"New Dogs, New Tricks" Chapter Two commentary & notes

-- I was told Cyan has a hang-up about his superpower and comparing himself to the others, so I thought I'd set that up early on. In fact, I'm setting up several reoccurring elements in this story -- including hinting at which new Rover will be made leader of these guys when they officially become a team eventually, and character relationships.

-- In New Dogs On The Block, most of the recruits were given weapons. For NDNT though, since Eric and co were kind of recruited at the spur of the moment, I felt that going that route wouldn't be realistic. Instead, it's just Blades, Cyan, and Aurora who get their original weapons. I've always thought the weapons EW devised for everyone were pretty dope and creative while feeling like they could genuinely fit into canon (leagues better than that awful sponge gun Colleen had in the show), and I will be debuting the rest of their weapons in their next story. 

Powerplay is a special case. He was the only new Rover who never received a weapon. I came up with the idea of the Hydrant Cannon, because I thought a water cannon-type gun would be a fire weapon for the Rovers. 

-- I never understood why Colleen was named second in command of the Rovers. Field medic and surgeon is fine, but she's never displayed any kind of decent leadership skills in the show. In fact, in a number of ways I would say she's the exact opposite of what a good leader should be. I don't think I'd personally give someone like her that role, but well, I decided to stick with the show's idea this time, because I thought it could be interesting to have other characters question and even criticize this choice, and her growing into the role as she learns what she needs to do in order to be a good leader for others. Or maybe as she matures, she realizes she's not cut out to be a leader, and chooses to give the job to somebody else instead. Both would be solid story arcs for her.

-- The new recruits bungling the first usage of their superpowers was a very new addition to the plot. There's a YouTuber I watch named Pup who covers a lot of different media, like Spider-Man, Batman, and Sonic The Hedgehog. I watched a video he did covering the DC/IDW Sonic crossover, and in it Pup makes an interesting point -- when the Sonic characters temporarily stepped into the roles of the select DC characters, it would've been interesting to see them make mistakes in trying to use these new abilities and things. So I thought that'd be cool touch for NDNT. It isn't like the new Rovers were shown how to use these powers. Screwing up makes characters feel more human, and we the readers can get more invested in the story as they learn how to better control and wield their new abilities. And since this isn't a thirty minute TV show but a full-fledged story, it's something I could easily tackle. Honestly, I also think it's kind of a funny scene.

-- The Vulpomatrons are actually in my own idea. In the old stories Zaygos and his minions originally appeared in, they use Fox Mutants as their troops. But to me this just makes him little better than a Parvo knockoff. I mean, does that mean Zaygos has his own Cano-Mutator? Why? So I did some brainstorming, remembered those classical Greek automatons from myth, like Talos, or Hephaestus' creations, and voila. To me, the Vulpomatrons compliments the ancient science-fantasy feel of Zaygos and co. Their being based on foxes is a nod to the Fox Mutants. I thought they could be a lot smarter, quicker, and faster than the average robot because, well, they're foxes.

I don't know if the etymology of the word Vulpomatron is correct or not. Language is not one of my strong suits. If someone has a better name for them, then I'm all ears.

-- Streetwise being this ultimate Rover fanboy struck me as being kinda amusing. He was described as being very enthusiastic about being a Rover, so why not?

-- Oh boy. Humor and Road Rovers. Time for my unpopular opinion! 

The show ain't very funny. The weird boy stuff isn't funny. Colleen pretending to forget Blitz's name isn't funny. I'm sure people will think I'm saying all this because Blitz is my favorite Rover. If you swapped out Blitz for Hunter during these scenes, the joke still wouldn't make me laugh. I mean, what is the punch line? "Haha, they called him weird! Haha, she called him Blister/Booster/whatever! That sounds like Blitz!" This isn't particularly clever or quippy. 

