Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Abridged

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Abridged
Air Date	06/14/2010
Starring	Mugiwara Yoshi ThornBrain Al Vee MrVorhias
Written By	Mugiwara Yoshi ThornBrain (Script can be read here)
Length	9:15
Link	YouTube

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Abridged, usually shortened to PMDA, is a one-shot by TheMidnightFrogs based on a one-episode Pokemon special that aired in 2006 to promote the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games. The video makes use of absurd and idiotic humor, direct parodies of the original special, and fast pacing. The scriptwriting sessions can be downloaded here.

PMDA was remade for its fourth birthday, titled Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Abridged: Fire Red Version.

Plot

A human boy is suddenly transported to the Pokemon world, where he takes on the form of a Squirtle. Having nothing else to do, he joins Team Retard, an adventuring team with an idiot Charmander and a useless Chikorita. The team take on a mission to save a little Pichu's older brother, Pikachu. After briefly being hassled by Team Irrelevant, they load up on supplies and venture into a cave, where they find Pichu again. They eventually find Skarmory, who kidnaps Pichu, as well as Team Irrelevant lying dead. The team fight Skarmory to save Pichu and Pikachu, eventually winning and returning for their pointless reward.

Development Notes

The one-shot was planned by Yoshi as far back as the Mystery Dungeon special's airing in 2006, though production of the Abridged video didn't begin until April 7, 2010, when Yoshi approached ThornBrain with the idea. The two were stalled on Episode 2(R) of SFA due to recurring problems with the character Momoka, so they decided to begin making the one-shot as a secret project. Writing of the episode lasted until April 10. Recording of the lines halted until mid-May, when continued problems with Momoka's voice actors and remembering how much they liked the PMDA script revitalized interest in the project. One major cause of the gap was waiting for possible guest voice actor Takahata101 to be able to record Gengar, to no avail; Thorn took over the voice instead.

The two continued recording their lines at the beginning of June through the 13th. One-time Momoka voice actor Al Vee provided the voice for Kangaskhan last-minute.

Cast

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 references 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 text throughout the video. Though the first line of Japanese is captioned relating to Chikorita's line, ("Bitches don't know you can't read this"), text from there-on-out is usually 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 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 fluency in Spanish. This was slowly being translated to Keroro in SFA around this time as well.
• "THE WHALE" was inspired by neither Thorn or Yoshi knowing what the Pokemon was called (it is actually a catfish Pokemon named Whiscash), 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.
• Charmander and Chikorita saying "De Arimasu" references the original Sgt Frog, where it is Keroro's catchphrase.
• 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 and how Yoshi and Thorn didn't like the episode anymore.
• 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 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-sequitur line in Sgt Frog Abridged - Episode 1R, and the image of Fuyuki is taken (though 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. He uploaded a recording of the call to YouTube as "I AM A POKEMON WAKA WAKA".
  • 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.
• Pichu shouts "Ohmygodhi!" when Team Retard arrive to rescue him and Pikachu. "Ohmygodhi!" was an old greeting between Yoshi and Thorn, which was 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, inspired by it and the team staring at each other for a drawn-out period of time. The music that plays is from a scene when Goku powers up to Super Saiyan 3.
  • The irony is that Skarmory is 4Kids-obsessed, though Dragon Ball Z was never a 4Kids license. Charmander also remarks earlier in the scene that "Funimation is better than 4Kids", then Squirtle later says he hates One Piece and likes Dragon Ball Z. Yoshi and Thorn admit this was the laziest part of the script.
• Charmander is 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 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 TheMidnightFrog'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 around this time, but it would not be used again after PMDA.
  • This is also the second video to have characters say "Oh god, my face!" and "rape face", the first being SFA1R where they were spoken respectively by Keroro and Saburo. They too would not be used again after PMDA.

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. The YouTube reupload had 8 "likes" and 0 "dislikes" as of December 1, 2010 - as of August 14, 2016 it has 816 likes and 30 dislikes.

Though Yoshi and Thorn were very proud of the video on its release, they eventually became dissatisfied with it by at least a year later, finding it to be of a similarly poor writing quality to the SFA episodes from this era. They hoped to redub and remaster the video for its first birthday, but they could not find a good enough quality source video for it. Thorn eventually decided he was so disappointed in the script that the video wasn't worth redubbing as-is. Finally, four years after its upload and once Yoshi found a decent source video, the two completely remade it from the ground up as a new parody: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Abridged: Fire Red Version.

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 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 was referenced in SFA3, SFA4, and constantly in Best Wishes Abridged. Yoshi and Thorn also continued to play around with Team Retard in Skype calls for several months following PMDA's release, including a recording on August 16, 2010 of what it would be like if they were drunk. Thorn uploaded the recording to their Blip.tv channel, but due to Blip going down in 2015, Thorn reuploaded the recording to his archive channel on June 7, 2016.
• Lead female VA for Sgt Frog Abridged, LillyLivers, was originally intended to provide the voice for Kangaskhan, but the enclosing deadline led Thorn to give the brief role to Al Vee. Al was one of the many VAs in-line to voice Momoka for SFA2R, but she couldn't due to sickness. It is her only credit with TheMidnightFrogs.
• MasterWGS was asked to voice Pikachu as a cameo, but he never responded. Takahata101 was also in-line to voice Gengar, but Thorn and Yoshi decided to move on without him so that they could finish the video.
• For at least a year after making the video, Yoshi was not 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".
• Thorn and Yoshi did a commentary of the video on November 10, 2010. Thorn also did a solo commentary of it on June 8, 2013.