Video Game / The Basement Show

DON'T YOU BELIEVE IT!

The Basement Show is a Friday Night Funkin' Game Mod created by JerryWannaRat, based on the Tom and Jerry Lost Cartoon creepypasta, as well as other Tom and Jerry media and creepy moments.

After the events of the "Tom's Basement" short from the creepypasta, Boyfriend and Girlfriend decide to buy the same house from Tom's owners, which is now set for sale by Jerry. The mouse receives them and things starts normally until the two go downstairs to see the basement. There, they find a body, Tom's body, and Jerry closes the basement door behind him and is about to kill them, but Boyfriend, as usual, challenges him to a rap battle.

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Song List

Song List (Sung by:)

Week 1: Secret of Nobody

1. House For Sale (Jerry Mouse) ^note The old version is based on "Sweet Dreams Are Made of Screams", by Myuu (a Jeff the Killer-inspired rendition based on Marilyn Manson's version of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)"), while the V1.5 House For Sale is an original composition.
2. Vanishing (Jerry Mouse) (which also got a remake in the V2 update)
3. Sirokou (Jerry Mouse)

Week 2: Love is Hopeless

1. Blue (Depressive Tom)
2. Tragical Comedy (Depressive Tom)
3. Shattered (Depressive Tom)

Week 3: Glitch House

1. Funny Cartoon (Corrupted Tom)
2. Cat Chase (Corrupted Tom)
3. Unstoppable Block (Corrupted Tom)

Freeplay (Extra)

1. Come For Revenge (D-Sides Nibbles/Tuffy Mouse)
2. Reburning (D-Sides Nibbles/Tuffy Mouse)
3. None Of All (Nicholas Fedorov/Proxima64 Jerry)
4. Invade (Body Slammer)
5. Jam (Jammy/James)
6. Soul Chance (Lightning)
7. Meme Mania (Meme Mouse)
8. Mucho Mouse (Mousetale Jerry)
9. Hydrophobia (WB Splatter Spike)
10. Desire Or Despair (Famished vs. Spike)
11. Steep Slopes (Tom on Wheels)

Freeplay (Covers)

1. Triple Trouble (D-Sides Nibbles/Tuffy, Proxima64 Jerry, WB Splatter Spike, Mousetale Jerry, WB Splatter Tom and T&JLC Jerry vs. Butch)
2. Kaboom (Grunt Tom)

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The Basement Show provides examples of:

• Acceptable Breaks from Canon: Both Tom and Jerry rarely talk in the franchise (save for The Lonesome Mouse episode, the 1945 musical-comedy Anchors Aweigh, and the 1992 movie, at least in the classic era), and the Switchin' Kitten Lightning and the Body Slammer don't even talk at all in their respective episodes (with the former just growling and barking like a dog). Still, none of them would have such great songs if that was the same case in this mod.
• Adaptational Badass: Tuffy (or Nibbles/Nebos) is either a baby or a child mouse that accompanies Jerry (and sometimes him and Tom) in his adventures, but he's mostly shown to be bad at fighting and puts his life in danger only to be saved by Jerry in one way or another (which makes sense considering he's a baby), though he's also been shown to prepare traps with Jerry when planning to defeat Tom. Meanwhile, his D-Sides counterpart, based on the creepypasta Jerry, of all people, is a teenager that took revenge on his version of Tom (called Mitt) for killing his uncle Jerry, by making him explode into pieces with gunpowder and taking his heart.
• Adaptational Modesty: Girlfriend wears her infamous "Faker" outfit from Vs Sonic.exe during "Hydrophobia", though in this case the jumper covers her whole torso and her proportions are noticably toned down.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • While Jerry in the show is an antiheroic trickster at best (especially in the movies, where he's portrayed as a hero), and a mischievous sociopathic jerk at worst (with The Year Of The Mouse episode probably having his worst act yet), he's far from the bloodthirsty Serial Killer he is in Week 1, which makes sense considering this is his creepypasta counterpart.
  • Spike might be antagonistic towards Tom (and sometimes Jerry), yet he's also loyal to his owners and to his friends, and even helps Tom & Jerry in some occasions (especially Jerry, though). While it is true that he acts more like a realistic fearsome bulldog in his first appearance and wants to attack both Tom and Jerry, even then, at least he isn't shown to be agressive towards humans. His WB Splatter counterpart in the mod, however, looks like he's about to tear Boyfriend and Girlfriend to shreds, with "Hydrophobia" being a heavy metal track and having a brutal screen-shake mechanic while also having an only-5-misses mechanic midsong, not to mention the bloody corpse of Tom in the background that was previously mutillated by him like in the original WB Splatter edit.
  • Butch might be a Jerkass and a rival (though sometimes friend) of Tom, trying to rob his lover over and over again, bullying him and, like any other cat, attempting to eat or get rid of Jerry; but if there's one thing for sure, is that he's definitely not a monstruous cannibal, an extreme carnivore or a delusional freak ("It's better to meet them in another world than to spend the rest of your life in despair") like in "Desire Or Despair". Considering he's this mod's version of Starved, it's not really a surprise, either.
• Adapted Out: In Blue Cat Blues, Jerry sits next to Tom on the railroads at the end of the episode, once he discovers that his lover married someone else, just like Tom. However, he's nowhere to be seen during the entire Week 2.
• Ambiguous Situation: It's not clear why is the Switchin' Kitten Lightning angry at BF, considering the reason he's angry at Tom in his respective short was because he was attempting to kill Jerry (as always). If the Mad Scientist from said episode was involved or if BF just did something to make him mad (or both) is unknown.
• Angrish: It's confirmed that Jerry doesn't sing correctly in "Sirokou", but instead screeches out of frustration.
• Animals Not to Scale: Tom and the other cats, of course. Exaggerated in comparison to Boyfriend, who's a midget.
• Bilingual Bonus: The name of the song "Sirokou" (without the "-ou") means "basement" in Greek, in reference to the name of the short from the creepypasta and the place where the song takes place.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • Boyfriend and Girlfriend manage to escape from the clutches of Jerry at the end of Week 1, but Jerry doesn't receive any sort of karma in the end besides his lost in the rap battles, continuing to search for more victims who decide to buy the house.
  • Week 2 is both this and a Downer Ending. Tom is inevitably run over by the train, but unlike a similar situation with Served Plankton, Boyfriend is able to dodge the train before he is also killed, and is found by Girlfriend shortly after.
  • Both Boyfriend and Pibby's version of Boyfriend return to their respective home worlds at the end of Week 3, but Pibby's world (or, well, the entire multiverse within the Darkness' range) continues to be attacked by the Darkness and Tom, Jerry, Nibbles and Spike are still enslaved by it, making their show basically doomed and with none of their main characters surviving.
• Breakout Character: The Mad Scientist from Switchin' Kitten, who was just a Bit Character that appeared during the introduction of the short, makes a full appearance in the background of "Soul Chance".
• Broken Tears: Tom's down pose◊ during the Flashback of the Blue Cat Blues episode when he remembers how he lost his love of his life during "Shattered".
• Canon Immigrant: The Corrupted Tom (and the other corrupted T&J characters by the Darkness) is not part of the official Pibby pilot, nor any official Pibby or WB/CN media (yet), but rather fanon concepts that became popular enough to be in this mod's canon.
• Composite Character: Meme Mouse is not really based on a specific variant of Jerry or any character in particular that existed before. He's more of a mix of different Tom and Jerry memes, Chinese, American and Latin American (the "¿Khé Verga?" meme).
