The 'Shroom:Issue 203/Pipe Plaza

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Director's Notes

Written by: Zange (talk)

Shroom2019 Zange.png

Happy Discounted Chocolate Season \o/

Keeping this short and sweet this time because I've just entered tech for Heathers at my uni and gonna be honest, it's sucking the life outta me but all tech weeks do that haHA

Uhhh we've got some cool stuff here this month but you already knew that! And you already knew that you could go to the sign up page to learn more about writing for The Shroom but we're plugging it anyways because it's practically tradition at this point!

Okay I'm going to go inhale caffeine so I can survive the rest of tech now HAVE FUN READING!!!

Section of the Month

PIPE PLAZA SECTION OF THE MONTH
Place Section Votes % Writer
1st Archie Sonic Comic Shoebox 5 31.25% Shoey (talk)
2nd The 'Shroom Report 4 25.00% Waluigi Time (talk)
2nd Mario Calendar 4 25.00% GPM1000 (talk)
News and information
Mario Calendar
GPM1000 (talk)
Find out all about this month's Super Mario releases.
read more
Forgotten Stars of a Golden Age
Shoey (talk)
Featuring characters of animation history!
read more
The 'Shroom Report
Waluigi Time (talk)
All the latest writers and all the milestones of the current ones.
read more
The People of Isle Delfino
Hooded Pitohui (talk)
Get to know some of those charming Delfino locals!
read more
What's in a Campaign?
Shoey (talk)
Wild Thing, you make my heart sing~
read more

Mario Calendar

Written by: GPM1000 (talk)

Happy February, and welcome to another Mario Calendar! I hope that everyone had a nice Valentine's Day and a great start to your month. I personally have had an extraordinarily busy month, but you know I've always gotta make time for The 'Shroom! Let's get into this.

Region Abbreviations

Abb. Region
ALL All Regions (JP/NA/EU/AU)
JP Japan
NA North America
EU Europe
AU Oceania/Australia
SK South Korea
CHN China
UK United Kingdom

Console Abbreviations

Abb. Console
NES Nintendo Entertainment System
Famicom Family Computer Disk System
SNES Super Nintendo Entertainment System
N64 Nintendo 64
GC Nintendo GameCube
GB Game Boy
GBC Game Boy Color
GBA Game Boy Advance
DS Nintendo DS
3DS Nintendo 3DS
Switch Nintendo Switch
Wii VC Nintendo Wii Virtual Console
3DS VC Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console
Wii U VC Nintendo Wii U Virtual Console
VB Virtual Boy
G&W Game and Watch
64DD Nintendo 64 Disk Drive
MS-DOS Microsoft Disk Operating System
CD-i Philips CD-i
IQ iQue Player
NVS Nvidia Shield
ACPC Amstrad CPC
ZX ZX Spectrum
Coleco Colecovision
TI-99 Texas Instruments TI-99/4A

One thing I definitely want to point out is that I completely forgot a Mario game is coming out this month! By the time The 'Shroom comes out, Mario vs. Donkey Kong will have released on Switch! I am not super interested in this game, as I never played any of the other Mario vs. Donkey Kong games. Should I give them a shot? It's been exactly a year since I started getting more detailed in my analyses of the months, but I'm afraid I'll be going back to form this month. I'm running out of time to write - such is the life of a busy and lazy college student! It does not help that there is really not much at all to talk about. As I keep referencing, this month ranked extremely low in my ranking of all 12 months of the year for Mario games. There's not much notable at all that came out this month, so it came in at #11. Which means there's one worse… see you next month!

Forgotten Stars of a Golden Age

Written by: Shoey (talk)

Hello again, and welcome back to Forgotten Stars of a Golden Age, The 'Shroom's premiere and only section about characters from the Golden Age of Animation. There has been a change of plans this month. I was originally intending to cover the second Looney Tunes star, Buddy, as part of a trilogy covering the early stars of Looney Tunes (Bosko, Buddy, and Beans the Cat). As I worked, I hit a snag; you see, Buddy is worthless. There's no value in a single Buddy cartoon. They're all awful, and there are twenty-six of them. I watched two of them and they were genuinely some of the most boring, soulless cartoons I've ever seen. So I've decided to pivot. Instead, we're going to be covering a character that predates Buddy by two years. We'll be directing our attention to Rudolf Ising's second attempt at making an original character for Warner Brothers, Foxy, the first star of Looney Tunes' sister series Merrie Melodies.

Introducing our studio's latest sta-… Hey, wait a minute.

So, you're probably thinking "there's a difference between Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies? I thought they were the same thing?" Well, you're half right! Yes, in what you would probably consider the golden age of Looney Tunes cartoons, there was no difference between Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies outside of a title card and theme, with the two brands being seemingly assigned at random. However, this wasn't always the case. Step back to the beginnings. After the success of the initial run of Bosko Looney Tunes cartoons, producer Leon Schlesinger pitched creating a sister brand, the idea being that, while Looney Tunes would focus on every part of the Warner Brothers music catalog, this new Merrie Melodies brand would feature almost exclusively contemporary music. It would focus on music from recent film releases or hot new releases from the record labels Warner Brothers owned. That last part was important because, the year prior, Warner Brothers had just purchased Brunswick Records and were looking for ways to promote its talent. The hope was that, by creating these new cartoons, they would be able to boost the popularity of their songs, selling more sheet music and recordings. Not only that, but, at least initially, many of the cartoons were orchestrated by notable band leaders under contract with Warner Brothers, such as Abe Lyman, one of the most popular band leaders of the time.