Blitz getting injured repeatedly is not funny. Now, with something such as The Simpsons, The Three Stooges, or Looney Tunes, physical slapstick can be very entertaining, yes. And yes guys, I'm fully aware that the same company responsible for Looney Tunes is also behind Road Rovers. But since RR is trying to be a touch more serious then those particular series are, the physical slapstick in it doesn't work as well to me.

"LOL random!" humor, i.e.: the Russian name song, is unfunny. Same for jokes that are just "Oh, you know this popular thing? Well, let's have our protagonists reference it!" Oh, Colleen referencing the Spice Girls and Bob Dole as she fights? So hilarious!!1! That totally won't date the show badly at all!

This is how the joke police-type fans come off to me:

 And my reaction to these people as well as the "jokes":

If fans believe this is the height of comedy, then that's fine. Humor is subjective, after all. But it sucks for somebody like me because the fanbase will get upset at you for not wanting to repeat these exact same six jokes nine million times in your story, complaining that you're being too serious and forgetting that RR is a comedy, how dare you! But of course you'll have a popular fan just completely eschew the running gags all together and these same people are mysteriously quiet. This crowd is super self-entitled while clearly having a different set of standards for popular fans versus unpopular ones.

No, I enjoy actual funny humor that doesn't bring the dang plot to a screeching halt or screw up character development. I can name funny action/adventure shows, cartoons included, where this is successfully done -- Jackie Chan Adventures, pre-time skip One Piece, The Middleman, Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ("Ewwww, you're not a real TMNT fan!" Oh do shut up), Powerpuff Girls. Not every single joke in those shows landed either, but they definitely pull it off better and succeed in actually being funnier than RR.

People have the Rovers do these same tired jokes in their fics over and over and over again. Back when I actually read RR fanfiction, it got to the point where, if my brain recognized that a scene was about to trot out one of the running gags, I'd just skim over that part. If watching this played out mess in the show was bad, then reading them in prose form is just as awkward, and about as funny as a children's cancer hospice, especially when the author would repeat it multiple times. I also knew somebody who told me that the fics and such that desperately try to be humorous are even worse in quality than the ones that don't. I guess wanting to focus on worldbuilding and developing these flat, plain white rice-ass characters is much less important than a mind-numbing running gag, because I've never see the joke police bring up the possibility of expanding on either the cast or their world. I mean, could be interesting to have uplifted animals think about or discuss how mankind and animals interact since the characters are, y'know, dogs. 

... Nah, just throw another "Blitz fall down, go boom joke" joke in there instead! I mean, RR fans who actually are interested in storytelling? That's for stuck up robot people who can't feel any emotions!

Just because you only want to see lulz and Hunter and Colleen swapping spit doesn't mean you can go around pushing your stance onto other people. Another person and I were discussing this very same topic recently. She described RR's jokes as noise. I think that's a very accurate description. I also think the humor detracted from character development and the plots. The funniest stuff to me is the dry humor of the Master, and the "blink and you'll miss it" jokes. Shag seeing Colleen in her night clothes and his reaction -- it makes me smile. Shag blowing up the billboard advertising Cats was funny. Hunter saying "This is why they don't give dogs guns" or whatever after Shag caused a lot of property damage -- that stuff was actually funny!

So excuse me for daring to try writing a different type of humor that isn't just a copypasta of the show's. I use the interplay between the characters as the basis for jokes, but not ones at their expense, or, if it is, it's not continuously putting them down.

-- Eric opening the door only to find the Decepticons from Transformers Animated (and more specifically, the episode "Transform And Roll Out!") was inspired by that one scene in the Shazam movie where the kids find all those doors that lead to weird alternate worlds. Also, Transformers Animated is one of my favorite Transformers media. I'd call it a pretty good cartoon overall.

(No, that's not the stealth crossover mentioned in the A03 tags.)

-- I felt that Aurora's past time of watching horror movies could be turned into an interesting character trait where she often references them, especially in weird situation like this. I've never actually seen Chopping Mall myself, so I've no clue if it's any good or not.