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Trivia / Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl

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  • Acting for Two:
    • Jim Cummings voices both Cat and Shredder. The second game lacks the former, but retains the latter.
    • Tom Kenny voices both Dog and SpongeBob. The second game lacks the former, but adds Gary and King Jellyfish.
    • Billy West voices both Ren and Stimpy.
    • Richard Steven Horvitz voices both Zim and Daggett.
  • Actor Allusion: The Angry Beavers' reveal trailer features a fight with Zim, who shares a voice actor with Daggett.
  • All-Star Cast: Both the first game (after the voice acting update) and the second game were able to get many of the original voices, from Tom Kenny to Jim Cummings to Billy West to voice their characters once more, and even Fred Tatasciore as Reptar and Frank Welker as Garfield. The only voice actors they couldn't get had issues besides pricing.
  • Artist Disillusionment: Minor, but Ludosity dev Thaddeus Crews has asked people to stop calling the game a "Smash killer"; while he's normally okay with jokes, he feels like this one has damaged the game's reputation by causing conflict and giving it a negative image.
  • Author's Saving Throw:
    • After the first two Nickelodeon Kart Racers games came and went without any DLC, fears of this game getting the same treatment were assuaged, when the Ludosity CEO Joel Nyström confirmed in an interview prior to the game's launch that it would get DLC, starting with two post-launch bonus characters.
    • All three of the characters in the Universe Pass are fan requests from Nicktoons commonly seen as huge omissions from the game. The gameplay demonstration video for Hugh Neutron even said that he was entirely possible because of fan requests.
    • The June 2022 update added voice acting, with the original voices for the majority of the cast, and items, which are two aspects that many felt were lacking from the game at launch — especially the former, which was a very highly-requested feature. The announcement for both when the game boots up acknowledges this by saying "It's finally here!".
  • Awesome, Dear Boy: Ludosity chose to develop this game not only out of their passion for platform fighters (having previously developed the well-received Slap City), but also out of passion for Nickelodeon's properties and characters; they sought to create something that would rise above the expectations of a licensed Super Smash Bros. clone. This is why characters like Oblina, Powdered Toast Man, and the 1987 versions of Leonardo, Michelangelo and April O'Neil appeared in the base game, among other things. Ludosity wanted to make the game with a competitive scene in mind from the get go, even before they had a publisher (according to this interview), in spite of the fact that it wasn't strictly necessary for a cartoon Licensed Game.
  • Blooper: 2 launched with GIR's voice not pitched properly, causing GIR to speaking with Rosearik Rikki Simons' natural vocal pitch, not only at launch but in trailers prior to the game (something that many players and even Simons himself bemusedly commented on). This was quickly fixed in the game's first patch. Funnily enough, this isn't the first time this mistake has happened in a Nickelodeon game — Attack of the Toybots for the Nintendo DS did the same thing.
  • Christmas Rushed: It's indicated a couple times that Ludosity suffered a heavy time crunch to get the first game out by October, a couple months before the holiday season. The game, while functional, suffered some noticeable content cuts; Garfield and Shredder were originally planned to be in the base game's roster but were held off and released as free DLC later on, and items were only properly implemented during the June 2022 voice acting update.
  • Content Leak:
    • The game's existence was prematurely revealed through a GameFly listing that went up four days before its official announcement.
    • On the day the game was announced, several retailers put up pages for pre-ordering it. Many of these pages featured a placeholder version of the game's box art, featuring silhouettes of several playable characters - including some that weren't officially announced at the time. Fans correctly identified almost all of themnote  before the retailers replaced the image with temporary artwork that only featured the game's logo.
    • On September 1st, 2021, the Brazilian Nintendo eShop prematurely revealed the game's full box art - the same as the leaked placeholder version, but with all the characters fully visible, confirming the identities of the silhouetted characters, some of which still weren't officially revealed at the time.
    • Just after Ren and Stimpy's official reveal on September 14, 2021, the game's official Discord was hit with a massive leak showing off then-unrevealed characters and stages, most notably Tophnote . The mods quickly removed the offending posts and issued a ban on anyone talking about it, but the damage had been done. While the leaker eventually tried to claim that it was false, the Xbox Series X start-up screen accidentally showed otherwise to those who preordered the game a few days later by clearly showing Toph in the artwork, with the start-up icon for Nintendo Switch users having followed suit a week before the game's release.