Because of this, though, Warner Brothers demanded that every cartoon produced under the Merrie Melodies logo had to include the full chorus from one of Warner Brothers' songs. At first, this wasn't really a problem, since they were still mostly in the vein of Bosko cartoons. They were basically animated music videos (especially the first two Foxy cartoons), so it was easy to work in. This would become a bigger problem in later cartoons once music was deemphasized and the cartoons began to favor slapstick gags and wacky antics. It even reached a point where the chorus breaks were considered pace killers. This requirement would end up being dropped in 1939 and from there the two brands were basically interchangeable. Then, since the black-and-white cartoons were dropped from the televised packages in the 1990s, it's understandable that most people wouldn't realize there was ever a difference between the two labels. Oh, but also, the biggest difference between Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies is that, until 1934, instead of saying "That's all, folks" to end their cartoon, characters of Merrie Melodies said "So long, folks."

Anyways, back to our subject at hand, Foxy. So, who is Foxy? Well, Foxy is a fox, and… well that's sort of it! Foxy is another entrant in the long line of generic everyman-style characters that ran rampant in the early days of animation. Foxy has almost no personality, instead being that classic happy-go-lucky character that early cartoons put in various situations. He's really just Bosko if Bosko was a fox. Foxy even has a girlfriend who, I kid you not, is never named during Foxy's original run despite appearing in all three shorts! Really, the only trait separating Foxy from Bosko is that Foxy is a little bit more aggressive than Bosko was, being quicker to resort to slapstick violence than Bosko was. But other than that, it's the exact same character, just this one is a fox. Well, there is one more thing, but we'll get to that later!

Much like Bosko's world, music completely dominates the world of Foxy. In the first two cartoons, plots are completely nonexistent. Like, I'm not even sure Foxy's first cartoon, Lady, Play Your Mandolin! can even be described as having a plot! Foxy rides to town on his horse and enters a saloon. He becomes smitten with the tavern singer. Then they sing a duet of hit song "Lady, Play Your Mandolin" (originally recorded by Nick Lucas of recently acquired Brunswick Records), and that's really it as far as plot is concerned.

This smug-ass horse has no idea what's coming.

There's some very light gag work, including most notably Foxy cracking his horse over the head with a beer bottle after it heckles their singing. Despite how little happens, the cartoon is still kind of interesting. Despite taking place during prohibition times, this cartoon openly shows Foxy guzzling down beer at this tavern (disguised as a café, of course). Even the horse gets in on the action! And after guzzling down alcohol, the horse ends up suffering from alcohol-induced hallucinations, looking into a mirror and seeing itss face change from a horse to a mouse, to a tiger-like creature, and finally to a great dragon.

We've all been there horse; we've all been there.

This of course causes the horse to freak the fuck out, leading to it dancing so fast it catches on fire… Wait, what? It's kind of interesting to see, from a historical perspective, these characters engaging openly in what would at the time be an illegal activity. But the cartoon's not very interesting on its own. There are very few gags and the usage of the song isn't very creative. At the end of the day, it's just two characters singing a popular song! Despite this, or honestly perhaps because of this, the cartoon was a success and another Foxy cartoon was commissioned.

Unfortunately, the second Foxy cartoon, Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!, is a rather dreadful affair. It's a very boring affair and I think the usage of the song they're promoting is very forced. While the cartoon itself is rather boring, it does have an interesting backstory of sorts. It's basically a remake of an earlier Disney short called Trolley Trouble which starred Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. It's not a full-on remake, but it does take some gags it, such as Foxy having trouble passing a cow and Foxy and his girlfriend driving down a large hill while passing through multiple tunnels at high speeds. Again, there's no real story, with the extent of the story being that Foxy is a trolley conductor and he picks up his girlfriend, with what could, I guess, legally-be-considered hi-jinks happening.

You know, this same gag happened to Bosko one time.

They sing popular song "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile," but the song is very forced. It's not like "Lady, Play Your Mandolin!", where at least that took place in a cavern and it was two lovers singing a love song to each other. This song doesn't really have anything to do with what's happening in the cartoon! They're just singing it. But there is a little bit of creativity with this, because they actually play with the lyrics a little bit, using a segment of the singing portions to have some railroad tramps sing about the troubles Foxy is having getting a cow to move. It's not much, but it is nice to see them play with the lyrics a bit instead of it being just a straight cover of a popular song.

Finally, it's worth adding that this cartoon marks the first time a gag suggested by future animation legend Bob Clampett (who would go on to create future Looney Tunes stars Beans the Cat and Porky Pig) was used! He suggested a rather simple gag of a couple of advertisements posters on the trolley coming to life. But, yeah, outside of some trivia and some changed lyrics, this cartoon isn't actually interesting; in fact, it's pretty boring. I'd even say it's worse than Lady, Play Your Mandolin!. But at least the development of the cartoon is interesting!

