Trivia / Twisted Translations

• Accidentally-Correct Writing:
  • When the song "When Will My Life Begin?" from Tangled was translated, one of the lyrics became "I held the pots" (which is close to what actually happens in the film).
  • When singing "God Help the Outcasts", the lyrics claim God is bread. Well, Catholics do believe that upon transubstantiation, the bread and wine take on the spirit of God, so yes, God is bread.
  • In "Google Translate Meets Harry Potter", one of the translations of "expecto patronum" is "I expect the lawyer!". "Expecto patronum" is one of many spells in the Harry Potter canon derived from Latin, and literally means "I await a patron"; In ancient Rome, one of the things patrons would do for their clients was defend them in legal disputes, making them the closest equivalent to modern day lawyers. JK Rowling was probably going for something more like "I await a protector", so arguably for once Google Translate was right and the source material was wrong.
  • Two involving the Google Translated version of "This is Halloween":
    • The titular line becomes "State of Arizona" while the line "In this town of Halloween" becomes "The City of San Jose". While the video uses the crest for the city of San Jose, California, there actually is an unincorporated community of San Jose in Arizona.
    • The song also includes the lyric "This is Halloween, and it's boring". In The Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack Skellington's motivation is basically that he's bored of living in a place where it's Halloween every day - it's just not something that's touched upon in the original lyrics to this particular song.
  • In the Google Translated version of "My Heart Will Go On", one of the lyrics is "BlazBlue can touch time". That is basically the entire plot of the franchise with tons and tons of screwy time travel shenanigans.
  • The Google translated "Let it Go" indicates that Elsa has been discriminated against by her subjects and barred from the throne. This is actually quite similar to earlier drafts of Frozen in which Elsa was a sympathetic villain. The Dark Reprise of the song "We Know Better" shows Arandelle's citizens spreading malicious rumors about Elsa and darkly hinting at a plot to keep her off the throne.
  • The Google translated version of "We Don't Talk About Bruno" has Dolores complaining about her grandmother and family being noisy. In the actual Encanto film, Dolores has Super-Hearing, and is often bothered by noise.
  • The opening line of "Circle of Life" is rendered as "They say the lion is calling Dad". Simba (whose name, to boot, means "lion") does this many times throughout the film.
• Acting for Two:
  • In "Popular", Malinda plays both Glinda and Elphaba interacting with each other in the same scene by using a split-screen video technique.
  • The series covers songs from a wide variety of sources, and Malinda appears in every episode — sometimes as multiple characters - so this naturally happens to her after a while.
  • Caleb Hyles has played 6 characters in the 4 episodes he has appeared in.
  • Patrick Brady plays every male part in One Day More.
• Ascended Meme: Many people, including Malinda herself, have noticed that in 2020 the official Ed Sheeran merch store had a shirt with "Come on baby, come on" which has a watermelon on the design which seems to be a reference to the "Gradually watermelon" lyrics from the "Translated" version.
• Author Appeal: Malinda seems to be a big fan of Idina Menzel, judging by the fact that she has covered songs performed by Idina (and always sung her parts) no less than five times, (six if you count Elsa's spoken line in "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?") more than she has covered any other artist.
• Corpsing:
  • Caleb Hyles just can't get through the line "If monarchy is headed la la la, count on me! In on African clothing service, well I refuse to be!" in I Just Can't Wait To Be King without snickering. Given that he got through the translations of I'll Make A Man Out of You and The Phantom of the Opera with no problems, this is saying quite a lot.
  • Youtube commenters often ask how Malinda is so good at keeping a straight face - "Google Translate Explains The COVID-19 Vaccine" is the first time Malinda and Tom were in the same room for a full video for the channel, and they opted to leave some corpsing in, demonstrating that she does corpse when not recording alone.
• Fan Community Nickname: Occasionally, Malinda calls her fans "Translators".
• Milestone Celebration: The second episode, "Part of Your World," was made to honor the fact that the first episode had gotten a million views and that Malinda had gotten 10,000 subscribers.
  • Google Translate unboxes Gold Play Button celebrates the channel getting 1 million subscribers.
• Old Shame: This was pretty much Malinda's reaction when she dug up some old songs she wrote when she was nine years old. She was, however, still willing to share them with the internet, and some viewers thought that a few of them were actually pretty good, if a bit cliché. Judge for yourself.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Glinda is played by Sally Roberts in "For Good", by Cindy Bodega "Defying Gravity", and by Malinda herself in "Popular" (in which she also plays Elphaba using a split-screen video technique).
  • In previous Frozen (2013) parodies, Malinda played both Anna and Elsa herself, but in the "For the First Time in Forever" video, Anna is played by Evynne Hollens. Justified in that both characters have to be on-screen at the same time, which wasn't the case previously.
• Referenced by...:
  • A clip of the "Let It Go" video was shown on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver's episode on Translations and how as hilarious as that is, it is crucial in a real life military situation. The clip is later shown again due to show said depression.
  • (Silent) clips from the same video was also shown in The Nostalgia Critic's "Are You Sick Of 'Let It Go?'" editorial, alongside other covers of the same song.
  • Malinda has been interviewed on Reel Geek Girls.
  • A clip of the "Bohemian Rhapsody" video was shown in Diamond Axe Studios Music's "Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 1983" list, with Sean pointing out that the lyrics to his #8 pick, Spandau Ballet's "True", are similar in fashion to Google Translated videos.
• Technology Marches On: Malinda cites this as one of the reasons for why she hasn't done as many videos for this series during The New '20s, as translation software has improved much since she first started the series that she has a harder time finding funny results via Google Translate.

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