Funny / Pokémon GO

Looks aren't everything.

As usual, Spoilers Off apply to moment pages. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.

• The loading screen warns players to pay attention to their surroundings. The picture accompanying this◊ is a guy obliviously staring at his phone as a Gyarados rears up in front of him.
  • For the 2016 Halloween event, they changed it to a guy walking around while a Gengar watches, smiles or laughs at him from the shadows.
  • Since early April 2017, the loading screen has changed again to an oblivious player crossing the path of a Steelix erupting from the ground◊.
  • With the 2017 Halloween event◊, you can notice some spooky Pokémon (Murkrow, Dusclops, Gengar, Banette and Sableye) doing "Super Sentai" Stance on the top. You won't be laughing much if you notice some Cheshire Cat Grins.
• The AR capabilities allow Pokémon to be present at all kinds of places, whether it be outside, your room, your bathroom, or on top of your crotch.
• It is entirely feasible for fish Pokémon, such as Magikarp, to show up miles away from any bodies of water.
• Guess which Pokémon needs the most candies to evolve? Magikarp, with four hundred!
  • As of an update on 2/9/2018, Swablu and Wailmer requires the same number to evolve into Altaria and Wailord.
• Some Pokémon Gyms are at several landmarks, like churches and libraries. However, some other gyms have been located at strip clubs, somebody's house, the White House, and even the North Korean side of the DMZ (since removed). Okay, so some of them are hard to get to...
• A Meowth was found in Benjamin Netanyahu's presidential office.
• The entire concept of the Bidoof event in June and July of 2021, running with the huge Memetic Mutation of Bidoof from the Sinnoh games. As the days of the event progressed, more and more Bidoofs appeared in the wild, in research, in raids, and Team GO Rocket encounters. On the final day, every single raid (including 5-star raids that are normally legendaries) was Bidoof, and a GO Battle League Cup was made with only Bidoof allowed. Capped off with this official video.
• The Westboro Baptist Church being trolled by Clefairy. It's a pink Fairy-type Pokémon, their headquarters was turned into a Gym, and "LoveIsLove" the Clefairy was quickly put in charge by a nearby Trainer. Say what you will about Westboro and its gay-bashing MO, but its response, involving a Jigglypuff, was actually quite clever in and of itself. Doubly funny if you've seen the anime episode "Clefairy Tales", which similarly features a Jigglypuff at odds with a Clefairy.
  • Other trainers then put, among other things, a CP 666 Magmar named "Satan" and a Venomoth named "STOP HATE!" in charge of the Gym.
• While it's considered a Scrappy Mechanic (due to how often fans have been seeing it), the Server Down screen has some pretty chuckle-worthy gems in it; there's a Pidgey eyeballing a Caterpie like it's lunch, a large Magikarp just flopping around dead-center in the middle of a field, and a Slowpoke in the background facing the wrong direction.
• Rather unsurprisingly, in only the first few days of the game's launch, searches for Pokémon porn, um, skyrocketed.
• Anytime a Gym is being defended by a single, low-CP Pokémon, usually out of desperation to keep other teams out of the gym or just wanting the defender bonus. This is especially hilarious if it's a 10 CP, the lowest possible rank for Pokémon. Some players do it as a Take That! toward whatever Team they captured the Gym from.
• As in Pokémon X and Y, Pikachu is the only Pokémon in the game who uses Pokémon Speak, meaning amidst all the bizarre and sometimes creepy cries of the Pokémon we see in the game, every time Pikachu shows up you'll hear it shout "Pi-KA-chu!" It's as hilarious as it is adorable.
• A minor one, but Niantic's updates of the game usually have "Minor text fixes", 1.31's manages to subvert it by having "No text fixes".
• As noted on the main page under Video Game Perversity Potential, you can have the team leaders say some rather unusual lines◊, since they refer to your Pokémon by its nickname.

  • Some of this has been toned down by the introduction of trading and thus name filters as of 2018.