Foxy's next cartoon, One More Time, is, in my opinion, the first good Warner Bros. cartoon. Based on the song "One More Time" by orchestra leader Gus Arnheim, here, I would argue, Foxy for the first time shows actual personality. In this cartoon, Foxy plays a cop who, after being nearly driven off the road, decides it's time to clean up the streets. He's much more aggressive in this cartoon, displaying a fiery and determined personality. There's some pretty good gag work in this cartoon, such as Foxy drawing a gun on a criminal only for the bullet to be a mouse with a hammer who bops the criminal on the head. In another instance, there's Foxy using the hood ornament on a car to sharpen his pencil so he can write a hippo lady a citation. The cartoon does suffer from uneven pacing. There's an extended sequence early on with the hippo lady and a mouse in a tiny car being engaged in a traffic incident, with the hippo lady refusing to let the mouse pass. It's about 30 seconds of the cartoon and it's pretty devoid of anything interesting. The whole section of the cartoon with his girlfriend is also just weird and kind of pointless. She just kind of appears with her dog while Foxy is on patrol, then the dog starts harassing and licking Foxy while she plays the melody to One More Time on her piano, which ends with the three dancing. It's kind of just pointless filler that affects the pacing of the cartoon's plot.

On the positive side, I think this cartoon has a very creative usage of the lyrics of "One More Time," especially the obligatory chorus section. While keeping the majority of the chorus intact, it completely flips the context of the song.

Sorry hippo, officer Foxy doesn't give anyone a break.

While the original recording of "One More Time" (sung by legendary singer Bing Crosby) is about a man who is desperate to get the women he loves back, the chorus section in the cartoon One More Time is a duet between Foxy and a hippo lady that features the hippo lady begging Foxy not to write her a ticket. Just compare the two sets of lyrics:

Original song

♪ Eating all alone, being all alone making me lazy / Walking alone, talking all alone's driving me crazy / […] / You can spend my dough, you can spend my dough. / You can snap the lock if you let me in / One more time. ♪

One More Time

Hippo: ♪ Eating all alone will make me lazy ♪

Foxy: ♪ Talking all alone will make you crazy♪

Hippo: ♪ Please let me go just this one time. You can drink my gin you can have my dough. Pleaaaase won't you let me go. Just one more time! ♪

And that's only part of the exchange between Foxy and the hippo lady! I just love how creative they are with the chorus requirement in this cartoon. Those are basically the same lyrics Bing Crosby sings with just a little bit of condensing, but they're able to completely change the context in such a natural way. This is my favorite part of the cartoon, because it's a very creative usage of the song and melody they're using. They keep the melody of the song "One More Time" playing throughout, but they're able to adapt it seamlessly into Foxy running down this lady's crimes, even changing "one more time" to "one more fine". It even ends with a great gag of the hippo lady attempting to get out of the ticket by fake crying, only for Foxy to get fed up and slam a garbage can over her head.

Officer Foxy, shot down in the line of duty

The cartoon even has a shockingly violent ending, with Foxy succeeding in defeating a criminal gang only to be gunned down in the back like a dog by a criminal. This would be the final appearance of Foxy in any cartoon for 60 years. His last appearance, yes, was being murdered in cold blood by criminals. So, I guess with that, it's time to address the elephant – or, I guess, fox - in the room.

Foxy, original OC, do not steal

This is just Mickey Mouse! Sure, there are a lot of Mickey Mouse clones in the early age of animation, but most of them are at least clones only in personality and in what happens in their cartoons. Like, Bosko, personality-wise, is basically just Mickey Mouse. They're both essentially just cheerful everymen. But Foxy is more than that; Foxy is literally just Mickey Mouse! The only difference is that Foxy has no overalls, Foxy's ears are slightly pointier, and Foxy has a bushy tail. Other than that, no, it's just Mickey Mouse, lol.

The fact that Foxy is such a blatant Mickey Mouse clone is why Foxy had such a brief run. The story goes that Walt Disney personally called Rudolf Ising and was like "the fuck?", so Rudolf Ising agreed not to use the character again. That's honestly kind of a shame, because One More Time showed that they did have something with the character, and, with a little more tuning, Foxy could have ended as a staple character of early animation. After Foxy's retirement, Merrie Melodies would make two more attempts at creating a star for the brand, with Piggy starring in two cartoons and Goopey Gear staring in three. But these characters failed to capture the public's attention and were quickly phased out. When Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising left Warner Brothers for MGM, they maintained the rights to Foxy but never did anything with him, presumably because of the similarity to Mickey Mouse still being a factor.

Foxy and Roxy, no longer Mickey and Minnie clones!

Foxy would make only one more appearance after being phased out of his slot in Merrie Melodies, appearing alongside his now-named girlfriend Roxy and fellow short-lived Merrie Melodies star Goopy Gear in the Tiny Toons Adventures episode "Two-Tone Town".

Appearing with a redesign to make him no longer a Mickey Mouse clone, Foxy, Roxy, and Goopey Gear are revealed to live in a black-and-white part of Acme Acres whose business has been hurt ever since the switch to color cartoons. Buster and Babs try to help the trio, only to end up accidentally getting themselves replaced by the trio. This appearance was part of a very odd trend where characters who died in the 30s were suddenly making appearances again. You had Bosko, who appeared in both Tiny Toons and Animaniacs, Buddy, who made his only funny appearance in an episode of Animaniacs, and, finally Foxy, Roxy, and Goopy Gear, three of Merrie Melodies' original stars making a one-off appearance in Tiny Toons.

But that's all this was, a one-off appearance. After that brief revival, Foxy and Roxy would immediately fade back into the vault, with Foxy left as one of the most obscure stars in Looney Tunes history.

