ears on the side. It seems to follow the hair pattern
here. It looks like a slicked back mullet. Like David Bowie here, but without the hair tie:
Or, if the linework in the third sketch
does constitute a separate section of hair, then the resulting section still reaches up to the crown, which would technically make it the "extreme mullet" catalogued
here. Still, if the roots of the tail were confined to the center of the nape like that, then I would expect to see flanking it fringe of the sort depicted at the crown and temples of Egon's hair. Instead, there is always a smooth line from his ears to his tail.
Granted, this is something of a continuum issue -- a difference of degree, not of kind -- because mullets and rattails are broadly the same thing: longer sections of hair in the back. You could say that a mullet is just a bushy rattail, and a rattail is just a skinny mullet. Perhaps Egon's hairdo falls somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, between a classic mullet and a classic rattail, and we could call it either one. At least with how it is usually depicted. In
The Hole in the Wall Gang, it looks like a definite full-on mullet, but as Fritz suggested, Egon could've been overdue for a haircut, and having a bad hair day.
One thing is for sure, Egon's hair is weird and unique. Not just his mullet and/or rattail, but his spiral pompadour, too. His whole hairdo seems to defy the laws of nature.