  • You can even nickname your Pokémon with a hilarious Shout-Out. For example, nicknaming Zubat or Koffing "Team Skull", or Jigglypuff "Smash Brothers".
  • Or even better, name your Pokémon after swear words and let the team leaders do a Cluster F-Bomb appraisal. Since the characters are designed by the same artist who designed the characters from a swear-cluttered game series, this isn't fucking surprising.
    Your Motherfucker is just HUGE!
• A treat for Australian players only- throwing a Pokeball at a wild Kangaskhan will occasionally end up with the ball landing right inside the Pokemon's pouch next to the joey.
• If your reception is mediocre or low while catching a Pokémon, missing your ball or using a berry on the Pokémon will cause a long drought of loading, which during this period the Pokémon will awkwardly continue to attack or dodge while you have no ball in your hands ready to throw. Likewise, if your phone's reception is shoddy, you might see your avatar suddenly hightailing it across the street or through a parking lot and back again, followed by the game warning you not to drive and play the game regardless if you're actually driving or just sitting indoors.
• When engaging wild Pokémon, species bound to the ground can jump into the air to dodge a throw. They jump with no buildup and if the species is very large and heavy (such as the Rhyhorn family), it becomes outright silly watching a giant Pokémon leap gracefully into the air even if they would be completely incapable of doing do.
• It's always amusing to see people who weren't into Pokemon before find out odd tidbits that Pokemon fans have known for years. Such as the confusion of Exeggcute hatching out of an egg or that the broken egg also has a face.
• The Appraisal feature has your gym leader evaluate your Pokémon, which can be renamed. This has made some funny, if predictable, results.
• Added to the game after release is a buddy system where you chose a Pokemon to walk with and gain candies for. It's obviously meant to emulate Ash and Pikachu's relationship but what ends up happening is a bit different. Take a system to get guaranteed candies and add it to the Pokemon that needs the most to evolve. Cue droves of people out walking their Magikarps.
  • And people who abused the naming scheme, such as naming their Pokémon after famous people or far more perverted things. Or using relatives' terminologies for Pokémon to allow Team Leaders Breaking the Fourth Wall.
• The game's original gym system allowing for duplicates of the same species to be placed in a gym at the same time led to absurdity when they were all the same goofy-looking species, or perhaps an Amazon Brigade of Blissey.
• The initial wave of raid battle Pokémon mostly featured fully evolved mons, except for the first-tier difficulty that only featured second stage starter Pokémon... and Magikarp. While the variety of Pokémon available in each Raid tier may change over time, Magikarp has consistently been part of the first-tier difficulty raids.
• Just like in the source games, Alolan Exeggutor is so tall that its head doesn't fit in the screen.
• Completing a week's worth of field research tasks gives you the opportunity to catch a Pokémon. Sometimes, this Pokemon is a legendary that you have your full supply of Poke Balls to catch with (rather than the limited number of Premier Balls from a raid). Legendaries also have low catch rates, and many have very large target circles. All of this means that it's more optimal to use Entei's face for target practice and lob low-quality Poke Balls at its nose to farm throw-related field research than actually try to catch it.
• In its first few months of release, Rhyperior was abnormally small — even smaller than its pre-evolution Rhydon. A later update has since rescaled it accordingly.
  • This also happened with Palkia and Giratina's Altered forme, but they too had been fixed as well.
• In order to celebrate Team Instinct's success at the Global Catch Challenge of June 2019, Pokemon Go's official Twitter canonized the "Dabbing Spark" meme. No, seriously.
• Blanche, The Comically Serious, doesn't seem to enjoy the happiness of her team (and thus, the entirety of Pokémon Go's playerbase) completing the Global Challenges.
• The core concept of the Team Rocket event. While the battles can be genuinely challenging at times (especially for new or more casual players) and the corrupted Shadow Pokemon represent genuine cruelty and (at least for the affected Pokemon, who are said to be scared and in pain) high stakes...the fact remains that Team Rocket's evil master plan consists of stealing items from Pokestops. Items at Pokestops are already provided for free.
  • This goes even further when the stop in question is one of the sponsored stops, by far the most common of which is, unsurprisingly, Starbucks, or one of the Mickey D's with fountains. Wait, Team Rocket... you found a major fast food chain location and took it over for the Pokeballs? Someone should tell them about how much money they could make for their enterprise by selling lattes or establishing a monopoly on mobile devices instead.
• One that happened early in the introduction of Team Go Rocket was with Flying-type Go Rocket Grunts. Since all of their quotes are taken from appropriate specialist trainers from early entries in the series, Niantic decided to use "Battle against my bird Pokémon!" from one of the Bird Keeper trainers from Red and Blue. It made sense for the original game's trainer to say that, as they used Pidgey, Spearow, and their evolutions (all based on real-life birds). Team Go Rocket, however, solely used the Zubat line with occasional use of Charizard and Dragonite - a line of mammals and two reptilian dragons. This would seem like Fridge Logic, but given that Flying-type Rocket Grunts were seen as one of the easiest types to fight, the player base quickly came to the conclusion that the grunts were just that dumb. Niantic caught on eventually, however, and modified the quote to be talking about "Flying-type Pokémon" instead.
• Surprise snapshot encounters can happen when you take a snapshot of one of your Pokemon, only for another Pokemon (that will appear on the map after you exit AR) to photobomb it.
• Interacting with Mewtwo. Petting it or touching it on the map screen has it bow its head slightly as if it doesn't know how else to express joy. Likewise, feeding it berries has it holding it in its hand and eating it like a dignified human.
• The announcement of Team GO Rocket using hot air balloons to further their schemes was sent out to all players via email and they detailed everything over what was basically a video conference. The email also contains guidelines on how to handle sensitive documents and to retrieve equipment after leaving from a Trainer battle. A significant part was also written in Comic Sans. Shortly after, players would get another email from the Rockets, telling them to delete and disregard the last email and are given three Pinap Berries for their troubles. What makes the whole thing even funnier is the email address used to send out the plans was done by a Rocket intern.
  To whom it may concern,
  