The 'Shroom Report

Written by: Waluigi Time (talk)

Hello there, 'Shroom reports, and welcome back to The 'Shroom Reader! Made you look twice there, didn't I? Okay, I'll admit these kinds of sections are hard to come up with interesting introductions for. I'll just get started then, so here's everything from Issue 202! Thanks as always to our Statistics Manager (and now Sub-Director!) Meta Knight for keeping these spreadsheets up to date.

As a reminder, here's how this works:

​
  • First-Time Writers lists everyone who wrote their first section for The 'Shroom in the previous issue. This isn't applicable, so it's absent this month.
  • Milestones covers certain section numbers reached in the previous issue. Writers are mentioned for every 10 sections written in a team and every 50 sections written overall, teams are mentioned for every 100 sections, and The 'Shroom itself is mentioned for every 500 sections.
  • Most Sections Written lists the current all-time record holders.
Milestones
Writer Milestone
Roserade (talk) 60 Fun Stuff sections
Shoey (talk) 130 Fun Stuff sections
20 Palette Swap sections
350 overall sections
Zange (talk) 50 Pipe Plaza sections
Most Sections Written
Team Writer Number of Sections
Main/Staff Henry Tucayo Clay (talk) 142
Fake News MCD (talk) 148
Fun Stuff Shoey (talk) 130
Palette Swap FunkyK38 (talk) 192
Pipe Plaza Yoshi876 (talk) 128
Critic Corner Hypnotoad (talk) 176
Strategy Wing Yoshi876 (talk) 115
Overall Yoshi876 (talk) 747
'Shroom Trivia
Only eight users have written in all six sub-teams at least once - Crocodile Dippy, Henry Tucayo Clay, Hooded Pitohui, Meta Knight, Shoey, Superchao, Waluigi Time, and Yoshi876. Except for Tucayo, all of them have also written for each sub-team in the same issue at least once.

The People of Isle Delfino

Written by: Hooded Pitohui (talk)

Welcome to the sun-drenched tropical paradise of Isle Delfino! We're so pleased to welcome you to our beautiful home! Come enjoy a natural wonderland to which we've added the world's finest resort facilities, a spectacular amusement park, and succulent seafood…

…all found alongside an incomparable cultural experience. Here on Isle Delfino, ancestral home of both the Noki and Pianta peoples, islanders lead a far different life than on the busy mainland. Kissed by the sun, cooled by the ocean breeze, and nourished by the bounty the trees and the seas provide, the Piantas, Nokis, and Sunflower Kids of the island lead peaceful day-to-day lives, but that doesn't mean excitement never visits our fair dreamland of a home.

On your Cultural Enrichment Tour, you'll see all of the greatest sights Isle Delfino has to offer while meeting and learning more about those who call this shining gem in the southern seas home. Your tour guide will introduce you to anywhere between two and five islanders at a time, taking you to visit them over the course of an eight-day trip to each locale. Delfino Tours welcomes you to please sit back and enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get up close and personal with the people of Isle Delfino.

Bianco Hills

Pianta Mother

We begin our journey amidst the windmills spinning in the breezes of the idyllic Bianco Hills. Bianco Hills is a town divided in two by a great white wall. On one side, trees shade the lakeshore and the Big Windmill towers above the clear waters of the lake. On the other, the town itself thrives, flowers adding a pop of color to the landscape and the river running just to the south.

But… your eyes are closed…

It's here in the town of Bianco Hills that we'll meet the locals today; specifically, we'll begin on the northern end of town, in the shadow of the ledges on the surrounding cliffs. Back here, we meet a red Pianta woman with glasses upon her face. When we first meet her, she accuses us of being the graffiti artist running rampant around the village, demanding that we get out there and clean it up. She then proceeds to pick us up and throw us a short distance.

We encounter her a second time, and she merely demands we stop our lollygagging and get to cleaning the rest of the graffiti before throwing us once again. She is, clearly, not one to trifle with. Though the state of the town has improved, our third meeting goes as poorly as the first two, this woman annoyed with us apparently not having anything better to do and chucking us once again.

By our fourth meeting, however, it seems she may be beginning to warm up to us. She says in so many words that throwing us has become a part of her daily routine, and it does show, every hurl's trajectory carrying us further. Unfortunately, just as we begin to approach an amicable friendship, disaster strikes. We come to find the town nearly completely covered in goop, and our new friend is nowhere to be found, not underneath the goop, and not even seeking safety over the wall. Perhaps she has retreated to her home? We resign ourselves to leave and return, and see if we might meet her again.

Launch imminent

Indeed, we do meet her again, the town cleared of goop, but the lake now unfathomably dirty. Though the pollution of the lake would seem to be a crisis, she seems unconcerned by the matter, merely telling us that we're "late for our throwing appointment" and grabbing us to chuck us into the distance. Dare we think, perhaps for a moment, that this is her way of saying that she missed us?

Our seventh day provides no answer to the question, for a more pressing matter concerns her when we arrive to chat. She informs us that her children are missing, demanding that we get out of her way and throwing us to remove us from her path as quickly as possible. As we dust ourselves off, we realize something important about our new, chucking-happy ornery friend; perhaps, we think to ourselves, the reason she's so curt is the pressure she's under to raise and manage her rambunctious children.

Our final day with her does not come with a bittersweet goodbye. She's too busy for such matters, preoccupied with scolding her now-found kids, begging her for mercy. Considering the temper she's shown with us until now, we sympathize with her children. Still, we approach her, and she rants about how her children are "hoodlums" who never comply with her requests that they let her know where they're running off to. Exasperated, she laments that "some things never change" and proves her own point by, one final time, hurling us into the distance.

