Janice Stewart

Janice as she appears in promotional material. Specifically the "Learn with the Laughingstocks" promo.

### Nickname(s)

Sugar Cookie (Sea Dog)
Bratt (Horace Horrible)
Little Roach (the Skin-Taker)
Little One (Earl of Wax)

## Personal Status

### Family

Melrose (sister, alive)
Daniel (father, alive)
Emma (mother, deceased)

## Characteristics

### Age

9 ("Welcome to Our Happy Ship!" - "Double Birthday!")
10 ("Butterflies Flying By!" - "Scream!")

## Media

### Actor

Louis Cuttingham(Pilot!),
Jodie Silver(Main Series)

> It's a Laughingstock's duty to help those in need. No matter how unpleasant they are…
>
> "Catch and Release!"

**Janice** is the 9-year-old protagonist of Candle Cove. She enters the Pirate World after following a piece of string to Ohio River and falling in. She resurfaces in Candle Cove where she is rescued by Percy and Calvery".

## Appearance

Janice is average height for her age and quite thin. She has black hair, dark brown eyes and dark skin. Her clothes are usually casual and comfortable to play in. Her most iconic outfit is the blue dungarees and red striped shirt she wears in her debut and other major episodes. Other than that, she is seen wearing a pink T-shirt with a kitten in the middle and white shorts, a blue 1870's dress, and some pirate apparel that includes a black tricorn hat with the Laughingstock insignia, a white shirt with a brown leather vest and white pants with brown, cuffed boots.

## Personality

> I think she's a great role model for little girls all around, y'know? A girl could point at her and say "I wanna be like that!" and that's beautiful, I think.
>
> Emerson Grimes, 1971 interview with the cast and crew

Janice has a very sweet and caring personality. She is curious and has an adventurous spirit. She tends to see the best in everyone and tries to resolve fights in a non-violent way. Since she is a kid, she tends to be easily frightened, but she usually overcomes her fears and encourages Percy and Nathan to do the same.

She looks up to her caretakers — Poppy, Percy, Calvery, Dr Heartfelt, Jojo and Bradford — and considers them her family. She wants to prove herself by joining in their adventures, but they mostly try to keep her out of trouble and be safe, not wanting her to have to fight for her life from such a young age. She sometimes ends up sneaking out on adventures of her own, much to the worry of her caretakers.

Janice is shown to have very good problem-solving skills and is great at puzzles and locating booby traps to help the crew get to hidden treasures faster and safer.

Her kind nature extends even to the villains. During "Catch and Release!", the Laughingstocks manage to injure and capture Horace Horrible, Janice brings food and medicine down to the brig for him, feeling bad for him despite his villainous actions. Once she finds out they are planning to have him tried by the Pirate Council, and knowing he will most likely get executed for his crimes, she breaks him out of the cell and helps him to a lifeboat, which makes Horace more reluctant to hurt her in future episodes. And in "Double Birthday!", she sends a gift for the Skin-Taker after she finds out their birthday is on the same day.

In "The Darkest Hour!", she is shown to suffer from severe guilt because she feels like it's her fault her mother died in childbirth. But after she tells the crew how she feels, they reassure her and let her know she is loved and she did nothing wrong. That episode was dedicated to Jodie Silver, whose mother died at childbirth.

## Relationships

### Emma Stewart

Janice's relationship with her mother is rarely touched upon. But during "The Darkest Hour!" she says that even though she's never met her, she still feels like she misses her.

### Daniel Stewart

Janice's relationship with her father is strained as he is often too busy at work, and when he is not, he is distant and cold towards his daughters. Melrose at one point says "Dad used to be happy before [Janice] came along!". So it is all but confirmed he is like this because of his grief.

### Melrose Stewart

Janice and Melrose are really close, often doing everything together, but it's clear that Janice shows her love for her sister better than Melrose does. Since they spend so much time together with Melrose being parentified, and because of Melrose resenting Janice for "taking away" her mother and her father's happiness away, she tends to lash out while they are playing or just hang out together. She tends to verbally abuse Janice whenever she makes the smallest mistake and sometimes they even get into physical fights over that. Melrose never apologizes, but she is usually the first one to reach out to Janice when she is sulking and try to cheer her up with jokes or with snacks and small acts to show that she cares.

