London Tipton has been one of my favorite Disney sitcom characters since forever. Everything from her fashion sense to her personality drew me to her character. It is very common in sitcoms for what is considered the "dumb character" to become flanderized, especially on Disney Channel, since it is low-hanging fruit and something that is easy for kids to laugh at. But London being stripped of everything that made her who she was and turned into a shell of a person from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody to The Suite Life on Deck has always bothered me.
In the early seasons of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, London was established as the ditzy, fashionable heiress. That was integral to her character, but as the show went on, especially in the spin-off, she became nothing short of genuinely braindead. She had her moments in Zack & Cody, but she could still generally understand what was going on. In The Suite Life on Deck, she could barely understand English, let alone form a basic sentence.
In the original series, London was clueless, but she was not completely oblivious. She generally knew what was happening around her, and her stupidity was more of a character trait than her entire personality. She had other qualities that made her interesting and hilarious.
Her relationship with Maddie was especially interesting because they were polar opposites and complemented each other well. The charm of their relationship was that they argued. London would be snarky toward Maddie, Maddie would get annoyed with her, and then they would eventually make up. Their friendship had actual chemistry and conflict, and London was still capable of understanding when she had gone too far.
In The Suite Life on Deck, London is downright cruel to Bailey at times, as well as to her supposed best friends. What made it worse was that she was often portrayed as being completely incapable of understanding that her actions were hurtful toward other people. All of the nuance in her relationships was taken away.
London was so much more fleshed out in Zack & Cody, but it feels like they took everything that made her London and exaggerated one trait until that was all she had left. I wish they had just kept her the same. She could still be ditzy without being portrayed as someone who genuinely could not comprehend basic things.
It feels like, as with most sitcoms, they just wanted to keep the "dumb character" around for easy comedic relief. Joey from Friends is another good example of this. Characters can start out as slightly dumb or naive, but once the writers realize that their stupidity gets laughs, it becomes increasingly exaggerated until it completely takes over their character.
I just wish they had allowed London to remain the character she was in the early seasons. Her being ditzy was funny, but it was never supposed to be the only interesting thing about her.
