Bubsy Bobcat Fan Blog - Cruiz'in "The New Adventures of BUBSY"-

RSS Bot · September 5, 2015

There is a new Bubsy in town, or so one site would have us believe. I call it "The NEW ADVENTURES OF BETSY", since the site we are talking about has Bubsy in a transgender angle. I say the site is not actually about Bubsy himself, but we'll get to that in a bit. In the meantime, here is the title image of our feature site!

Now throughout time we have seen many versions of Bubsy. As fans we have seen many ongoing stories of Bubsy from Pixel Chat, to Bubsy Returns, to the very creative Bubsy's Back! which was a creative game where Bubsy visits the James Turrell Retrospective.

It was in that very creative museum visit that I came to realize two things:
1) Bubsy, since we have had no updated game of the character since the 90's, tends to take on our own life mission statement.

Yeh this might sound somewhat crazy, but as we grow up, so does this this old mascot, this friend. I think over the years for a while I saw Bubsy as a underdog. Not a Sonic, not a Mario, but the worst mascot. Well, to quote Jack Sparrow, "The worst mascot remembered".

Bubsy as a Guide - My Own Story

For Bubsy along with myself I asked the question, can Bubsy, and myself as well, rise from obscurity to be something more?

Thought about writing a story once symbolizing my fall and climb out of a dark time in my life with Bubsy along side going through a similar experience. My depiction would have had him more as a Bobcat that somehow got caught up in a shirt. The Exclamation mark created by red clay that got on the shirt that kinda looked like an exclamation point. Towards the end of the story both Bubsy and I emerge from our realms of darkness and obscurity victorious. Still a fun story in my own mind, but I'll spare the rest of you.

The final answer I came to was, we were never great per se, but we were never totally obscure. With that I reveled in who I was going forward and Bubsy continues to enjoy his notoriety as an imfamous mascot.

Other Interpretations

For other interpretations like the James Turrell Retrospective I believe that person used Bubsy as a transition in life to reach beyond an addiction of video games in their life to the world beyond, like museums. Good for them.

And for the "New" Adventures of Bubsy, the author of that site seems to have used Bubsy as an embodiment of a transition in their life of going from a man to a woman. As I said, without an official Bubsy on the scene we have imagined in our own minds what Bubsy would be doing 20 years later.

Me personally, I think Bubsy is doing this twenty years later...

And with all the talk on the internet petitioning this...

Ahh common! You know you want Bubsy in Super Smash Brothers! But I digress, we have all as fans gone through challenges, and Bubsy became our mascot through those challenges. Maybe even as a bobcat a spirit guide/imaginary friend, etc.

As as we have gone through changes, so has Bubsy in our mind which segways to the next part....

2) Bubsy's many shapes and sizes. For the most part if you go through Deviant art and all through the internet you get basically Bubsy as he was in the games. This is completely fine with me. For the most part Bubsy is depicted as a looser, a has been, etc. To each their own. I prefer Bubsy being a bit obnoxious in that he wants to stroll off in new adventures with his devil may care attitude. I think I could relate to Bubsy because my Dad mentioned I proceeded with "reckless enthusiasm". I think that could apply to Bubsy.

I do think there comes a time when people completely forget what Bubsy was about or who he was, and my take on this is, this usually happens when someone thinks they ARE Bubsy. A few frightening examples are this:

So to their credit when the New Adventures of Bubsy took on Bubsy for their own gender changing life mission objective, at least they kept Bubsy as a Bobcat:

Yikes! Allow me to explain for a moment my "yikes".

Is it because Bubsy is a woman? Gotta admit, not crazy about that, but done right and in the character of Bubsy this can be a good thing:

Ok, what do I like about this cosplayer? Shirt in good repair, you never saw Bubsy in a dirty shirt. Full of energy, Bubsy had that going on. Generally has a pleasant look like despite all going great, and Bubsy is ready to take on the world. That to me is Bubsy. That is what the games portrayed, that is who Bubsy is.

This to me is not Bubsy:

Run down, mascara running on the face, all unkept. Granted and to be fair, Bubsy probably did not make the best looking guy, but as a woman at least she would have standards. Makeup in place, shirt in good repair. I've always pictured Bubsy trying for this in his appearance:

Luckily not being as lame as this:

So strikes the center in a basic but clean look:

Which to me is a bit closer to the Bubsy ads:

Ok and again, I photoshopped the beer into that picture, but the rest was the promotion on how to get one of Bubsy's shirts. Again, clean shirt, energetic smile, in overall good appearance. No matter what Bubsy runs into, smashes him, or whatever happens he works to remain with some dignity.

In truth there have been many other pictures of Bubsy in other haggard forms (as a drunkard, a has-been, basically ragged and homeless looking) and I didn't care for those either.

But people may ask "Doctor Clu what are you expecting? It's been 20 years, Bubsy might have aged a bit."

Pixel Chat aged Bubsy with some dignity and show continued dignity is possible.

So being a woman or not being a woman is not the issue here. Just don't care for the mascara running down the face, the haggard appearance, etc.