Smacking into the cliffside, we're left to ponder our time with this Pianta mother. Short-tempered, she seemed rude at first, and never did we see her anywhere other than the north side of town. She always seemed aloof to the crises the town faced, more concerned by her own troubles, but by the end of our time together, we had a bit of an explanation. A harried mother, no doubt worried to death by the disappearance of her kids, it seems that even in tropical paradise, the locals can't escape the stresses of parenting…

Best Quote:

“Until I've given you a good hurl, I don't feel like my day's started!”
—Pianta Mother, Bianco Hills, Episode Four: Red Coins of the Windmill Village

The Gardener

Elsewhere in the village, walking around a house (presumably his) near the path hugging the wall, we meet another bespectacled Pianta, a male with lime green skin, a simple white shirt, and a straw hat. From the way he charmingly addresses as us "sonny", we get the sense he's a laid-back, older gentleman. Quickly, we come to suspect he may be a gardener, as immediately he suggests to us that we water the flowers. He seems rather unconcerned with the goop covering the lakeshore, but, then again, no flowers are found on that side of the wall, and his tip proves a welcome one when the flowers reward with our efforts with coins.

Aw, I bet you say that to everyone!

When we encounter him next, he seems a little more aware of the problems plaguing Bianco Hills, tired of them as he wishes for the village to return to its usual peaceful state. Unfortunately, however, things become stranger before long. On our third visit, he informs us that he's been seeing a lot of weird creatures in the area. Could he mean the Coo Coos that have appeared in the skies? It's possible, but it seems more likely he's referring to the Seedy Pods that have popped up throughout the area. They do appear to be related to Pokeys, making them some kind of plant being, which would explain why a man with an interest in the native plants would be keenly aware of them. Though nothing makes us certain of his hobbies, we decide to dub him "The Gardener," his knowledge of the flora proving repeatedly useful to us.

Yeah, there are usually reasons behind such things...

On our fourth visit, Red Coins dotting the town, we find our local expert getting a bit philosophical, perplexed that anyone would commit a bad deed without good reason. Is this naivete stemming from too-tranquil of a life on a peaceful island, or does it speak to something we've all considered now and again? We ponder the matter as we retire… and ponder it further when we wake, discovering the town in crisis. Yet our friendly gardener has managed to escape sinking into the goop which surrounds him, and his expertise guides us once again as he reports that he saw a monster with a head so large that the beast couldn't have been natural. Leave it to a plant expert to immediately recognize how unusual the overgrown Piranha Plant that is Petey Piranha is.

Already having valuable information about one crisis, we aren't surprised at all when The Gardener bemoans that the dirtied lake we find on our next visit threatens the very survival of the town. Of course a Pianta so concerned with the local plantlife would be so aware of the disastrous impact the polluted lake could have on the town! Even when the lake situation is resolved, he keeps his attention on the crises unfolding around him. Level-headed even while the town searches for two missing children, he both recognizes that the children aren't likely to have wandered off anywhere dangerous but that the mysterious Shadow Mario could pose a risk to the children.

In due time, however, the children are found and safely returned to their mother, and peace settles onto Bianco Hills once again. We go to say our goodbyes to our agriculturally-inclined friend, who, quite understandably, seems wary as he reflects on recent events, observing that things seem out of balance as of late. The idle observation sticks in our minds, as applicable to home as to this quaint village. Perhaps something is out of balance, with the surprises the world seems to throw at us lately. As we turn our back on this Pianta who has shared so much expertise with us, we can only hope that peace can come for all of us…

Best Quote:

“Lately, things just seem really out of balance, you know?”
—The Gardener, Bianco Hills, Episode Eight: The Red Coins of the Lake

We have more residents of this little windswept village to meet, but we shall meet them next month. Until then, why not go and admire the flowers?

What's in a Campaign?

By: Shoey (talk)

Hello, and welcome back to What's in a Campaign?, The 'Shroom's premier BBC Robot Wars section. Last month, we looked at my beloved Napalm as they somehow managed to make a Heat Final. This month, we somehow up the quality of our robot, looking at the Series 5 run of Wild Thing, one of the best-driven, most durable robots in the history of Robot Wars

You make my heart sing!

Created by Nick Adams, who was joined by his daughter Isabelle and son Jake, Wild Thing was essentially one hell of a wedge in Series 3 and Series 4. While not the most impressive-looking robot, Wild Thing had two things really going for it. The first was that Nick Adams was one of the best drivers in all of Robot Wars. The second was that Wild Thing was the most durable robot in the history of Robot Wars. No matter what happened, you couldn't kill Wild Thing. Even Hypno-Disc, the most terrifying robot at the time, couldn't KO Wild Thing.

Bashed and battered, but Wild Thing yields to no man!

Not only could Wild Thing not be KO'd, Wild Thing couldn't even really be slowed down. Oftentimes during the course of a five-minute fight, robots start to slow down as batteries begin to drain or damage begins to take effect. Not Wild Thing! Wild Thing never slowed down, remaining just as good at the end of a fight as it was at the start of one. But there was one flaw with Wild Thing. While Wild Thing had a weapon, it was a pretty ineffectual lifting arm that was only really used once. Because of this, Wild Thing couldn't score damage points. So when it faced off against a robot like Hypno-Disc, despite the fact that Wild Thing was arguably winning that fight by the end of the five minutes, Hypno-Disc would win because it was scoring massive damage points, which were the most heavily-weighted. Wild Thing just couldn't beat a robot that could cause damage because it wasn't able to score the points needed. To overcome the damage deficit, with the weight increase of Series 5, Nick Adams decided that he was going to use the extra weight to add a damage-inducing weapon. His choice? A 12kg spinning blade that was mounted on the wedge, capable of spinning up to 6000 RPMs.

