Shovelwarewolf - Tumblr Posts
How was there a Tumblr sexyman battle without our lord and savior Biffalo Bub in contention.
He's being held captive or something
SHE-HULK Shovelwarewolf
So don't make fun of me, but I watched the she hulk finale intro and thought, wait a minute this is the shovelwarewolf! and then I thought marvel was ripping off RE, and then I realized that doesn't make any sense, and now I know that the old hulk show was the basis for the SWW intro. The more you know I guess
Shovelwarewolf timeline theory
time unspecified: Death is created and put in charge of Purgatory he then begins collecting bad multi-player games. While in purgatory Death begins watching and narrating Ivan's life with his "ASMR voice"
unspecified 2015: Inscape Company hires Ivan Ostril to research video game psychology. While playing Star Fox Adventures a freak lightning storm occurs altering his body chemistry creating the Shovelwarewolf.
2015-October 2016: In order to keep their secret, Inscape keeps Ivan captive having him test horrible licensed games under the guise of looking for a cure. Over the course of many months, Ivan tests games for them, as well as practicing his dry erase board skills, eventually unlocking a more intense form by just looking at Duck dynasty, after playing Ivan reaches his breaking point and attempts escape. An Ivan leaves the virtual realm at this moment and provides directions for the past Ivan before leaving again. This escape ultimately fails as he is recaptured with more security put on him as well as his arm being permanently transformed.
Christmas 2016: Ivan spends two months in this form and is payed a visit from Santa, which does not go well, it is ended with Santa vowing to return.
Sometime in 2017: Inscape ceases testing on Ivan and assigns Susan Ally as his therapist. At some point his arm reverts to normal.
October 2017: Ivan has spent nearly a year without transforming. Inscape begins continuing their testing with Ivan using Susan's lack of game knowledge to give Ivan low quality games from well- reviewed franchises. Ivan mocks his games by dubbing fake voice lines over them. After three days of testing Inscape decides to fire Susan. While melting Duke Nukem in a microwave the company gases Ivan and forces him to play Zelda Wand of Gamelon on CDI. Before beating the game Susan shows up to rescue Ivan, helping him escape to a safe house she had set up for him. Biffalo Bub escapes from a mental facility.
Christmas Eve 2017: Ivan, hiding at the safe-house, remembers Santa's promise and rigs traps for him. After being forced to play Home Alone Susan knocks out Santa and informs Ivan that he has to leave, as the safe house has been compromised. Ivan leaves and Susan states that they won't meet again. An Ivan appears in the safe house from the virtual realm and explains his situation to Susan, after a pep talk he returns to the virtual realm to complete his quest.
Christmas day 2017: Biffalo Bub shows finds Ivan and invites him into his truck, after drugging him Bub locks Ivan in a well in order to use his fur to craft a Bubsy suit.
January 2018: Ivan wakes up in Bub's well and is informed that he has slept for a week. Bub begins forcing Ivan to play infamous games in order to keep his shovelwarewolf form out in order to harvest his fur with the threat of shocking him to death should he not comply. Bub records fun videos with his action figure collection to make fun of Ivan playing his games, at some point Bub films a video of his will should he die. Bub reveals his true plans to Ivan and forces him to play Bubsy 3d on his custom Bubsy console. After destroying the console Bub gives Ivan an ultimatum that he complete and embrace Link the faces of evil to be freed. After beating the game, but not enjoying it Bub does not free Ivan, in a rage he throws the TV at the wall revealing it to be fake. (activates Morgan Freeman voice) the Shovelwarewolf crawled through five hundred yards of terrible games to freedom. Biffalo Bub begins chasing Ivan after escaping and they eventually stop when seeing the ship of the PC master race.
Alternate Universe: ToeJam and Earl are exiled from the PC master race after expressing curiosity in peripherals. They begin searching for a teacher in their space ship.
