ART BY:
 ashleyfoxkit
Original Work - Abby by AshleyFoxKit -- Fur Affinity [dot] net

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Birdz was a Saturday Morning Cartoon series that aired in Fall 1998 on CBS. It had 13 episodes in which focused primarily on Eddie Storkowitz, and his misadventures in learning life lessons most children deal with in their transition into becoming a Pre-Teen. . However it also had a large number of sub plots that played out through the course of each episode that revolved around Eddie’s father, mother, older sister, and younger sister.

Abby is not even an egg when Episode 1 begins. However she does have quite the amount of development throughout the series. There is definitely a notable age difference between her older sister, Stephy, and older brother, Eddie, but she definitely is a welcome and delightful addition to the Storkowitz family.

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EPISODE 1:
The theme of the very first episode is ‘Responsibility’. So what better way to show responsibility than going through the process of preparing for a new addition to your family.

Abby gets laid by the middle of the episode. It is from here that Betty / Mrs. Storkowitz, takes on the role of ensuring Abby’s egg stays warm and safe for the projected 12 days needed to hatch all happy and healthy.

Stephy, being a strong-willed teenager, has better things to do than worry about sitting around on an egg. Eddie is a pre-teen who is just learning to keep himself out of trouble at school while ensuring he maintains good grades. Morty / Dr. Storkowitz still has to run his psychiatric practice. So, as you may expect, Betty really starts to go a bit crazy being stuck sitting on the egg until it hatches.

A notable moment in the episode occurs during a time Betty has a bit of a breakdown over having just spent 7 days tending to the egg. It is during this time that Morty offers to sit on the egg while going about seeing his patients. One of these patients is Mr. Nuthatch who, given the nurturing father before him, shares his desire to be back in his egg as, to him, “Those were the happiest twelve days of my life.”. Morty tries to redirect the conversation, but Mr. Nuthatch persists with wanting to be like the unhatched egg by asking Morty if he can, “…sit on me for awhile.”. Morty politely declines and, soon after, Betty is back as primary caretaker of the egg.

Around Day 11, or 12, Morty realizes that Betty needs a break for her psychological well-being. He declares Stephy as the one to care for the egg while he takes Betty out for a dinner and a movie. This disrupts Stephy’s plans and, soon after the parents leave, she bribes Eddie with $5 to take on ‘Egg Duty’. Unfortunately, Eddie has plans of his own and his friends get him to shirk his responsibility to go off on a pre-planned trip to the local video arcade.

Eddie and friends don’t properly shut the front door of the house and, wouldn’t you know, the egg hatches while nobody is around!

After hatching, the baby bird toddles about until she finds her way outside of the home.

Eddie, after an hour at the arcade, realizes he needs to get back to care for the egg. He is too late to prevent his newborn sister from getting out of the house and he quickly goes about finding her. This leads into a number of misadventures until the parents return and find out what happened while they were away.

Once the lesson on responsibility comes to a close, the choice of names for the little lady birdy is discussed with Eddie’s choice of ‘Abby’ being the one that the mischievous hatchling accepts by not throwing food at her big brother’s face. He came up with Abby as she was ‘absent when she hatched’.

-b]EPISODE 7:[/b]
Abby has gotten better at walking and has moved on to more solid foods by this point. However this is when she says her first words! These words will later come to haunt Eddie for how he makes some really poor choices regarding the annual migration that is discussed and completed over the course of the episode.

EPISODE 8:
Abby knows more words and is quite confident in her ability to scamper around the house. This proves to be too much for Grandma Storkowitz when she comes to visit while Eddie and Morty are out camping with The Bird Scouts.

Abby also shows how she is aware of how to work knobs and other ‘simple machines’ during the episode. She notably has a pension for locking her grandmother in the bathroom.

EPISODE 9:
The baby birdy is now making short sentences! Unfortunately they are mostly on her father’s poor singing ability.

Stephy and Betty are now more actively engaging Abby and, despite the hatchling’s opinions, do not scold nor discourage her from sharing her thoughts.

EPISODE 10:
Abby is now able to fly quite freely. However the timing is certainly not in favor of Eddie entering into a ‘Rebel Phase’ while Morty and Betty get into a kerfuffle over whose day-to-day responsibilities are more difficult.

This episode shows that Abby is taking more after her mother in how she, like her mom, really loves to paint. Now only if Eddie didn’t forget to buy the diapers he was asked to buy when Abby had run out along with Morty, overwhelmed in taking on Betty’s responsibilities, forgetting to put a new diaper on Abby after changing her. (No worries. Nothing gross happens. However it is quite implied through a brief moment of Abby playing in the paint while merrily chirping, “Whee! Ucky paint!”)

There are no major developments for Abby between episodes 11, 12, and 13. Though you can certainly tell she is quickly growing into quite the toddler who is very able to express herself and interact with the world around her.

If the show would have lasted beyond the 13 episodes it was given, I believe we would have seen Season 2 having a lot to show of Abby’s ‘Terrible 2s’ with her biggest accomplishment being getting potty trained. This, given how the show revolves primarily around Eddie, would be an ongoing sub-plot. However it would still go to show character growth for Abby and her family as they recall Stephy and Eddie during this time in their lives. Perhaps Mr. Nuthatch would be involved as a babysitter for Abby to help him further take his desires to be back inside his egg towards seeking work as a caretaker?

There are definitely a lot of possibilities for a Season 2. Abby would certainly play a far more key role in ensuring another 13 episodes are warranted as her transition from toddler to preschooler occurs in tandem with Eddie being a full-fledged teenager and Stephy being on the verge of graduating High School.