miscellaneous
[Interesting Trope] Attempts at fanservice/virality that failed not because they were hated, but because nobody noticed them or cared at all.
1) Hoopy the Hoop, Portal (2007) When you defeat GLaDOS and her room is destroyed at the end of the game, debris rains down in the final cutscene, including a big metal hoop that bounces around a bit. Developer Erik Wolpaw said the team dubbed it "Hoopy the Hoop" and expected it to become the big meme of Portal. Of course, none of the fans paid much attention to the hoop since "The Cake is a Lie" became the biggest meme of the game, and overall one of the biggest video game memes of all time.
2) Burgh, Pokemon Black and White (2010) When designing Burgh, developer Yusuke Ohmura said Gamefreak had many of their female employees give input on his design to create their ideal handsome man. However, as someone who's been in the Pokemon fandom for almost 3 decades, in the 15+ years since Pokemon Black and White released, I have personally never seen any fans swoon over Burgh, or even mention him in general. If anything, characters like N and Colress are far more well-known within the fandom as the most handsome and beloved male characters of Pokemon Gen 5.
A writer and artist on the Brazilian MegaMan comic got into severe trouble for doing this.
The writer created a new character called Princess and inserted her into the comic without authorisation from the publisher or Capcom with the idea that she'd prove more popular than any of the original stars of the franchise like Rock, Roll or Protoman. The intention was for Princess to outright murder the heroes and steal their status as the main characters of the comic.
When Capcom found out what he was planning, they threatened to completely rescind the license from the publisher for even daring attempt such a stunt and the writer was fired from the series soon after.
See also: Lanolin from the Sonic IDW comics who makes like 8 appearances with no lines before (IRL) her creator accidentally name dropped her on Twitter, sega copyrighted her, and now she’s an official side character instead of the artist’s owned OC, but at least she gets to do things now
Honestly, I think that's the best way to sneak your oc into canon. Aside from the whole "accidentally" part; just put them in crowd scenes every now and then, and then maybe give them a line here and there.
You're welcome to keep your Booster Gold style fanfiction where they're saving the universe in the background, as long as you don't Mary Sue it up in the mainline.
The funniest part is, based on what I heard, he was mainly using it to be against the American comics industry, and was mad about having to work on the comic due to that....
To be fair, Capcom did kill the Malibu Comics adaptation of Street Fighter after only three issues... because the writers just went completely wild and refused to even acknowledge the story from the original comics, making everyone wildly out-of-character then seemingly killing Ken at the end of Issue 1 by scalping.
The 90s and early 2000s were filled with "Watch out Mario/Sonic! Forgettable Platforming Mascot is here to take the crown!" They would usually get 1 game and then drop off the face of the earth.
Bubsy is the epitome of this to me and I’m always surprised when I hear they’re making another game with him. There’s one very average Bubsy game and a ton of dogshit ones and yet people keep deciding to make more
He even LOOKS like "some little fucker" lmao, just standing there, nonplussed expression, hands at his sides. Silly little fucker; get down from there! Who told you to usurp pop culture classics?
The sequel was actually really kick-ass. It's a shame the series went absolutely nowhere, the premise of having an entire department of time-travelling fixers that are all cats fighting a pig menace had a lot of franchise potential if they actually marketed the damn games.
They landed in the desert instead of in Portland Oregon though that's the issue. Come here and you see like five of those guys at any given coffee shop
My guess, most or all of the women they asked were married and so they described physical traits about their husbands rather than traits they found inherently attractive. The face his shoulders aren't as wide as a barn door is really weird though.
H.P. Lovecraft expected Yog-Sothoth to be his most iconic character, even going so far as to his work being referred to as the “Yog-Sothothory”.
People today know his work instead as the Cthulhu mythos.
I can see why he thought that. Cthulhu's story is pretty short and simple. Started to wake up, weird things happened around the world, hit his head and went back to sleep. Guy is a priest for the great old ones so he's not even the boss.
Ya I was just thinking the same thing. Many of the monsters are "Undescribeable" while Cthulhu gets a pretty good description that even with a few different interpretations people can still point and say "That's Cthulhu." Lovecraft accidentally stumbled into making a mascot.