Alternate Universes January 2018: Bub wearing a black undershirt chases a mega shovelwarewolf after his escape. ToeJam and Earl find Bub and Ivan in the dessert and use their laser to explode Ivan. T and E beam up Biffalo Bub and crown him their leader, Prince Tricky. Bub begins his conquest beaming through universes destroying alternate versions of himself and Ivan to gain life energies to create the power gauntlet. These include a genderbent reality, a reality where the well was near a beach, an apocalypse reality, and an alternate planet reality, Eventually he makes it to our timeline and destroys himself while beaming up Ivan and putting him into stasis.
Unspecified 2018-2019: Ivan is held in stasis for an unspecified amount of time. While in stasis ToeJam and Earl scan his memories and create torturous dreams of him playing the Grinch for PS1 while he is watched by a little girl similar to Susan. At some point Ivan appears from the virtual realm and notices the alien's lack of sophisticated tech. Susan begins her quest to take down Inscape, at some point she leaks their work to the government and shuts them down. After the investigation Susan relocates to the woods to begin her research on a cure for Ivan.
October 2019: Ivan is woken from stasis after over a year by ToeJam and Earl. TJ and E claim to be researcher's from the PC Master Race, trying to find meaning in peripherals, when in reality they are just trying to harness Ivan's rage for Prince Tricky. They have him test multiple peripherals, all followed by Death's end tags, until eventually Prince Tricky and Ivan meet whilst Ivan's attempt to destroy the Steel Battalion mech controller. Eventually Prince Tricky gives a Ivan a fake promise that if he beats two games with the power glove, then he will set him free.
One week later: Ivan, having contemplated Tricky's deal, accepts and inevitably fails. However Tricky reveals that this was what he really wanted. Tricky descends into Ivan's room and reveals his true identity as black undershirt Biffalo Bub. Ivan appears from the virtual realm and steals the gauntlet and beams out, (it is unexplained how the reality is repaired). Bub then explains his plan and reveals the Bubsy gauntlet. Having been powered by life energies, and fueled by Ivan's rage, Bub snaps his fingers and turns every game in the living realm into a Bubsy game to Ivan's horror. Across the world games are transformed into Bubsy-fied versions of themselves, Death has no comment to this.
Christmas/Christmas Eve 2019: Ivan has been sitting in his chamber for two months feeling desolate after Bub's snap, ToeJam, who holds some misgivings against Bub due to missing superman 64, goes to comfort Ivan gifting him a Virtual boy telling him that its games were the only to survive the snap and then reveals the existence of the Virtual Realm, a timeless world where there are only games. This gives Ivan the idea to enter the virtual realm and exit two months prior to destroy the gauntlet.
Virtual realm: Ivan enters the Virtual realm numerous times always failing and ending up in various points in time, until eventually getting it right and claiming the gauntlet.
Christmas/Christmas eve 2019: Ivan exits the virtual realm only to be apprehended by Biffalo Bub having been alerted to ToeJam's betrayal by Earl. Bub decides to kill ToeJam due to her disobedience, and then Earl due to his dislike of tattle tails. Bub then uses his gauntlet to destroy it thus making the Bubsy reality permanent. Ivan then fights Bub eventually biting him and turning Bub into his final form, Biffalo Bubsy. They continue to fight until Bub stabs Ivan with his hidden Resident Evil Chainsaw Controller. Before he dies Ivan manages to send Bub into the Virtual Realm and smashes the console, thus trapping him there forever.
Virtual Realm: Biffalo Bub falls for eternity.
Christmas/Christmas Eve 2019: Prince Tricky's ship crashes on an unknown planet, while Ivan succumbs to his injuries.
