Debbie Thornberry: The Most Parentified Kid on TV

If you grew up during Nickelodeon’s renaissance of the late 1990s and early 2000s, Debbie Thornberry probably just seemed like the moody, annoying older sister. But looking back, her situation feels a little different. While Nigel and Marianne traveled the world filming their nature documentary, Debbie was often left dealing with her younger siblings, Eliza and Donnie, in some pretty dangerous environments. She was a teenager in the middle of African savannas and Amazon rainforests, trying to maintain some sense of a normal adolescent life while also being expected to look out for her younger siblings. Rewatching The Wild Thornberrys as an adult raises a different question: was Debbie really just a bratty teenager, or was she a kid being asked to handle more than we realized?