    • As soon as the game was officially released, dataminers discovered the stage assets for Garfield and the artwork for him and Shredder, which all but confirmed that they would be the first two DLC fighters. The dataminers also found numerous voice clips referring to characters that aren't officially revealed, but the developers stated on the game's official Discord◊ that the voice clips are "just covering bases" and not official confirmation that certain characters will be DLC.
    • On August 1, 2023, an image of 2's title screen leaked, showing the entire roster, including several characters that had not been confirmed up to that point. All of the newcomers in the image were eventually revealed in pre-release trailers (Plankton, El Tigre, Ember, Grandma Gertie, Gerald, the Angry Beavers, and Azula).
    • The credits for 2 were leaked at some point, with one of the names featured being Sartana of the Dead, the Big Bad of El Tigre. Sure enough, Sartana is one of the bosses.
  • Cowboy BeBop at His Computer:
    • IGN's article about the game (one of the most widely circulated ones) after its initial announcement claimed that the game included "unlockable moves" to add to playable characters (ala Custom Moves from Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U). The developers later clarified that there is no such mechanic in the game nor were there ever even plans to include them.
    • IGN incorrectly labeled Nigel Thornberry (from The Wild Thornberrys) as a Rugrats character. While the two shows have crossed over and share the same creators, Nigel has never appeared in any solely Rugrats-related media.
    • The second game's campaign mode refers to the Nightmare Statues as from "Ren's darkest dreams". The statues are not from Ren nor a dream, they're from the bizarre world inside Stimpy's belly button.
  • Creator-Driven Successor: The game is one to Ludosity's previous original platform fighter, Slap City, as it largely features many of the same gameplay mechanics and features, only with different characters and stages. The Sports mode is even directly ripped from the Sportsball mode of Slap City.
  • Dueling Works:
  • Dummied Out:
    • Data-mining reveals a lot of different items intended to be in the game, along with associated announcer voice clips. They include a Krabby Patty that heals characters, a D20 die that deals damage equal to the number rolled, a large battery that creates an electric tether that damages and stuns anyone who touches it, and a Sun-looking ball that bears resemblance to a Smash Ball. A full list is available here. They were eventually added into the game alongside the voice acting update, though the generic items had been rethemed to be Nicktoons related (for instance, the aforementioned battery tether was made into one of the Invader Zim lawn gnomes).
    • The game contains a plethora of unused announcer calls for characters not seen in the final game. According to the developers, these were just "covering bases" and don't necessarily correspond to characters that may be DLC. The clips include separate voice clips for Ren and Stimpy, implying that they may have been considered as separate fighters, as well as GIR, who is part of Zim's moveset in the final game.
    • Not soon after Jenny launched, fans took note of one of her arcade mode quotes, which originates from the episode "Last Action Zero". Said quote quickly picked up steam due to it being more associated with a Rule 34 parody of said episode by infamous Newgrounds adult animator, ZONE-samanote . As soon as the devs took notice of the quote, which was apparently snuck in under their noses, it was swiftly patched out.
    • At launch, incomplete assets for Garfield and Shredder were found among the files, as well as a largely-complete version of Garfield's stage. Also mined was a fully-functional stage based on Double Dare (1986), which ended up being the stage released alongside Shredder.
    • The update that added Hugh also included new taunt animations for several characters, which appear to be incomplete and thus went unused. They were implemented in the Rocko update as alternate taunts that show up when taunting while strafing.
    • Hugh's data includes a model for his spear that he used to go caribou hunting in "Jimmy on Ice".
  • Executive Meddling:
    • While according to Ludosity, very few of their ideas have been nixed, Nickelodeon put their foot down by denying Alex Mack from appearing in the game.
    • The game's initial roster, primarily chosen by Nickelodeon themselves, has been described as boring and predictable by one developer in an interview. The devs did have to "push ultra hard for months" for a few characters they wanted to use before Nickelodeon relented and let them include them, including Nigel, Powdered Toast Man, and Oblina. Even Lucy Loud, a popular secondary character from one of Nick's flagship franchises, had to be fought to include despite her inclusion in other games both before and since.
