Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Abridged

File:PokemonMysteryDungeonAbridged title.jpg

PMDA title

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Abridged
Created By	The Midnight Frogs
Starring	Mugiwara Yoshi ThornBrain and featuring Al Vee and Vorhias
Written By	Mugiwara Yoshi, ThornBrain
Length	9:15
Link	YouTube Blip backup YouTube fan reupload

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Abridged, often shortened to PMDA, is a one-shot by The Midnight Frogs based on a one-episode Pokemon special that aired in 2006 to promote the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games. The one-shot makes use of absurd/idiotic humor, direct parodies of the original special, and very fast pacing.

Development Notes

The one-shot was technically planned by Yoshi as far back as the special's release in 2006, though production of the actual Abridged didn't begin until April 7, 2010, when Yoshi approached ThornBrain with the idea. The two were stalled on Episode 2 of SFA due to recurring problems with the character Momoka, so they decided to begin making the one-shot as a "secret project" and they referred to it as such for the next two months. Writing of the episode lasted until April 10, (Thorn keeping dated recordings of the Skype calls). Recording of the lines halted until mid-May, when continued problems with Momoka's voice actors and satisfaction at the PMD Abridged script caused a revitalized interest in the project, (one major cause of the gap was waiting for expected-guest voice actor Takahata101 to be able to record, to no avail; the two continued without him).

At the beginning of June, the two continued recording their lines, and on June 13th all of the lines were recorded. Lead female VA for Sgt Frog Abridged, LillyLivers, was originally intended to provide a voice, but the enclosing deadline caused Thorn to decide against it. The brief role is instead voiced by Al Vee, who was originally going to voice Momoka in SFA2R but couldn't due to health.

Cast and Crew

• Writing - Mugiwara Yoshi and ThornBrain
• Editing - ThornBrain

Main Characters

• Squirtle - A human boy who wakes up one day as a Squirtle. Just randomly joins Team Retard when Charmander invites him. Slightly idiotic but still has some common sense. Is horrified at the idea of being a "furry". Voiced by Mugiwara Yoshi
• Charmander - Member of Team Retard and essentially the team's namesake. Most of his dialogue is ridiculous one-liners that rarely have any relevance to the current situation. Names his attacks after desserts. Voiced by ThornBrain
• Chikorita - The token girl of Team Retard that nobody cares about. Seems to have the most common sense and intelligence, but is frequently interrupted. Voiced by Mugiwara Yoshi
• Pichu - Scared little brother of a kidnapped Pikachu. Is insufferably cute and easily gets into traps. Has an ambition to operate lights in Broadway. Voiced by ThornBrain
• "THE WHALE" - The wise and impressive fish in the pond. Speaks in a loud, booming voice, and refers to himself in the third person. Though friendly, he is somewhat insensitive of Pichu's fears for his brother's safety, and is vaguely homophobic. Voiced by ThornBrain
• Gengar - Leader of Team Irrelevant and does the most talking. Is fully aware of the useless and contradictory nature of his team's evilness, what with them being a rescue team as well. Voiced by ThornBrain
• Skarmory - The 4Kids-obsessed/possessed villain who kidnapped Pikachu. Sings 4Kids show themes to herself, and speaks in praise of Al Khan like he is Jesus. Is killed by Squirtle. Voiced by Mugiwara Yoshi

Minor Characters

• Kangaskhan - A kind, motherly shop-owner who provides Team Retard with their napkin-scarfs and the sticks that Squirtle uses to kill Skarmory. Voiced by Al Vee
• Pikachu - The kidnapped Pokemon around whom the story revolves. Is clearly not impressed by Team Retard's efforts to save him, let alone their name. Voiced by Vorhias.
• Snubull (Mugiwara Yoshi) and Ekans (ThornBrain) do not have enough dialogue to discern an actual personality. Medicham, the female in Team Irrelevant, does not even have any dialogue at all. Thorn also provides the brief, uncredited voice for Peliper, though pitch-shifted to sound deeper.