Purgatory: Ivan awakens in purgatory and meets Death who has been watching him for a while. Death offers a bet with Ivan stating that if he wins a best out of five match of Shovelware multiplayer games against him. Then he can return to life. If he loses then he must move on to the afterlife. Ivan plays against Death, both of them winning two rounds, and after each one Death provides funny dubbing over the games similarly to how Ivan did in 2017. Eventually Death wins three to two against Ivan. However Ivan is not willing to accept this, and strikes up a new deal, they will play two more rounds making it a best out of seven, if Ivan wins he will be returned to life and have his curse lifted. If Death wins, Ivan will play bad multi player games with him for eternity. Ivan manages to win both games, and is excited at the prospect of freedom. This excitement fades as he finds out that Biffalo Bub's curse is still active outside of the Virtual Realm and Purgatory. Ivan then asks Death if he can reverse it. Death says he can, but if he does that, returns Ivan to life, and erases his curse, then he will be punished by his superiors. Ivan then decides to not have his curse lifted, but have the Bubsy snap be reversed. Death agrees and returns his end of the final deal.
Christmas 2019: Ivan is returned to life at Susan's cabin in the woods, and Susan takes him inside. Ivan awakens and is greeted by Susan who informs him of how she took down the company and has begun work on a cure for his condition. Ivan realizes that with his scientific expertise he can help her develop the cure. Ivan remarks one of his recent one liners as the Shovelwarewolf, before beginning his work. While working Ivan knocks over a glass stating that some things never change, remarking on how he would always manage to break one before playing a game.
thank you for reading this entire timeline, it may not be totally correct, but I took some liberties based on certain lines from characters.
This originally started as a head canon post about how they only games to survive Deaths reversal of the snap was the entire virtual boy library, so Biffalo Bubsy could spend eternity in Bubsy
BUT I realized two things 1. That doesn’t line up with the canon of the series. 2. Biffalo doesn’t deserve to spend an eternity of (his) happiness, I mean he KILLED TOEJAM AND EARL!!
Howlaween!!
It’s October time, which means Shovelwarewolf every day! I’ve always loved the Shovelwarewolf and look forward to this every year (one of the many spooky month activities I love). To start with we have two alright episodes Goosebumps and Nat-Geo, nothing super special here and the production values are still kinda low but I love seeing it where it started. Plus that Nat-Geo narrator is still hilarious.
Shovelwarewolf Season 1 Review
Ah, Season 1. It’s definitely the weakest season of the show, but there’s a certain charm to the low budget and short episodes. For these reviews I’m just gonna break it up into categories and than give it an overall score.
Episodes:
Horrorland: Solid opener, had some weird quirks like SWW biting the tv. It takes a little while for Ivan to turn which is nice, helps introduce the character.
Nat Geo: Not much to say, the narrator slays me.
Ski Doo: Not much else to say, I love his description of the buttrock. That guy with the banana befuddles me to this day.
Six Flags: Pretty funny. The lil Donald Trump joke was funny (never stop making fun of him). I like his rant about moving the Wiimote. Also it ties into the next episode which is neat.
Duck Dynasty: Ah yes the mega shovelwarewolf everyone thought would come back at some point. Duck Dynasty the game is one of the funniest games of all time in my opinion. “John Luke, FORGIVE ME!!” Also the “Oh That’s Not Good” track sounds a lot like Stranger Things (probably the synth).
Rudolph: I love this episode. Santa has the greatest villain arc. SWW mimicking the Abominable Snowman gives me life. I also like the the little Carol of the Bells at the beginning.
Music rating: I also figured I’d rate the music used in each season since AJ wrote some pretty good tracks for this series. Plus I have strong opinions on the different variations of the opening and transformation themes.
Season 1 opening: I love it, very subdued compared to later ones. But this is a great composition of music that works any way you do it. Specifically I love the piano in this variation.
Season 1 transformation: Again like the last one, very subdued, I like this one fine it goes a little fast but uses the piano similarly to how the opening did which works really well.
Oh That’s Not Good: Like mentioned above it sounds a lot like Stranger Things in the best ways. I love how it’s used in the scene transition to show Ivan’s hopelessness. Great piece.
Trepak: Not an original piece, just a public domain song used in the Rudolph episode. It works for the scene but I don’t have much to say.