First off, the disc makes this robot look sick as hell. The lifting arm was shortened so that it would only be used to self-right, but its placement over the disc making it almost look like a record player is just awesome.

It's a quality toy!

This design is so slick that it was used for one of the second generation of Robot Wars minibot toys, and it's one of the few I own! But here's the thing; combat-wise, this was probably a mistake. I get Nick Adams' logic. He gets beaten on damage, so he decides he needs to ability to do damage. But sadly, this disc doesn't really work the way it was intended to. It's kind of in the wrong spot and it's not heavy enough, so a lot of times it hits a robot and just stops. Not only that, but it takes away from the best part of Wild Thing, that sexy wedge! Now instead of driving up the wedge, a robot instead… well, they honestly get stuck on the blade. That allows a robot like Tornado to get a lot of clearance for pushes they otherwise wouldn't have gotten. Again, I get the idea, but it doesn't really work in practice.

As a reminder, all pictures are sourced from the fantastic Robot Wars Wiki. If you'd like to watch any of these fights, check out this video. Timestamps are provided in the section.

As a two-time Series semi-finalist, Wild Thing was granted the 9th seed and placed into Heat E. Wild Thing's first fight is against newcomer Trouble 'n' Strife. Now, Trouble 'n' Strife is a very interesting robot. Modeled after an alligator, Trouble 'n' Strife uses a dual weapon concept. At the back is a 20kg spinning disc capable of spinning up to 1,000 RPMs. At the front is a CO2-powered flipper capable of flipping anything in the field. The fight (1:12) starts with Wild Thing throwing itself into the back spinner of Trouble 'n' Strife. Wild Thing has a tough time in this fight because so much of Trouble 'n' Strife is a spinner that Wild Thing has difficulty placing its attacks. Finally, Trouble 'n' Strife misses a flip, and this allows Wild Thing to get into Trouble 'n' Strife's insides with its own disc. Although this does admittedly little damage to Trouble 'n' Strife, Wild Thing then attempts to push Trouble 'n' Strife around the arena. Accidentally going to the rear of Trouble 'n' Strife again, Wild Thing's wedge is torn up by the disc. Then, while trying to flee, Wild Things ends up flipped onto its back by Trouble 'n' Strife, but, luckily, Wild Thing lands safely on its wheels. In the process of all this, Trouble 'n' Strife's disc damages one of Wild Thing's wheels, causing Wild Thing to drive a little funny.

Wild Thing in trouble and facing strife

Trouble 'n' Strife lands another flip on Wild Thing, but, again, Wild Thing stays on its wheels. This is a very interesting fight, because you'd think just from this description that Trouble 'n' Strife is dominating, right? But it's really not. Wild Thing is completely setting the pace of this fight, making all the movements and trying to push Trouble 'n' Strife around. Trouble 'n' Strife is honestly barely moving, and it's only because both sides of Trouble 'n' Strife are weapons that Wild Thing can't get a good hit. It can't go to the back because there's a blade there, and if it goes to the front, there's a flipper. So while Wild Thing is setting of the pace of the fight and honestly controlling it, Trouble 'n' Strife is just landing damage points because it's essentially just a big weapon and Wild Thing keeps taking hits.

This makes for a classic example of Wild Thing's legendary durability. Yes, it's taking all this damage, but it's surface-level damage. Yes, the wheel is a little wobbly, and, yes, the wedge is beat to shit, but none of that is really affecting Wild Thing, who finally decides "screw it" and manages to wedge itself under the spinner of Trouble 'n' Strife. Better positioned, it begins pushing Trouble 'n' Strife around. Wild Thing follows up its charge by landing a direct hit to the wheel hub of Trouble 'n' Strife before getting under Trouble 'n' Strife after a failed flip and slamming it into a wall. It follows up with another slam.

Late-fight Wild Thing, the most dangerous robot in Robot Wars

That second slam pushes Trouble 'n' Strife into the blade of the House Robot Matilda. The fight ends with Wild Thing firmly in control, pushing Trouble 'n' Strife across the arena into the waiting axe of House Robot Shunt. The fight goes to the judges, and I think a lot of people remember this fight as being closer than it is because Trouble 'n' Strife scores a lot of damage points. But Wild Thing cleans up in every other category. The problem for Trouble 'n' Strife is that Trouble 'n' Strife isn't really mobile in this fight. So, while yes, the disc is landing damage points, due to it being the byproduct of Wild Thing's attacks, Trouble 'n' Strife isn't scoring aggression points or control points. That means that, really, every category that's not damage easily goes to Wild Thing. Then, since Wild Thing was so firmly in control the last minute of the fight, even damage is probably pretty close since, I believe, House Robot attacks would either count towards Wild Thing's damage points or would deduct from Trouble 'n' Strife's points. Either way, it's a pretty easy decision and Wild Thing moves on!