Yog-Sothoth is solidly in 2nd place for having the most impact on pop culture (maybe until internet influencers started hyping up Hastur and Nyarlathotep for some reason in the 2020s)
A Pixar account on Twitter posted a video of fake cheers in a theater when Cold first appears in the film. Still no one went to see this film or really cared about the comedy character Clod
I didn't see it in theaters but I have seen this movie a few times with my kid and enjoyed it. I still didn't remember Clod was a character until this picture sort of reminded me
"It was Hoopy the hoop. We thought we should have a warehouse full of Hoopy t-shirts and mugs and posters…we would watch that hoop roll by over and over again. That was the part of the game we were most proud of, and nobody cared."
I always assumed that it was an in joke that probably started with the hoop being surprisingly difficult to animate or something like that and it was living rent free in the heads of the developers.
Heck, more people fawned over Ingo and Emmet when BW released than Burgh, and they look like this:
I'm serious. They did a popularity poll of all the human characters in Black and White when they first came out in Japan. Ingo and Emmet got second and third place; Burgh got 14th.
Eyy great find, thanks!! It's cool to see an actual source to back up Burgh's lack of popularity- he even got beaten by a character not even from this generation (granted the most popular character of Gen 4 aside from maybe Dawn but still)
An insurance company who will go unnamed because I refuse to give them free advertising recently launched a yellow fuzzball mascot in an attempt to create a viral thing that called back to a previous ad of theirs. I don't think I've seen a single person respond with anything but blind homicidal rage.
You know what's funny? I've seen those ads and I could not tell you which insurance company it is or what the callback is. I think ad designers sometimes overestimate how closely people watch commercials.
The only reason I know anything about them is because I'm hearing their ads every few minutes while I'm trying to shower. They genuinely shove it in your face so much.
That particular company has been desperate for a Geico or Progressive breakout for a while with their commercials.
Which is insane because both those companies have essentially beaten a dead horse with their “star” characters at this point in such a way any initial charm they had is gone and they’re firmly in annoying status.
Liberty Mutual should've asked the Jim Henson company to make them a puppet emu.
I'm personally neutral towards Liberty Biberty, since he's nowhere near as annoying as the talking Happy Meals nor the Rabbids, but still a mediocre mascot.
I'm a big fan of zeraora and zarude and most of their forgetfulness comes from pokemon giving them 0 in game presence and resting their entire rep on the anime.
At least they gave zeraora a mega but zarude still has basically nothing going for it to make it memorable
Also the way those 2 mythical just Appeared, for zero reason and zero context like they were just last minute additions after the game came out
Discord's mascot, Wumpus, has recently become the source of vitriol on Twitter as Discord posted a meme of Wumpus being upset due to the backlash regarding their recent age verification update.
Twitter responded with hundreds of honestly impressive artistic depictions of Wumpus suffering the worst tortures I've ever even heard of.
Fun note: before this, no one cared about Wumpus. It was just a typical sanitized corporate mascot. So suddenly seeing everyone say "alright FUCK you" and start drawing it getting absolutely destroyed in 900 ways was not the response Discord expected. They can't even address it because it goes against that squeaky clean corporate reputation they are so desperate to maintain.
Sqweeks from Transformers The Last Knight was an obvious ripoff of BB-8 from Star Wars and had more merch than all the other cast members aside from Optimus Prime and Bumblebee
I mean, they really tried to make this little piece of junk (literally) that doesn't even transform more iconic than the cool, giant characters that do transform, lol. Damn, even the Autobot tank with Alzheimer's was better.
His official action figure turns into a Vespa. It’s cute enough.
But man, the merch around The Last Knight is so weird. They have this whole Suicide Squad bit in the film where they list off all these Decepticons but none of them got toys except Berserker, who shows up for literally five seconds and never again. Then there’s Cogman the “Headmaster” but they never animated the scene of him actually headmastering so he’s just this weird human-sized Transformer who doesn’t transform. The film itself is this bizarre mishmash of different scripts and planned spin-offs and I think Sqweeks in particular came from whatever film Isabela Moner’s character was supposed to spearhead.
Aoi Asahina (Danganronpa). one of the producers openly said she was his favorite and expected her to be more popular, but she ended up way less popular than characters the team didnt expect to take off.
They made an even more vulgar version of everyone's least favorite character from the previous game unfortunately they made her a conventionally attractive woman so it didnt work
Problem is that she’s from a game where the cast is an assortment of barely functioning weirdos that are more memorable than her (like the strict rule obsessed guy and his definitively not boyfriend bike gang leader, a femboy science Wizard, the average redditor, a murderous girlfailure, Akuma but as a woman and a normal guy that accidentally ended in this mess due to bad luck. Also an evil teddy bear who is the face of the franchise and is hilarious and you will quote everything he says)
Aoi had the misfortune of being up next the GOATs Sakura and Kyoko and the delightful Celeste, and I will die on the hill of these girls being amazing.