I'm looking over the New Adventures of Bubsy website and to it's credit the author, calling herself Bubsy, makes for some good fan direction. Maybe there are other transgenders out there that need a good mascot for their cause. A mascara running down, worn out T-Shirt, Slappy the Squirrel looking mascot. Yeh, I know a lot of transgender and Metro people, usually they are better looking than some regular women in appearance. But you know, Bubsy is the underdog right? Kinda has this vibe of "I'm this lame but I get up and keep going...so you can too" kind of spirit. Well, ok, that was not what Bubsy was shooting for in the games, but that is what the author of this site seems to be saying right?

Surfing around the page you get an explanation on why Bubsy is transgender:

"Sure, I’ll go ahead and post this. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG??
You know, the more I think about Bubsy being a transwoman, the more it makes sense. I mean, it explains perfectly why she sounds so different in Bubsy 3D (like a female trying but failing to sound male), and keeping in mind that…

I ain’t no magical rule 63 BS, I’m the real deal!"

No, for one you aren't Bubsy, he is a fictional character. Yes this is technically Rule 63, and so on. Or better yet, you are the jealous Aunt of Bubsy trying to BE Bubsy. Where do I get this? explanation coming right up!

Bubsy’s Brother and Bubsy’s Understudy

On one of the pages you get a fan theory that Bubsy has a brother. Now I will have to admit on this page you get an interesting tidbit that on the first Bubsy game when you play in two player mode you have the first player with a red exclamation point on the T-Shirt, and second player with a green exclamation point on the T-Shirt. An interesting theory is that this would be the father of the annoying twins. Interesting theory!

You could almost say this is a Mario and Luigi moment right? But there is one problem with that theory.

From the very start of Mario Brothers they established two separate characters: Mario and Luigi. And they were both on screen at the same time:

Here neither the game or manual establishes no other name but Bubsy. Make all the fan theory you want, it simply is not in the Bubsy material released by the game developers. Also both versions of Bubsy never share time on the screen. This tells me this is the same Bubsy.

But the site gave the "brother" a name. So I opened up all my copies of the first Bubsy game:

Looked over the "Bubsy 1 & 2" book. Then I looked over the "Bubsy Bobcat Totally Authorized Answer Book" and there is no mention of the name this website gives for the brother. There is mention of the two player mode however and says that as the second player you will get two exclamation marks by your score.

I fired up the Super NES put in Bubsy, played a two player game, and sure enough, the second player has a green exclamation point:

Hey now THAT was cool. And you know what this means? Bubsy has another shirt! That's right folks. You can be Bubsy, and to keep from getting confused as player one got the red version, and player two got the green version.

So there is no mention officially of a brother, but we learned a cool new bit of trivia about the gameplay itself. So thanks "New Adventures of Bubsy" site!

You read a bit further and here is where the site looses my regular support:

"Yep! Did you know that since Bubsy wasn’t around to do Fractured Furry Tales, they hired an impersonator to fill in for him?"

Oh noes! You didn't ditz the game that got me interested in the Bubsy franchise!

"Yes, Yellow Bubsy, otherwise known as WABUBSY! WEHEHEHEHE!! Oddly enough, normal Bubsy himself was able to be in the artwork of the game, but wasn’t able to be in the actual game itself."

Fan theory is fun, and then there are facts. Here on Atariage we've had the producer of the Fractured Furry Tales game stop in and actually comment about the development of that game. Awesome stuff. Here is what he said:

"RE: 1 hit kills...Since we were using the source code from Bubsy 1 we had to follow that framework. I think we upped the lives the player to make up for the 1 hit kills.

No idea why we went with the yellow exclamation point. (maybe a palette issue)"

And there you have it. Since the original source code was used from Bubsy 1 to start the development of Fractured Furry Tales, this is definitely the same Bubsy. If there is any Bubsy that is an impersonator, if any, it would be the Bubsy in Bubsy 3D (different code, animator, and voice actor.) Bubsy 3D is actually the basis, based on the voice actor not being Rob Paulson, for this whole transgender fan theory.

On a positive note, and thanks once again "New Adventures of Bubsy" site, pointing out the two player mode and the green exclamation point finally answered to me why the exclamation point on Fractured Furry Tales was yellow. There was code, depending on which player you were, changing the color. Since that code was not used in the Jaguar version, it just defaulted to a background yellow color.

But this site is going to deem Fractured Furry Tales an impersonator?

Using the reasoning of the website that slight variants of Bubsy must be a sibling or something I am going to run with that way of thinking.

I will make my own determination of this website. First off, this is not Bubsy. I mean look at all the changes, look at how unkept the character is. Obviously a different person right?

This is BETSY BOBCAT, Bubsy's older Aunt that wanted to cash in on Bubsy's .. I guess you could call it popularity. Or some other relative or an impersonator that did the transgender operation calling themselves Bubsy.

So let's correct the title for them...

There we go and you're welcome.

And now for a fun image of Bubsy's we have seen to date, I leave you with this as we wrap up this time around.

Be well till next time Bubsy fans. You too, Betsy.

-Doctor Clu

by toonicling of DeviantArt

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