In the second fight… You're not going to believe this, but…NAPALM'S BACK, BABYYYY. That's right! Somehow, someway, Napalm, the robot that was okay, I guess, in Series 2 and 3, is still here fighting in Series 5. Not only that, but Napalm won a fight in Series 5 against the full-body spinner Warhog!

Napalm causing "massive" damage

For those of you wondering how Napalm won a fight against a full-body spinner, well, Warhog's disc just didn't work and Napalm just sort of pushed Warhog around for five minutes. The fight was so boring they didn't even show highlights of it! But that's besides the point! Napalm's back again!!! So, anyways, this fight (6:13) starts with Wild Thing charging into Napalm and Napalm just breaks down immediately from the attack! Well, actually, Napalm doesn't break down per se. I'm guessing that the armor buckled, which jammed up the wheels, because Napalm just can't move freely after the first hit.

Goodbye, Napalm, my love.

With Napalm unable to move, Wild Thing takes pity on the aged bot and drives it into the pit. Sadly, this would be the last ride of Napalm, with the team retiring from competing after this. But in less sad news, Wild Thing once again makes it to the Heat Final!

The Heat Final is actually a grudge match, and probably the most obscure grudge match in Robot Wars history. In the Heat Final, Wild Thing faces off against Prizephita Mach 2, one of the most shocking heat finalists in Series 5. The Prizephita team had competed in both Series 3 and Series 4, crashing out in the first round in both appearances, with their Series 3 loss coming at the hands of Wild Thing's predecessor, Thing 2. Massively upgraded for Series 5, Prizephita Mach 2 is now fitted with a pneumatic system designed by Team Cassius's Rex Garrod. Prizephita Mach 2 landed a huge upset in the first round of Heat E, defeating the 16th seed and Series 4 semifinalist Thermidor 2 before clinching a spot in the Heat Final by defeating The Alien. It's a grudge match for the history books… because that's the only place this being a grudge match is remembered.

This Heat Final (9:42) is a classic Wild Thing fight. Wild Thing, as it so often does, starts the fight on its backfoot. Charging into Prizephita, Wild Thing is immediately flipped by Prizephita before driving into a second flip from Prizephita.

Probably shouldn't charge right into their flipper, Wild Thing.

Wild Thing then manages to mount a brief offensive, getting its blade into the side and the back of Prizephita, although to seemingly little effect. The two robots circle each other and finally Prizephita gets the advantage, flipping Wild Thing over. Wild Thing attempts to self-right, but Prizephita slams into them, throwing them with their flipper mid-attempt and preventing them from doing so. Wild Thing manages to self-right and the two circle each other again. Once again Prizephita, takes the advantage, again throwing Wild Thing over, Wild Thing landing this time into one of the CPZs. Again, Wild Thing self-rights, only to take a huge shove into the wall from Shunt. Wild Thing escapes the CPZ with Prizephita in pursuit.

Teetering with disaster

Again Prizephita flips over the dazed Wild Thing! Mid-self-right attempt,t Prizephita lands another flip, this time landing Wild Thing on its side. For a second, things look hopeless for Wild Thing, stuck on its side as Prizephita hits the pit release button. But Wild Thing spins its tires and uses its momentum to land back on its wheels.

It's been rough for Wild Thing until now, but the rest of the fight is all Wild Thing. Prizephita starts slowing down. Wild Thing is pushing it all over the place, slicing into it with its disc. The last probably 45 seconds or so of the fight, Prizephita is barely moving. It's all Wild Thing shoving it around, even almost pitting it before ending the fight by slamming it into the arena wall.

Once again, Wild Thing takes control late.

This fight is very controversial, because the judges go for Wild Thing. But here's why I don't think it should actually be a controversial fight. Prizephita dominates the early portion; I'm not disputing that. In fact, I would say 2/3rds of what is televised is dominated by Prizephita, and, yes, Prizephita does almost KO Wild Thing. But here's the thing, outside of a brief period in the middle where Prizephita was flipping Wild Thing all over, it's not like Wild Thing wasn't also scoring points. Yes, it was scoring less than Prizephita, but it was still landing pushes and getting its disc involved. So while Prizephita is in the lead, it's not like Prizephita was going to have this insurmountable lead. Then you face the last 45 seconds of the fight, which are all Wild Thing. Prizephita is barely moving the last minute of the fight, so Wild Thing is scoring all the points and Prizephita is scoring no points.

There are two last things to factor in. Yes, Prizephita almost KOs Wild Thing, but that's irrelevant. You don't get extra points for almost KOing a robot. This isn't horseshoes or hand grenades! Finally, fights are 5 minutes in length, but the tv edit that we see was less than 3 minutes. My guess is a lot of what was cut was not flashy Prizephita flips, but instead probably Wild Thing pushes on a mostly dead Prizephita. I think this is only controversial because the TV edit doesn't do the full fight service. I think, in classic Wild Thing fashion, Wild Thing manages to go the entire five-minute fight while its opponent struggles to do so. Then, in the end, Wild Thing wins the judges' decision because it factors in a more complete fight.

This sends Wild Thing to the semi-finals, where it gets a really unlucky draw facing off against two-time reigning UK Champion and number one seed, Chaos 2. This fight (14:12) is one of the greatest fights in Robot Wars history. I am not sure I can do it justice, but I'll try!