I love Aoi but girl is fighting for a spot in top 3 when these three are her contestants.
I still struggle with the realism of this. Like yea sure pokemon was never gonna be realistic but my man. This guy will never kiss a woman let alone eat a meal without hair being the number 1 issue.
Tbh I think it’s the fact that Burgh is kind of a flat jack of all trades master of none.
While other male Gym Leaders have very strong traits that stand out to specific people, Burgh has very flat/mediocre traits that were meant to appeal to everyone. Except that flat broad appeal is why he flopped. Because there’s nothing particularly stand out.
I liked Burgh, probably my favorite gen 5 gym leader, I enjoy his artistic hipster vibe. I do find it funny that he was apparently designed to appeal to women, because they made a pretty classic gay queen. He looks like he calls everyone at the art gallery "darling" before French kissing them.
8 year old me was enamored by Skyla and Elesa. It wasn’t until black and white that my brain swapped from “girl gross” to “girl nice” and it was entirely those two that did it
People tend to forget that game freak is well aware of their older demographic. I mean look at salazzle. There’s no way she wasn’t design for the express purpose of attracting scalies.
It is still funny to get a confirmation of something you always assumed.
Dude is overworked and would really not be forced to work extra hours fighting trainers.
All he wanted was to be a regular accountant and have a quiet life, but for some reason he’s one of the strongest trainers in Paldea and this ruined his life
It's just that the writing was C tier and the gameplay was... what's worse than an F? But the underlying idea of Silver going back in time to stop Sonic, realizing he's been lied to, and helping him save the day is really good (apart from being suspiciously similar to the Cell Saga from DBZ).
They gave this thing everything, its a godzilla reference with its signature attack being the godzilla slide meme. It got an excellent signature ability, its a competitive beast, and, its a pseudo legendary, and it even got a mega
No one talks about baxcalibur outside of competitive viability, when it comes to gen 9 popular pokemon, it got utterly mogged by tinkaton
it quite literally is a gremlin tho not even as in a "quirky lol random gremlin girl" kinda thing more as in "give me your fucking engine so i can sell it for more bong ammo" like literally the very idea of Gremlins back in their debut
The "Looks like Godzilla" attention already got it Tyranitar so maybe people weren't too excited for a second one, even if Baxcalibur looks more like Godzilla than Tyranitar does
Honestly it just looks really goofy. For me I think its because of how mushy half of its blue body looks, looking almost just as malleable as like regular human skin. Godzilla is a giant hulking beast of impenetrable scales, whilst this thing looks like it could be taken down by a wooden pike.
Maybe I'm biased cuz Haxorus is my favorite regional dragon line but I feel like he does it way better. Also just the difference between pixel art with loads of personality versus 3d modeling which... has never been my favorite.
To be fair they hid it in the most anonymous place in the game. Nobody sane of mind would have ever found it unless they plastered every wall in the game with explosives, which probably explains why the Knight teaser was made slightly easier to find since all you needed to do was to stumble upon the right boat
People would've liked it more if they at least made it the first Electric/Fighting type (signature move is literally called Plasma Fists) but nope, just pure boring Electric
People say Zeraora is a flopped industry plant when Poliwhirl exists. Back in Gen 1, it was damn near everywhere, even being Red's Starter in the Adventures Manga, since it was Satoshi Tajiri (the creator of Pokémon)'s favorite. But ever since Gen 3, Poliwhirl hasn't gotten anything new.
Maybe they shouldnt have made him Mediocre Water Type #16 in game. His evolution being weak to psychic, an already overpowered type in Gen 1, didn't help.
I watched Encanto shortly after my mom passed away. She made me the executor of her will/trust because I was the oldest and most capable and I felt like I was drowning under the responsibility. When she opened up about how she felt, I cried like a baby. Luisa will hold a special spot in my heart for the rest of my life.
"Give it to your sister, your sister's older. Give her all the heavy things we can't shoulder-"
"Give it to your sister, your sister's stronger, see if she can hang on a little longer-"
"Give it to your sister, it doesn't hurt and see if she can handle every family burden-"
"Give it to your sister and never wonder if the same pressure would have pulled you under."
Her lyrics straight up hurt at times. I'm the youngest sibling, and a boy, but I'm very very often the one thrust into roles of responsibility and her song really hit a spot on me too.
I think this is generally true but I know of some people who strongly identify with Isabela since they felt like they had to be their parents’ “perfect” child growing up.