  The previous email was sent to you in error. Please delete that email if possible, and do not share its contents with others. Attached is a token of thanks for your discretion. Hope we're good.
  
  - Team GO Rocket Grunt
• During Team Rocket's takeover of the 2020 GO Fest, taking a snapshot of your buddy would have both a Rotom and a Team Rocket Grunt photobombing at the same time.
  • Occasionally the male grunt mentions wanting to make his battle with you a quick one so he can get back to enjoying the festival.
• Team GO Rocket leaders versus Team Valor/Mystic/Instinct leaders. Arlo who really should know better sends a Scizor against Candela's Rapidash (Scizor has a x4 weakness to Fire, Rapidash has a x2 bonus to the same), and Spark somehow fights Sierra's Houndoom to a standstill with an Elekid.
• One of the GO Rocket Grunts fields an embarrassing lineup of three Magikarp.
• The Secrets of the Jungle event in December 2020 is led by Jessie and James instead of Professor Willow. As they muse over finding the supposed Protector of the Jungle, they notice you and think you're an assistant sent by Giovanni to help out. You're basically dragged into helping the duo regardless on how you feel about them.
  • Then after you complete two missions for them they realize you aren't part of Team Rocket, and begin arguing with each other over who thought you were. They then go into their motto, only for James, who is typically The Ditz of the trio to realize you're not listening to them. Afterwards they spot Celebi, but considering you're already there they simply decide to make a run for it rather than face you for it.
• This advertisement for the Season of Light shows a recording (just like the ones for the Go Fest 2022 Finale) featuring a guy witnessing a Ultra Wormhole (while hiding), which then leads to Rhi and Cosmog appearing out from the wormhole (via a bright light, no less!) and observes Cosmog playfully floating around, until a sudden noise causes Cosmog to notice (and then float over to the observer) while Rhi notices sometime after.
• The teaser for Shadow Raid battles has a bunch of GO Rocket Grunts getting down to a rap song.

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