The fighting begins with the two robots driving around each other, squaring each other up. Wild Thing goes for a charge, but Chaos 2 manages to land a flip on Wild Thing, forcing it to retreat. Chaos 2 stays on the attack and gets under Wild Thing, running it into the wall with Chaos 2 just narrowly failing to throw Wild Thing out of the arena. Chaos 2 lands another flip onto Wild Thing, but this time Chaos 2 flips itself over in the process. Wild Thing takes advantage of this, getting under Chaos 2. The advantage is short-lived, however, with Chaos 2 getting back on its wheels and again sending Wild Thing onto its back with a huge flip.

Chaos 2 sends Wild Thing flying.

Wild Thing self-rights as Chaos 2 hits the pit button. Staying on the attack, Chaos 2 lands flip after flip on Wild Thing, sending it into the CPZ guarded by Dead Metal. Avoiding Dead Metal, Chaos 2 lands another flip onto Wild Thing, again nearly sending it out of the arena. But this flip lands Wild Thing on its wheels, and, while Wild Thing takes a hit from the cutting circular saw of Dead Metal, Wild Thing manages to escape the CPZ.

Finally, Wild Thing goes on the attack, getting to the side of Chaos 2. Wild Thing charges Chaos 2 and pushes it towards the pit, coming just inches away from pitting the reigning champion.

A game of inches…

Luckily for Chaos 2, they managed to get turned so their wheels are facing Wild Thing and just barely having enough pushing power to outpush Wild Thing. Chaos 2 manages to push Wild Thing into the CPZ, where it's attacked by both Shunt and Dead Metal. Escaping the House Robots, Wild Thing is again flipped by Chaos 2. Wild Thing then gets to the side of Chaos 2 and again charges towards the pit. Wild Thing pushes Chaos 2 partially into the pit! It looks like Wild Thing has won, the pit pyrotechnics go off!

Chaos 2 somehow defies physics.

But somehow Chaos 2 doesn't go down the pit! "How did they stay out!?" Jonathan Pearce cries out. In reality, it was a rare tactical error by driver Nick Adams, who pulled off the throttle of Wild Thing to avoid also pitting himself. This was a mistake, because even if Wild Thing ended up in the pit, Wild Thing would have won since Chaos 2 would have hit the pit first. Wild Thing ends the fight pushing Chaos 2 around and slamming it into the wall. The fight goes to the judges, and, in a unanimous decision, Chaos 2 is declared the winner. Craig Charles says he's surprised it's unanimous, which, I don't know why? Chaos 2 took the bulk of that fight outside of a few outstanding drives by Nick Adams.

While Wild Thing may have lost to Chaos 2, it's not out of the tournament yet! In Series 5 and 6, they had semi-final losers melees. These fights consist of the losers of the first round semi-final matches and puts them in a three-way melee, with the winning robot getting placed back in the tournament. In Wild Thing's loser melee, they go up against the powerful blade of S3 and the walking robo-corpse Spawn Again.

The loser's melee (19:27) starts with Wild Thing and Spawn Again trying to double team S3. Wild Thing and S3's discs clash, with S3 getting the better of the exchange. Spawn Again drives in under S3's flipper but fails to get a flip off. S3, having been pushed back into the wall, manages to hit Wild Thing right on the wheel, causing Wild Thing to bounce up into the air from the impact. S3 then manages to gash into the back of Wild Thing with its blade while Spawn Again looks on. Sensing that Spawn Again is the weakest robot, Wild Thing goes after it, getting behind Spawn Again and pushing it a bit before S3 takes over, hitting a number of blade shots into Spawn Again and immobilizing it.

Now down to a 1v1 fight, Wild Thing gets some good shoves onto S3 before going for the pit release.

TWO MIGHTY BLADES MEET!

S3 turns and hits Wild Thing again on the wheels, sending it spinning away. After another clash, Wild Thing manages to get to the back of S3, ramming it into the wall and into the axe of Shunt. Wild Thing continues to dominate S3, pushing it around and around before again slamming it into the arena wall. Wild Thing dominates the 1v1 portion of the fight and ends the fight with yet another slam into the arena wall. The fight goes to the judges and, despite Wild Thing winning three of the four categories (those being Style, Aggression, and Control), S3 is given the fight on the basis of damage.

Not much of upgrade if you ask me.

Which, honestly, this decision makes sense. Wild Thing's wedge and sides are battered to hell, so that's a lot of damage points S3 would have. Then you factor in the fact that it was S3 who immobilized Spawn Again, and you can see why the judges gave S3 the win in a very close fight. Sadly, that would end the Series 5 run of Wild Thing.

After losing yet another fight based on damage, for Series 6 Nick Adams would completely redesign Wild Thing. No longer a giant wedge on wheels, Wild Thing was resigned into a very compact robot with a vertical spinner.

But the spinner is just so goddamn small and so thin that it's less effective than the Series 5 disc! So he traded all the charm of the Wild Thing line for a worse weapon! Despite this, it still manages to make it through its heat, even scoring a huge win over the dreaded 259. But Wild Thing again makes it no further than the semi-finals., being beaten by Razer in the first round and falling in the losers melee after driving into the pit. While Wild Thing isn't a top-tier robot, it's a robot in the tier right below the top tier.

With that, we end the story of Wild Thing! Join us next month as we cover another robot!

The 'Shroom: Issue 203
Staff sections Staff Notes • The 'Shroom Spotlight • Poochy's Picks • Poll Committee Chairperson Election • Credits
Features Fake News • Fun Stuff • Palette Swap • Pipe Plaza • Critic Corner • Strategy Wing
Specials The 'Shroom's Special Saga
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