    • According to Ludosity's Discord, the staff wasn't allowed to write their own lines for the pre-fight dialogue in arcade mode, so it's only comprised of lines from the characters' home series. Thankfully, the sequel did not have this restriction and original dialogue was added for Campaign Mode.
    • Also per dev word: the characters originally had completely original alternate costumes (Thaddeus Crews mentioned◊ SpongeBob had Palette Swap costumes that changed his colors to ones resembling Patrick, Squidward, and Mr. Krabs), but Nickelodeon requested that the characters only use official alternate appearances (such as SpongeBob wearing the soda hat from "One Krab's Trash"). They did find some loopholes with this mandate, such as April's being based on the 1993 "Channel 6 Newsvan" toy where she had a green jumpsuit, and Helga's being based on obscure official artwork where she's wearing a Christmas outfit.
    • According to Thaddeus Crews, Nickelodeon mandated that all of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters had to come from the same incarnation of the franchise. Mixing and matching different versions, such as featuring 1987 Leonardo and Rise Michelangelo, was not permitted. He also doesn't think the 2003 series is fully owned by Nickelodeonnote , so representation from there was ruled out altogether.
    • Surprisingly, Thaddeus Crews said that Nick were the ones who pushed for Grandma Gertie as a fighter in the sequel, which he described as "like selling blood to a vampire". This comes as a notable contrast to the first game, where Nick's initial roster was described as "predictable" and Ludosity had to push for more obscure choices.
  • Fan Community Nickname:
  • Foiler Footage: As described under Dummied Out, there are unused announcer voice calls for a huge list of characters absent from the game. This is partially so that they don't need to record new lines if one of those characters becomes DLC down the line, but also to help obscure any leaks as to who the next DLC character might be (also helped by the lack of several highly-requested characters). Previous crossover fighters like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (via Word of God from the Smash announcer's voice actor) and BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle (via datamined voicelines for characters from each of the series represented) employed similar techniques.
  • Follow the Leader:
  • God Never Said That: Much like in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, during the development of 2, it was quickly assumed by players that appearing in the background of a stage meant that a character could not become playable in the main game. This was quickly debunked by Mr. Krabs' addition to the roster as a DLC fighter, with Thaddeus Crews stating shortly afterward (with some exasperation) that they were never planning to have background cameos be an indication that some characters would never become playable and that background characters becoming playable was always on the table.
  • Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 marks El Tigre's debut for Japanese players, as his series never aired in Japan.
  • Meaningful Release Date: The release date for the Mr. Krabs DLC in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 is on February 15, 2024, a possible reference to a memetic line of his from "Fear of a Krabby Patty".
    Mr. Krabs: Day 15! Give it up for Day 15!
  • Meme Acknowledgment:
    • Hugh has voicelines where he thanks the Internet and Hugh Nation, intended as a shout out to the online fanbase who rallied for him to become playable.
    • The announcement trailer for Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 reveals Squidward as a fighter by him looking at the action through his window, referencing a popular meme where Squidward looks out his window to see SpongeBob and Patrick having fun, usually captioned with someone wanting something they can't have.
  • Milestone Celebration: This game was released on the year of the 30th anniversary of the airing of the first Nicktoons.
  • No Budget: Like the most recent Nicktoon crossover games at the time (particularly the first two Nickelodeon Kart Racers installments), the first game was given a rather shoestring budget, and it shows in some of its aesthetic choices. The lack of voice acting at launch, a trait that the aforementioned games also shared, was a noticeable example, although it was added in an update on June 6, 2022.
  • The Original Darrin:
  • The Other Darrin:
  • Role Reprise: With a few exceptionsnote , the vast majority of the original or current character voices returned for the voice acting update and the sequel, even ones who haven't voiced their characters in an official capacity in years (such as Billy West as Ren and Stimpy, Jim Cummings as Cat and Shredder, Janice Kawaye as Jenny, Mark DeCarlo as Hugh, and Nick Bakay as Norbert). They went as far as to get the original voices for the 80's Turtles, Cam Clarke, Townsend Coleman, Rob Paulsen, and Barry Gordonnote . It's especially notable in Michelangelo's case, as Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis featured him with his voice actor from the 2012 series, Greg Cipes.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song: The theme for the Double Dare (1986) stage seems to be a soundalike of the original Edd Kalehoff theme.
