Video Game / Dazzeloids

Hi-ho! Dazzeloids away!

Dazzeloids is a 1994 children's CD-ROM game created by Rodney Greenblat (visual artist and art designer for PaRappa the Rapper); it features the Dazzeloids (Anne Dilly Whim, Titan Rose, Yendor Talbneerg and Stinkabod Lamé), a team of boredom banishers fighting the forces of mediocrity set by the Mediogre and his geeky assistant, Pin Bleeper.

Within the CD are three interactive stories:

• A Child Is Bored: Jeremy Gerbilman ends up a Brainwashed zombie due to bland television, and it's up to the Dazzeloids to cure him.
• Banker, Spare That Pet Shop: When Stinkabod's pet hamster, Shortnin'head, contracts Fuzzy Rodent Flu, Anne calls the Probe & Poke pet shop for help, but the place had vanished (or rather, "transglumified") into Another Dimension. Yendor, Titan and Stinkabod investigate the scene, but they end up teleported themselves.
• Dazzeloid Dreams: A look into the dreams of the Dazzeloids, as well as the main villain.

It also includes a page on the characters, as well as a how-to page and a "splashy intro".

Sadly out of print, the CD can still be found through web stores such as Amazon and eBay. It's well worth a look, especially if you're a fan of Greenblat's work.

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Tropes in this CD-ROM:

• Black-and-White Morality: The two major factions are the BLANDO Corporation (a sinister megacorporation build around boring people for profit that is run by a megalomaniac who wants to Take Over the World) and the Dazzeloids (who are superheroes devoted to "imagination, happiness and ... healthy between meal snack[s]" and opposing BLANDO). It's not terrible complicated to figure who is the good guys.
• Beast Man: The main characters:
  • Anne is nearly human, but she has bovinesque horns on her head, as do her family.
  • Titan is a hulking feline man.
  • Yendor is a humanoid insect, possibly an ant.
  • Stinkabod is a humanoid sheep.
  • The Mediogre is a snail or slug man.
  • Pin Bleeper is a "techno-weasel".
• Beeping Computers
• Card-Carrying Villain: The Mediogre loves making everything sterile of imagination and fun, and he'll gladly tell you all about it.
• Catchphrase:
  Anne Dilly Whim: "Hi-ho! Dazzeloids away!"
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Mediogre, head of the BLANDO^note Big Lethargic Amalgamated National Development Organization company in charge of all boring media.
• Cosmetic Award: The program actually rewards you for playing it a certain number of times, from the 10th to the 25th to the 100th time. This is merely a bit of silly fun that can easily be achieved with some simple rewriting of a file within the program folder.
• Credits Medley: The credits feature several bits of the incidental music throughout the CD-ROM.
• Cultured Bruiser: Titan Rose was built on these tropes. He even wrote a book of love poems the same year he won the weight-lifting grand finals.
• Death by Origin Story: Anne's sister, Leanna, died from boredom thanks to a re-run of a show produced by the BLANDO Corporation. This motivated Anne to oppose BLANDO.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas:
  The Mediogre's only "good side": "The Mediogre still loves his mother."
• Explosive Overclocking: What Yendor does to his Personal Distress Assistant to create a reverse anti-reality disturbance to restore the pet shop to its rightful place.
• Expository Theme Tune: Featured in the "splashy intro".
• Failure Is the Only Option: When the Mediogre tries to create a superpowered Transglumifier, it backfires in humorous ways (exactly how depends on the Lava Lamp Power Cell you choose), sending the teleported pet shop back to its original place.
  • This is also the subject of the Mediogre's Nightmare Sequence:
  "EVERYTHING IS NOT FOR SALE! YOU CAN'T HAVE IT, NOW GO AWAY! YOUR LITTLE DREAM IS GONNA FAIL! CALL YOUR MOMMY! RUN AWAY!"
• For the Evulz:
  Mediogre: "Being the villain is so much fun!"
• Hacker Cave: The lair of the Mediogre and Pin Bleeper.
• Informed Attribute: The character bios mention character traits that aren't really seen elsewhere such as Anne being a Spoiled Brat and Mediogre being a Neat Freak.
• Just a Stupid Accent:
  • Anne has a Texan accent.
  • Titan has a Shakespearean dialect.
  • Stinkabod has a hillbilly drawl.
  • Yendor has a Scotirish brogue.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: Lampshaded with the song "Are You Waiting", which plays when a section is loading.
  Are you waiting? Yeah, we're waiting for the CD to spin.
  Are you waiting? Yeah, we're waiting for the fun to begin.
  Are you waiting? Yeah, we're waiting, but it's been too long.
  Are you waiting? Yeah, we're waiting; has something gone wrong? ^note If nothing has gone wrong, you should only be able to hear the first verse on a good computer. You're able to hear the whole song through the story map menu.
• Mad Libs Dialogue: Happens often, but especially with food.
• Medium Awareness:
  Titan Rose: "Behold, the pet shop up on high in the void; we know not why. If it were to fall like a pet-filled bomb, it would ruin this happy CD-ROM."
• Musical Episode: Each dream in "Dazzeloid Dreams" (except Titan Rose's) is an animated music video:
  • Anne gets an upbeat pop-rock tune about trying to save sentient trees from being killed by sentient televisions.
  • Yendor gets a weird instrumental tune.
  • Stinkabod gets a trippy rap song about his birth and growth.
  • The Mediogre gets a noisy, atonal "The Villain Sucks" Song.
• Neologism: Many of the words on the CD-ROM, displayed in pink. Clicking on them will bring up their "meanings", told by Yendor. Their dictionary also includes Technobabble and otherwise unusual items, such as "creamy corn" (Titan's favorite between-meal snack) and "energy field".
• No Fourth Wall: The tutorial.
  Yendor: "Hey you! Quit clickin' on my face! Hey, that's my body you're clickin' on."
• Old Media Are Evil: One of the main themes of the game is how television is boring and will turn you into a "brainwashed zombie".
• Pixel Hunt: Assembling the Vibrobeam requires you to click-and-drag the main segments of it to their rightful spot; the only trouble is that that "spot" is incredibly small, and it might take a while before they'll fall into place.
• Police Are Useless: Not so much completely useless as much as useless with the fantastic goings-on.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Anne Dilly Whim's parents were the king and queen of Chucklestein, making her the princess, but they were discharged when Chucklestein was bought by the BLANDO company, and now live in their royal mansion, which acts as the Dazzeloid Headquarters.
  • She mostly sends out the boys to investigate the scene of boredom, but in Banker Spare That Pet Shop, one of the story options has her build a "Vibrobeam" to save her teleported comrades.
• Sdrawkcab Name: Yendor Talbneerg. Guess who?
• The Smurfette Principle: Anne Dilly Whim is the only woman of the Dazzeloids team, but she's also their level-headed leader.
• Space Whale Aesop: Kids shouldn't rely solely on television for entertainment, or else they will literally die, as happened to Anne Dilly Whim's sister.

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