### Pirate Percy

Janice and Percy develop a brother-sister type of bond. He is at first scared of her because of her size compared to the puppets of this world, but he slowly warms up to her as the episodes go on. Despite his cowardice, he tries to protect her no matter what.

### Poppy

Poppy is overprotective and restrictive at times. He means well, but he sometimes lets his temper get the better of him when he worries too much. Janice mostly understands, though she does get annoyed at him and disagreements do spark between the two very often.

### Dr. Heartfelt

Janice enjoys the quiet time in the Doctor's office and sometimes helps him organize books and papers to get her mind off the big adventure. He teaches her (and by extension the audience) mindfulness and stress management techniques and sometimes even teaches some basic first aid skills that Janice gets to use later.

### Calvery Stankoff

Calvery seems mostly aloof about Janice at first, having a cool, calculated demeanor, but as time goes on, he shows that he worries about her almost as much as Poppy does. Though he is the more calm of the two when it comes to tackling parenting techniques. Janice goes to him whenever she needs help regulating her emotions.

### Salty Jojo

Jojo serves as a much-needed mother figure to Janice. She is strong yet pretty and gentle, which is what Janice aspires to be when she grows up. She teaches Janice how to eat healthy and properly exercise to be in "ship shape" and also teaches her arts and crafts.

### Bradford Kenny

Janice always goes to him when she needs cheering up. He helps her see the brighter side of life and not worry about responsibilities too much. He emphasizes the joys of being a kid and not letting life stress you out.

### Nathan

He and Janice are best friends. They get into all sorts of mischief together much to the rest of the crew's dismay. Nathan has a crush on Janice, and In "Butterflies Flying By!", he uses the spectacle of the butterfly migration as a backdrop to confess his feelings for her but she turns him down politely, not feeling the same way. Even so, she tells him he is an amazing friend and she loves him in that sense.

### Sea Dog

Janice often calls him Doggy or Puppy. He doesn't mind as he finds it adorable and in turn, he calls her Sugar Cookie. He will growl and bite at any enemy who tries to get near her which, in "The Earl Is Neigh!", results in him being kicked by one of the Earl's men.

### Sariah

Sariah is always really friendly and sweet to Janice. She is like the sister Janice wishes Melrose was. Although they do fight sometimes, Sariah apologizes and teaches Janice it's okay to admit you are wrong sometimes.

### Milo

Janice doesn't trust Milo very much from day one. She likes him even less once she finds out how he treats Percy, as it reminds her of how Melrose treats her. Milo is pretty lukewarm towards her, seeing her as someone to be protected, but also gets annoyed with her when she defends Percy.

### Horace

Janice has mixed feelings about Horace. He is scary and he is trying to hurt her and her crew, but she can't help but feel bad for him whenever he gets his comeuppance. She sees his potential to be a good person and wants him to do better, but he is too stubborn to listen. That is until "Catch and Release!" where he starts to question how far he is willing to take his grudge against the Laughingstocks and whether it's worth getting Janice — an innocent little girl — into danger for the sake of revenge. This all culminates to him repaying the favor in "The Penultimate Showdown!" when he breaks Janice out of the Skin-Taker's lair and lets her borrow a boat away from Little Bedford to which Janice responds by hugging him, which makes him deeply uncomfortable because he hates hugs. The fallout of this action is never addressed, since the very next episode is the infamous screaming episode.

### Skin-Taker

Janice is deathly afraid of him and doesn't understand his motives or why he does what he does.

## Trivia

* She is the only live action character in Candle Cove aside from those from the Ordinary World, Poppy, and Susan Siren.
* Whenever singing is needed, she is dubbed over with the voice of an uncredited older choir girl. They have pretty similar voices, however, so it's never startling.
* During an interview with series creator Emerson Grimes, he states that some of Janice's experiences are based on his childhood and the childhood of his niece, who is also the actress who plays Janice. "No pirates included, sadly" he adds in a humorous way.
* As seen on "Stranded!", her favorite food is tater tots.
* She is often seen enjoying blueberry ice cream.
* Whenever she finds a cool rock, she collects it and puts it in her very own "treasure chest".
* Back in her world, she liked really corny B movies of the horror genre.
	+ Some of them include Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Them!, House of Usher and The Raven.
	+ This also reflects Jodie's taste in movies as well. Grimes made Candle Cove darker and more dramatic than your average kid's show because he knew it was what she and kids her age liked to watch.