Couch Gag: This season’s couch gag was very simple, just SWW drawing on the whiteboard (on his stomach I guess?) I love it for its simplicity and just thinking of Ivan trying to pass the time in any way possible. I wish we could’ve seen what he would’ve drawn for Duck Dynasty.
Overall: This season was alright. It’s only the weakest since it hasn’t been thought as through as the later ones were and the production value is just a little bit lower. I think it works and provided a great platform for the amazing seasons we got down the line.
Shovelwarewolf Season 2 Review
Shovelwarewolf Season 2 Electric boogaloo, or the season where stuff finally goes down. I love that the story and production value jump in quality with each other in this season.
Sonic 06: Great episode to open with, we meet Susan (who definitely knows more than they're letting on), a cool season theme, acknowledgement (however brief) of the whole arm thing, and an Escape From the City parody, what's not to love.
Goldeneye: Solid episode, I think it has some of SWW's best one liners (Hell's Angels, The Mafia, GAMESTOP!). I learned to never insult Judy Dench, and that I should probably watch a James Bond movie.
Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Another fine episode, Ivan mimicking the glitch was pretty funny. I don't have a whole lot to say about this episode so I'll just write here that Ivan and Susan have a great banter, and that Susan was just a great addition to begin with, but I'll get to that later. Oh and Test Your Patience was a good capper on the episode.
Duke Nukem: Just getting this out of the way, this game is pure trash but SWW's reactions are too funny. I also like the character development at the beginning with Ivan and Susan, she really was just the only one who was nice to him. Also I don't know why this occurs to me, but the company described the next game as, "A console with a Zelda game" I just remembered that the Switch came out with Breath of the Wild in the same year as this season, I don't know how that's relevant, I just thought it was cool.
Legend of Zelda Wand of Gamelon: Oho what an episode, great gameplay, great story, and great one liners. Susan got to be really cool in this episode, which leads me to believe that she definitely planned this in advance and the therapist bit was an act (she went from running from the room during a transformation to bursting in and rescuing Ivan/SWW without batting an eye in the same day, no way that just happened). I also just love this game's stupid clips and the SWW one liners to go with them: "(Recorder noise) THANKS, (same recorder noise) THANKS...FOR NOTHING" "You've killed me, GOOD. Dang, that's savage, who knew Zelda was such an OG" and "Link gave them to me. GASP! YOU KNOW LINK, LIKE OMG" such good writing. and The Shovelwarewolf's a Running is amazing.
Home Alone: Finally we've reached the finale, pretty great all things considered. First I just want to acknowledge this little scene from Death's narration, "With the help of his therapist" while panning on cool bada** Susan, just funny to me. I'd also like to acknowledge Ivan's TV playing AJ and Nate's weird Spider-Man and Batman Save Christmas Movie, wish they'd finish that someday it looked cool. I love the Home Alone parody for the cool ways it adapts the theme, like the Gamecube trap. Santa just having 180 in terms of character and going on a full fledged villain arc is so hilarious. The game itself is weirdly a cool take on a Home Alone game, like most licensed games at the time would take tons of liberties with the source material but this one was pretty accurate, even if it still sucked. Susan got to be cool again, but at the cost of a very forlorn scene. Oh boy now we get to meet our dude Biffalo Bub, simultaneously RE's most stupid but also most realistically scary villain. That silent clip montage at the end still unsettles me.
Music Rating:
Season 2 Opening: One of the best, that opening bass riff is still so mesmerizing. And the violins, and the soft piano, and the synth, oh so good. This opening feels a lot like a triumphant return for the character.
Season 2 Transformation: Conversely this variation of the transformation doesn't really do it for me. I like the way it closes I guess, but I just don't love it. It also has this weird repeating note that just bores into my skull.
SHOVELWAREWOLF! (Test Your Patience): Pretty good parody, I love the recap of the games he's played so far (except Goldeneye for some reason).