  • Teasing Creator: Thaddeus Crews, the Discord manager who's known for being a big Garfield fan, referenced the "Huh. I wonder who that's for." meme a few days before the latter's official announcement as a playable character.
  • Throw It In!: According to Thaddeus, Squidward wasn't supposed to have double jump canceling, but he programmed Squidward to have it not knowing it wasn't part of his design. The team liked it nonetheless.
  • Urban Legend of Zelda: IGN made a report when Garfield was released that he would not be playable on Mondays. This was quickly debunked by those who changed their console's internal clock.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • According to the devs on the Ludosity Discord, they wanted to include Alex Mack but were denied by Nickelodeon, presumably due to either not wanting live-action charactersnote , not being able to use Larisa Oleynik's likeness, or because Alex Mack was a co-production with RHI Entertainment (and therefore her inclusion might've meant the lawyers getting involved).
    • Nickelodeon almost forced the developers◊ to model the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cast after the 2012 series. The latter insisted on using their 1987 designs instead and ultimately won out.
    • The first game's original roster, as chosen by Nickelodeon themselves, was very boring and predictable according to the developers and lacked some of the final game's more unexpected characters. In particular, the developers had to campaign for months to get permission to use the likes of Nigel, Powdered Toast Man, Oblina, and Lucy Loud. Nick surprisingly loosened up with the second game, as they advocated for some of the more surprising choices on the roster, including Grandma Gertie.
    • The characters originally had completely different palette swaps for their alternate costumes (with SpongeBob, in particular, being singled out as originally having colors based on Patrick, Squidward and Mr. Krabs◊), but Nickelodeon vetoed it and mandated that each character could only have alternate appearances they've canonically used.
    • According to Thaddeus Crews, the crew was originally planning to have Rocksteady be the representative TMNT villain character (getting as far as having Dummied Out placeholder art) before deciding on the more iconic Shredder. Ironically, Shredder would get demoted to a boss in 2's campaign mode while Rocksteady would be added as part of the game's first wave of DLC.
    • Three items were cut from the items update because they "weren't that fun". One of these scrapped items is the Krusty Krab blimp from "The Good Krabby Name" — which was initially the Turtle Blimp, even having the announcer mention it being used by the Turtles, and likely changed to distinguish it from April's up special. There were also announcer calls made for the Stink Cloud, which were repurposed for the Trash Can.
    • A conceptual poster for the game made before its development showcases several characters who are not in the final game: Angelica Pickles, Krumm, Reggie Rocket, Wanda, Jimmy Neutron, Raphael, and Casey Jones. Also notable is that Stimpy is by himself, and Aang is wearing his Season 3 outfit as opposed to his Season 1-2 one. Jenny and Rocko's presence (with the former in the same pose as her main render) suggests they were planned for the base roster at one point. Jimmy and Raphael would get added to the second game as playable characters.
    • According to one of the developers, SpongeBob's dash attack originally had him running with scissors. When Nickelodeon objected amidst fears that children would imitate the attack, the final game changed the attack to instead have SpongeBob trip over as he did in "Krabs à la Mode". The scissors can still be found as an unused model in the game files.
    • The first game's announcer has unused voice lines referring to an in-game shop that exists nowhere in the final game. In particular, he has unique dialogue for purchasing characters, costumes, and stages, while the final game has everything unlocked by default.
    • Thaddeus Crews has implied that Garfield's "old-school shine" in the sequel was originally based on the 7/27/1978 comic, which went viral due to the absurd image of Garfield smoking a pipe.
  • Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things: Many outlets dedicated to discussing the game (such as the official Discord and subreddit) permanently banned discussion on real or alleged content leaks related to the game's sequel before its release after a playtester unknowingly left his Twitch stream running while playing the game.
  • Word of God:
    • According to the Ludosity staff member/Discord manager Thaddeus Crews, the selection process for potential characters is the same for the base roster and DLC: they and GameMill choose the characters and then ask Nickelodeon for approval.
    • The series' character models are based on models that were provided to the developers by Nickelodeon and then modified for their purposes. Staff comments on Discord indicate that they're not happy with all of the models in the first game, with Danny singled out as one they'd like to update (and he indeed received a much more show-accurate model in 2). Inversely, they're very happy with how Jenny came out, as they were able to effectively use cheated angles to get her to closer resemble how she looks in 2D.

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