"Naughty" Norman Stanley Price is a major character in the Fireman Sam series. He is the mischievous seven-year-old son of Dilys Price, who enjoys playing practical jokes and skateboarding. However, he has set a reputation for the many problems he has caused around the accident prone town of Pontypandy.
What Makes Him a Scrappy?[]
- Norman's worst attribute is easily the voice Steve Kynman puts on for him. Despite his efforts, he makes Norman near insufferable to listen to as a character. Its a prime example that the CGI era should've either gotten a child actor to play Norman, or brought back John Sparkes (who voiced him in series 5) to play him.
- In the stop-motion era of the show, Norman was simply a mischievous boy who enjoyed playing tricks on the citizens of Pontypandy yet still caring for them nontheless, as evident by how he'd never take his actions too far. Plus, there were certain episodes where he was actually really helpful to the situation (such as saving Trevor from noxious gas poisoning in one episode). Unfortunately, he is fully flanderized beginning from the show's sixth season and transition to CGI, with him now being far more unlikable and becoming a whiny, selfish and arrogant child that always wants to get things his way.
- While Norman was responsible for certain problems in the first five series, they were almost always by accident on his part, and the number of ones caused by him in the first five seasonals are minimal. In the CGI era though, Norman is now involved with, and directly responsible for a grand majority of the problems. There are even episodes where Norman goes out of his way to cause the problem on complete purpose. For instance in 'Froggy Fantasy', he traps James in the swimming pool changing rooms all for the incredibly petty reason of wanting to be the star of the swimming show.
- Norman's poor treatment of James isn't rare either, as there're a multitude of episodes in which James winds up in trouble because of Norman's antics. Arguably Norman's worst instance of putting James in danger is 'Spy Games', where he continuously keeps James casted as his stunt double for dangerous scenes in his spy movie despite the latter showing clear discomfort in the role. This ultimately culminates in Norman tying him down to a chair and tasking James with escaping a real fire for a scene in the movie, causing James to accidentally start a fire in Joe Sparkes' garage and endanger him and Norman. While James did cause the fire, Norman was far more at fault in the first place for continuing to endanger James and not recasting him.
- Like a lot of Scrappies, Norman is given a lot of screentime in episodes regardless of if hes important to the plot or not.
- Infamously, Norman is effectively turned into a Karma Houdini in the CGI era, as he constantly avoids being punished for his misbehaviour. He is always let off with a warning by Sam and, despite apologising, he immediately forgets the warning by the next episode and continues causing trouble around Pontypandy. This is a heavy contrast from the original series, as Norman would almost always get some form of punishment for his trouble, usually via a severe talking to or having to do a chore like cleaning Jupiter. Things don't get better following the introduction of PC Williams and Sgt. Ravani the police officers in Season 12, as they too simply dish out warnings to Norman without some form of punishment.
- This is only worsened by the fact that while Norman does sometimes get punished, the moments they occur are very infrequent and minimal.
- Also, given Fireman Sam is also targeted at a younger demographic this is a very bad look for the show if kids choose to see Norman as a role model; effectively, Norman's lack of punishment teaches them that you can do bad things yet get away with it.
- For whatever reason, his love for chemistry from the original series is completely retconned as seen in 'Battle of The Birthdays', as he treats it like a completely new thing to himself despite all of the studies he had done regarding it prior.
- Even when Norman's not causing fires and getting people in trouble, there're moments where his attitude reaches levels of pure callousness. As an example in 'Going Out with a Bang', he tries implying to James and Sarah that Lion is burning within the flames of their garage! Which is obviously an extremely messed up thing for Norman to imply.
- Norman also goes as far as to display blatant sexism in some episodes, like how in 'Pirates of Pontypandy' for example he tells Sarah she can't be a pirate captain because she is a female, trying to imply that only males are allowed to be pirate captains.
- Probably what is Norman's most infamous action comes from 'The Great Fire of Pontypandy.' In the movie, he and his cousin Derek ignore what Dilys had told them and take sausages with them to their Pontypandy Pioneer camping trip. The two then cook the sausages in the woods and only stop when Dilys calls them back, where they then completely forget to put out their fire. Because of their ignorance, this causes the intense summer heat to eventually spur up a forest fire not even Sam and the crew can put out. If not for the luck of a rainstorm that managed to finally stop the fire, it would've eventually reached Pontypandy and led to the town being completely burned down! Worse, while this is one of the rare moments Norman gets his comeuppance its extremely minimal, with him and Derek merely having to sit out as the other kids receive their survival badges. This lack of proper punishment is extremely baffling, given the severity of the fire easily makes this Norman's worst act in the entire series, and the fact he let his ignorance nearly destroy his hometown would've required a much more severe punishment. Unfortunately, it also shows the incompetence and lack of authority that befell the adults of Pontypandy, given the lack of actual punishment Norman receives from them.
- Generally, Norman during this era has been universally panned for how much he has been ruined by his flanderisation, with Norman now usually being regarded by many as the worst character in the Fireman Sam franchise. Many have even gone as far as to consider him the show's main antagonist from Season 6 and onwards.
Trivia[]
- Despite everything, Norman shockingly began receiving a significant improvement beginning from 'Norman Price & The Mystery In The Sky,' and in Season 13 he was not only beginning to be shown as far more likable, but also didn't cause the problems nearly as much. It can even be argued that by Season 14 of the show Norman had fully transitioned back to his original incarnation. While this would be enough to ascend Norman to Base Breaking status, his hate has unfortunately continued to persist in later seasons, largely due to many not realising he has changed.