Shovelwarewolf's a-Runnin': Great parody, it introduced me to the Werewolves of London. I love it's use in the show and the vocals.
This is My Safehouse: Great composition for the Home Alone episode. Seriously AJ really flexed his composing powers here. The synth is really great, I love the little incorporation of the transformation theme.
Sleigh-Riding Sleazebag: Not much to say on the song other than the title, and it's use of random Christmas carols, but evil.
Couch Gag: I love this gag, Ivan dubbing over game footage is so funny. Like the last one it makes me think of him being so bored he just does stuff like this to pass the time. This time I'm happy he didn't have one for Wand of Gamelon, I feel like the dialogue in that game stand on its own.
The season is so good. It gave us a great SWW mask, a great character in the form of Susan, and excellent story development. And it only gets better from here. In addition, while others have described it better than me, this season has interesting symbolism in obsession and trauma.
Shovelwarewolf Season 3
Oh boy the season where things got really interesting, an actual antagonist with a face and everything?, a new location for our favorite angry werewolf?, ALIENS! Excellent season in my book and lets get into why.
E.T the Extra-Terrestrial: Great opener, I love the theme of this season being infamously bad games fits well with Biffalo's whole schtick. I love the back and forth they have with each other. I love the scene where Ivan resolves to get out of the pit, fails once and tries again, and then fails a second time and then rages, just felt really real.
Super Man 64: Another great episode, the Martha bit was maybe a little on the nose, but I still find it funny. I love SWW's commitment to this three-hole punch bit, it starts out as a regular SWW threat, but the fact that he keeps building on it slays me. I love SWW's dramatics in this episode. Plus we get more evidence on the Star Fox Adventures theory.
Night Trap: Ah yes, the game that would turn everyone into serial killing rapists according to the government. Solid episode, like the CDI Zelda games, the dialogue makes SWW's quips even better. I love that Biffalo finally acknowledges the whole glass shattering thing, and his random story about eating a run-over waffle. Gotta love SWW's total pettiness with the vase. He also gave a pretty solid "Reason you suck speech" to that weird general guy. Plus this is the first time we've actually seen Ivan playing a game as a human since Mortal Kombat Mythologies just thought it was cool. And of course the ending twist with Bubsy, so good.
Bubsy 3D: Oh my what a terrible game, it actually hurts thinking about playing it. This is a pretty ok episode, its best parts are in the beginning when we get Biffalo's true motives (seriously he wants to take pictures with kids someone stop him) and the ending when he's so pissed about losing his custom Bubsy Playstation. Plus his utter glee at Bubsy is pretty funny. We also get a solid cliffhanger at the end.
Link the Faces of Evil: Oh what an excellent sequel to last season, the dialogue is only funnier with the slam poetry, reused cutscenes, and SQUADALA WE ARE OFF! I love this episode so much it has great one liners and an acknowledgment of Susan (I remember watching the episode and thinking the exact thing when he said it). I also Love the Shawshank tribute and the chase through the dessert that ends with him being abducted, it probably made no sense to people at the time, but it's so freaking funny.
The Grinch: We've now arrived at the season finale, it's pretty good I like the animations for Mr. Wolf. The setup is decent, not revealing too much of the aliens yet while still giving us a plausible way for him to play games (of course his coma dreams involve shovelware). I know it was meant to serve the Grinch parody, but SWW without a lab coat or otherwise just looks wrong. So Cindy Lou Rareware is a neat character, but she reminds me so much of this girl I knew in middle school it's a little jarring. The ending always makes me feel a little hopeless, like dang the guy is just stuck.
Music:
Season 3 Opening: Oh what a great intro. The strings in the beginning and the banjo, folksy style really sell the creepy vibes of Buffalo Bub and the season's setup.
Season 3 Transformation: It's pretty good, I like the guitar in it. It doesn't really do a whole lot but it serves the purpose very well.
Demented Furry: Excellent villain theme for Biffalo. It gives off a great mistrusting and creepy feel that goes great with our Bubsy obsessed hillbilly.