The Xbox 360 was often called “The 360”. Microsoft execs thought the naming convention would carry over for its next console, the Xbox One. Nobody has ever called it “The One”, we’re not in the Matrix. Everybody called it “X-bone”.
I remember people really liking the lawyer from the first movie. Went to the theater to watch the second one, I swear I was the only mf who recognized it was him.
I maintain that the Minions weren't supposed to be in the movie, originally, but when the idea was pitched, Illumination said "Yea, ok, but you gotta use these little mascot things we came up with, they'll be amazing for mercendising. They can be his Minions or something"
Dude yeah this is wild information to me, I’m old enough to remember everyone going nuts over the subway twins to the point where when Ingo showed up in PLA I was like “WHY IS THE OG TUMBLR SEXYMAN HERE”
In japan the image of a "ladies man" kinda of guy who make every woman throw herself in his feets is diferent from the american one; from then the image that come in they heads is of a "prince charming" kinda of person (because some female characters also fit on this) who speak in soft manner have a more androgynous look and like to tell poesy while holding a flower, you know like raiden from mgr, kurama de yu yu Hakusho, alucard from castlevania or vega from street fighter
Commenting on my own post with another example I forgot- Joe Russo as a director's cameo in Avengers Endgame as "Unnamed Gay Guy".
Another one of those "First openly gay character in X franchise" with barely any lines or plot significance, but this time this guy was so irrelevant that nobody even got up in arms about it for any reason. At least the other "First gay characters" garnered controversy for how shallow their representation was- this guy is just a weirdly placed ego casting, and it's embarassing how forgotten he is considering he's in the biggest movie of the biggest film franchise in the world.
Magic the Gathering had a similar thing. The character of Loot is widely considered an attempt by WotC to manufacture a cute mascot type character. Unfortunately the general consensus is that Loot is a lame Pokemon wannabe.
The fans naturally gravitated instead to Fblthp the homunculus, Fleem the whatever in all hell he is and Tinybones
Wotc has squandered so much good-will with their fans that even the most devoted players instantly clocked Loot as a corporate-mandated mascot. I'm convinced that his roll in Jace's story was largely rewritten in response to the overwhelmingly negative reception Loot recieved.
Burgh's lack of fans swooning over him might just be because of huc much less involved he is in the story compared to the likes of N and Colress. You get to know N pretty well throughout both pairs of games, and it's not hard to see why people fell for him. Colress idk because I haven't actually played B2W2 (it haunts me every day) but people love the morally gray scientist characters.
Y'all remember are the Jar Jar Binx merch? Couldn't escape that guy for a while. My mom bought beach towels of his face because they were on clearance 😭
Neinhalt Sieger from Samurai Shodown II was, according to the developers, designed as a "macho" character meant to appeal to female players. It presumably didn't work out, though, as his only other appearance was in the sixth game (an "everybody is here" dream match).
Abel, the alleged "protagonist" of Street Fighter 4. He came out at a time when the series plot was already very loose and consistently at odds with itself, so his status as the supposed main character didn't really mean much.
Even still, just as a character, he bounced off of the fanbase, with most people just focusing on the returning cast, and the game's other original characters who were by and large a lot more interesting. Even the officially licensed SF4 movie and OVA basically ignored his existence
Burgh probably would’ve been more well known if his personality didn’t suck so bad. Norm is more well known because he has a great personality despite being pretty bland looking.
You could name any number of animal sidekick characters in Disney/Pixar movies that never really took off, but I think Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars has to be the best example of a poorly considered character meant to attract young fans. He is a character so reviled there are fan edits of the movie taking him out of it entirely!
To this day I still don't know if the whole hoopy story was just a joke from the developers fucking with the players, nothing about this random ass hoop bouncing at the end looks memeable
Batfleck getting wrapped up in the Lasso of Truth during his cameo in The Flash (2023) and reciting some old tired meme about how he could just use his money to fix crime.
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u/res30stupid 2d ago
A writer and artist on the Brazilian MegaMan comic got into severe trouble for doing this.
The writer created a new character called Princess and inserted her into the comic without authorisation from the publisher or Capcom with the idea that she'd prove more popular than any of the original stars of the franchise like Rock, Roll or Protoman. The intention was for Princess to outright murder the heroes and steal their status as the main characters of the comic.
When Capcom found out what he was planning, they threatened to completely rescind the license from the publisher for even daring attempt such a stunt and the writer was fired from the series soon after.