• Creepy Good: Like in the episode it comes from, the Body Slammer is actually not aggressive towards Boyfriend, only to those who threaten it (and even then, it's more like a Slapstick beating than something serious). In fact, it's one of the few opponents that doesn't have a health drain like the rest. This is ironic, considering its Slasher Smile while taking the form of Jerry is what inspired the creepypasta.
• Death by Adaptation: While it was implied but not shown in his source material, Tom effectively gets run over by a train at the end of Week 2.
• Downer Ending: Just like what it was implied in the episode it's based on, Tom gets run over by the train at the end of Week 2, with only Boyfriend surviving his encounter by moving out of the rails. It gets even sadder considering the fact that nothing could change his mind, and he simply just went on with his suicide.
• Driven to Suicide: The Depressed Tom in Week 2, of course. Though unlike other characters with similar motives, this Tom doesn't actually come from a creepypasta, but from the episode Blue Cat Blues.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Famished really has such a deep voice, especially constrasting with Butch's normal voice.
  "It's better to meet them in another world than to spend the rest of your life in despair... Come on, Spike! Make your choice! I'm the disaster itself!"
• Expy:
  • Famished to Starved, and Jammy to Sunky, both featured in the Vs Sonic.exe mod.
  • Mousetale Jerry is obviously his AU version of Sans, like in the original fanwork.
• Foreshadowing: The lights in the background of "Shattered" are brighter than in the first 2 songs. If you saw the original episode, you probably know what it means.
• Living Toy: Tom on Wheels is a real toy still available on eBay... and, apparently, he can also talk and sing, at least in this mod.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The initial countdown is replaced with the "Don't you believe it" line said by Tom. It's also mentioned in the creepypasta itself.
  • Week 1's Jerry Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness is a reference to the image that inspired the creepypasta◊ in the first place, which is that of the Body Slammer disguised as Jerry and making a Slasher Smile in the episode Invasion of the Body Slammers.
  • The name for "House for Sale" is a reference to a line from the creepypasta: "The last shot is Jerry putting up a "For Sale" sign on the yard of the house, laughing, clearly planning to do it all again".
  • Midsong during "Shattered", we see Tom remembering the events before Week 2, which are frames from the Blue Cat Blues episode.
  • The different voices used for each variant of Tom & Jerry might sound like Vocal Dissonance...if it wasn't for the fact that Tom & Jerry never had any definitive type of voice for each episode or adaptations, since they rarely talked at all (William Hanna might have made the iconic screams for Tom and some of his dialogues, but not even he stayed all the time recording all of Tom's voices). Some were more deep, others more high or in-between. So of course each Tom & Jerry would have different vocals.
• Rodents of Unusual Size:
  • A more downplayed cartoony example with Jerry. Unlike certain other bipedal mice Boyfriend (and his great-great-grandfather, in the latter case) faced before, Jerry's more like a common mouse in the show (well, the cartoony anthropomorphic kind, anyway). Here, at least in the cutscenes, he's almost the size of Boyfriend and Girlfriend. What's weird is that, in gameplay, both of them and Jerry become mouse-size with no explanation whatsoever, given the dimension of the objects and Tom's hand in the background.
  • Same goes with the D-Sides Tuffy, the Corrupted Tuffy and the other Jerrys (not the gameplay part, of course), except for the Proxima64 Jerry, who's the size of a mouse.
• Promoted to Playable: Twice, in fact; Spike is playable in "Desire Or Despair", and Butch is the player character for the "Triple Trouble" cover (ironically, Butch is the one who faces a version of Spike in this cover instead of vice versa like in "Desire Or Despair").
• Shout-Out: There's plenty:
  • The voice for Meme Mouse comes from the one used by players to complain about mouse-side teammates or make fun of the cat-side players in the Chinese server of the battle mobile game Tom and Jerry: Chase.
  • Speaking of Meme Mouse, "Meme Mania" has references to "Beloved Tomboyish Girl", "U.N. Owen Was Her?", "Lunatic Eyes ~ Invisible Full Moon", the Among Us Trap Remix, "Astronomía" by Tony Igy & Vicetone, "We are Number One", "Megalovania" (which is also referenced in "Steep Slopes"), and "Super Idol de Xiao Rong 热爱105°C的你" by Tian Yiming, respectively.
  • "Menaced" has a reference to Mucho Mouse, Mousetale Jerry's theme.
  • "Tragical Comedy" has a reference to Dejection.
  • "None of All" has a reference to Sunshine.
  • "Desire or Despair" has a reference to Cycles, once again repeating the now iconic riff from "Execution".
  • Famished's "I LOVE THAT MOUSE!" phrase in this artwork◊ is a reference to Starved's phrase: "i love that hedgehog", but in capital letters and with an exclamation mark instead of only lowercase letters.
• Turns Red: Jerry starts to get pissed off midsong during the V1.5 and V2 "Vanishing" (more notoriously in V2, where he slowly starts to get annoyed instead of immediately like in V1.5, and attempts to kill BF before "Sirokou"). In the old "Vanishing", he's already angry.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Week 3, set in the apocaliptic world of Pibby, has our Boyfriend (which accidentally swapped places with Pibby!Boyfriend) and the eponymous protagonist surrounded by corrupted versions of Tom, Jerry, Nibbles and Spike, and BF must rap battle Tom in order to survive.

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