Demented Furry (Choir Version): Same song, but with a slower piano and an awesome sounding choir behind it. Very foreboding.
Live or Die: Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh. This song man. THIS SONG! It goes so freaking hard. The metal guitar riffs, the brass, the synth it all comes together so well. I never paid much attention to it until now and I fell in love. It completely creates a great climatic tension to a very tense scene.
Mr. Wolf: It's a Grinch parody. Does a great job especially when coupled with the animation. The singer is so petty with lines like, "Someone should through you back in a 39 and a half foot hole" like dude that probably traumatized him, lay off.
Couch Gag: This is a pretty good one, just Biffalo Bub being Biffalo Bub and playing with action figures (I feel like AJ improvised these, not in a bad way just that this feels like stuff he'd come up with on the fly). The last one was honestly so real, like you'd think that you'd make your "if you're watching this I'm dead video" a little funny to lighten the mood, but I mean, it would probably just bum me out too.
So ye overall, I love the season, great set, great tension, great villain, and horrible games. It also sets up a very good season coming up.
We're back in October, thus the Shovelwarewolf must be brought back. I'm not gonna fully review the first three seasons again, but I will add any additional thoughts I may have on them this year. Not much for season 1, my opinion has stayed roughly the same on it, except that the Dead-Ringer voice may become a reference I make out of context.
Also ye, I will be putting out reviews for season 4 and season 5 this year, sorry I didn't finish them last year. The season 4 review has been sitting in my drafts, half-done for close to a year now.
Shovelwarewolf Season 1 Review
Ah, Season 1. It’s definitely the weakest season of the show, but there’s a certain charm to the low budget and short episodes. For these reviews I’m just gonna break it up into categories and than give it an overall score.
Episodes:
Horrorland: Solid opener, had some weird quirks like SWW biting the tv. It takes a little while for Ivan to turn which is nice, helps introduce the character.
Nat Geo: Not much to say, the narrator slays me.
Ski Doo: Not much else to say, I love his description of the buttrock. That guy with the banana befuddles me to this day.
Six Flags: Pretty funny. The lil Donald Trump joke was funny (never stop making fun of him). I like his rant about moving the Wiimote. Also it ties into the next episode which is neat.
Duck Dynasty: Ah yes the mega shovelwarewolf everyone thought would come back at some point. Duck Dynasty the game is one of the funniest games of all time in my opinion. “John Luke, FORGIVE ME!!” Also the “Oh That’s Not Good” track sounds a lot like Stranger Things (probably the synth).
Rudolph: I love this episode. Santa has the greatest villain arc. SWW mimicking the Abominable Snowman gives me life. I also like the the little Carol of the Bells at the beginning.
Music rating: I also figured I’d rate the music used in each season since AJ wrote some pretty good tracks for this series. Plus I have strong opinions on the different variations of the opening and transformation themes.
Season 1 opening: I love it, very subdued compared to later ones. But this is a great composition of music that works any way you do it. Specifically I love the piano in this variation.
Season 1 transformation: Again like the last one, very subdued, I like this one fine it goes a little fast but uses the piano similarly to how the opening did which works really well.
Oh That’s Not Good: Like mentioned above it sounds a lot like Stranger Things in the best ways. I love how it’s used in the scene transition to show Ivan’s hopelessness. Great piece.
Trepak: Not an original piece, just a public domain song used in the Rudolph episode. It works for the scene but I don’t have much to say.
Couch Gag: This season’s couch gag was very simple, just SWW drawing on the whiteboard (on his stomach I guess?) I love it for its simplicity and just thinking of Ivan trying to pass the time in any way possible. I wish we could’ve seen what he would’ve drawn for Duck Dynasty.
Overall: This season was alright. It’s only the weakest since it hasn’t been thought as through as the later ones were and the production value is just a little bit lower. I think it works and provided a great platform for the amazing seasons we got down the line.