Joke References and Explanations

• Squirtle's line, "I don't wanna be a furry!", is not a reference to Joey from Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged, though the writers acknowledge the connection by having Peliper follow Squirtle's line with, "for the love of god, don't sing "Poker Face"". Peliper's line is a direct reference to LittleKuriboh's Joey-sung parody of the Lady Gaga song "Poker Face", called "Brooklyn Rage", wherein he says the "furry" catchphrase.
• The intro sequence with Thorn recording himself writing out "POKE A MOM" is a call-back to the team's April Fools joke that year, Paper Abridged.
• Chikorita's line "We just brought this Japanese text that you can't possibly read" references the eponymous text throughout the video, which is humorously re-captioned. Though the first line of Japanese goes along with Chikorita's line, (it reads: "Bitches don't know you can't read this"), text from there-on-out is usually re-captioned with nonsense.
• The Squirtle line, "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, flamer?", was only written because it fit Squirtle's expression at the time that he says it. It was written about two months before Gary Coleman's death, and as such had nothing to do with it and was simply a bad coincidence.
  • Charmander's follow up, "What's an internet?", is a subtle reference to internet flamers. Yoshi didn't know this until Thorn revealed it on their podcast.
• Squirtle frequently asking "Que?" is a reference to Yoshi's Dominican heritage and fluent understanding of Spanish.
• "THE WHALE" was inspired by neither Thorn or Yoshi knowing what the Pokemon was called, so they simply called him a whale; Yoshi left the Caps Lock on while typing the name, leading to the two reading the name over-dramatically, and the name and format stuck.
  • "THE WHALE" is actually a catfish Pokemon, called Whiscash.
• Charmander and Chikorita saying "De Arimasu" references the original Sgt Frog, in which the characters say the phrase very frequently.
• Gengar saying "Rape face... Hey that reminds me of something" and Keroro suddenly responding with "Not funny!" is a callback to the only line by Saburo in Sgt Frog Abridged - Episode 1R.
• Kangaskhan's forehead when she first appears is not colored in properly; the writers point this out by having her say, "Thanks for waiting for me to paint my forehead".
• The blaring "La Cucaracha" jingle played when Team Retard pose with their new napkin scarfs is taken from an episode of Ed, Edd n Eddy. The writers colloquially refer to it as "Honking La Cucaracha".
• Most of Charmander's attack dialogue, including "Triple Fudge Ice Cream Sundae!", are references to No More Heroes, in which Travis Touchdown yells out a favorite dessert before doing a special attack. Most of Charmander's dialogue in general were just random outbursts by Thorn during the scriptwriting process.
  • Fuyuki's two lines were also random outbursts by Thorn. The first, "And that's how I had my first-" is a reference to his non-sequitor line in Sgt Frog Abridged - Episode 1R, and the image of Fuyuki is taken (albeit edited to look crazy) from the exact same scene. His second line, "I am a Pokemon! Waka waka!", was simply something Thorn said as a result of having Fuyuki apparently be in the Pokemon world, which gave Yoshi uncontrollable laughter for two minutes.
  • Charmander's outburst, "I have warts on my dick!", was inspired by the movie Baseketball wherein a humorous song plays that references the main character's genital warts. Yoshi and Thorn had been using the line as an inside-joke long before they started scriptwriting.
• Pichu's noises while he eats the berry are not directly inspired by Curly Howard, but how in the Red Zone Cuba episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Tom Servo repeats the trademark noises whenever main character Griffin runs around. Thorn is a fan of MST3K, with Red Zone Cuba being the first MST3K DVD he ever bought.
  • The noises are transcribed as "HROOOO WOOB WOOB WOOB WOOB WOOB HURN HURN HURN HURN".
• Pichu shouts "Ohmygodhi!" when Team Retard arrive to rescue him and Pikachu. "Ohmygodhi!" is an old greeting between Yoshi and Thorn, which is primarily said in their Tamama voices; Pichu's voice is essentially Thorn's Tamama voice sans-mannerisms.
• Skarmory insisting on "power[ing] up for 15 episodes" is a direct reference to the infamous filler-aspect of Dragon Ball Z. The music that plays at this point is the same music used when Goku powers up to Super Saiyan 3.
  • The irony in this situation is that Skarmory is 4Kids-obsessed, though Dragon Ball Z was never a 4Kids license. Charmander even makes a remark earlier in the scene that "Funimation is better than 4Kids", then Squirtle later says he hates One Piece and likes Dragon Ball Z.
• Charmander is apparently playing Rock-Paper-Scissors by himself when Skarmory attacks him.
• Pikachu's eye-movement in the "WHOA" joke was an actual animation error in the original show.
• The One Piece rap parody in the credits is deliberately misspoken and out-of-sync with the music.

Recurring Jokes in the Episode

• Interrupting Chikorita (Chikorita does get back at Squirtle once, though Charmander interrupts her less than thirty seconds later)
• Charmander's incoherent one-liners
• Mistranslating the Japanese text/captions throughout the video
• Squirtle yelling "Charmander, you fucker!" when Charmander's stupidity gets them into trouble
• Team Irrelevant's uselessness
• Skarmory's obsession with 4Kids

Recurring jokes in The Midnight Frog's videos

• This is the second video to reference No More Heroes, the first being Sgt Frog Abridged - Episode 2R.
• This is the second video to reference webcomic Slackerz through the use of the phrase "Fuck all y'all", the first being Sgt Frog Abridged - Episode 1R as spoken by the Kero Ball (Speakonia). The phrase was something of a catchphrase among the writers for a short time.
  • This is also the second video to have characters say "Oh god, my face!" and "rape face" at an appropriate point, the first being Sgt Frog Abridged: Episode 1R, spoken respectively by Keroro and Saburo. It would also be the last.

Major Differences from Original Episode

• Team Go-Getters are renamed Team Retard, and Team Meanies are renamed Team Irrelevant.
• PMDA completely ignores the bell that sounds when a rescue team is needed, Snubull's story of the volcano, the first shopkeepers from whom Team Meanies steal, how Team Meanies trapped Pichu behind the large rock, and when Team Go-Getters rescue Team Meanies by healing them. The latter-most event is the only event directly shown to be ignored.
  • PMDA also ignores Squirtle wishing to learn Water Gun or him finally learning it at the end of the show. He only uses Bubble once.
• Though Skarmory somehow turns evil, like in the original show, she is actually killed at the end of the episode instead of knocked out.
  • Skarmory is defeated simply by getting hit with one of the sticks. Team Retard do not attack her all at once.

Reception

The video was positively received by most viewers. The original upload garnered 35 "likes" and 0 "dislikes" on its first day, the day before it's removal (this is subsequently the amount of "likes" it had when it was restored on December 1). The YouTube reupload is at 8 "likes" and 0 "dislikes" as of December 1, 2010.

Copyright Claim

The video was taken down on June 15th by Shogakukan Production Co. Ltd. It was reuploaded to Blip, and a random user reuploaded it to YouTube where it has avoided a second removal. On November 9, shortly after recording a commentary of PMDA, the team sent in a counter-claim, and the original video was restored on December 1st.

Trivia

• PMDA is arguably the team's most-referenced video, having been referenced in SFA3, SFA4, and constantly in Best Wishes Abridged. The team also to this day plays around with Team Retard in Skype calls.
• Thorn has expressed interest in redubbing PMDA, but the team are unable to make it without raw video.
• MasterWGS was originally asked to voice Pikachu as a cameo, but he never responded. Takahata101 was also in-line to voice Gengar, but it never happened.
• Ever since making the video, Yoshi has not been able to say "burgundy" without pronouncing it as "bur-goon-dee", like how Charmander does in the video. The same goes for other words that sound like "burgundy".
• Roler42, (notable for dubbing episodes of numerous Abridged series in Spanish and for making the first Sgt Frog Abridged), recently offered to dub PMDA in Spanish, to which Yoshi and Thorn happily agreed. Nothing has come about as of yet.