If we can't describe Evaporate here, then you can stuff me up and call me Jimmy!
Evaporate is a web series created by Jacob Lenard, of Mugman fame. The series stars two characters, Nerv and Necky (originally Evaporate and Necklinne, respectively).
Instead of having a coherent plot (or, rather, a coherent anything), the animations are adaptations of dreams Lenard has. And it shows.
The whole series can be found here
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This work contains examples of:
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Rodney Horse is so rich that he has a car, two mansions and a pool, and contact lenses that keep his eyes from dilating his pupils all the time.
- Art Shift: From time to time, different animation styles are tried. Most notably, the Garfield segment in Episode 14 mimics the comics' style, and Episode 15 heavily experiments with the animation software's tweening functions.
- Author Avatar: Lenstar himself appears as a background character fairly often in the form of live-action Stop Motion photos.
- Body Horror: Pac-Man's son in Episode 17 "looks like a tumor" and can fire Eye Beams to put others in a similar state.
- Call-Back: Elements from earlier skits will often reappear as characters later on.
- The Cameo:
- Pementa makes an appearance on a poster in the 4th episode, albeit looking... strange.
- The character in 14 resembling a spiked ball is from Lenstar's skits made in LittleBigPlanet that predate Mugman.
- Caustic Critic: One segment featured one critiquing and swearing at a not-even-close-to-finished cartoon about the Three Bears. Another featured a live-action Jacob Lenard talking about a fictional game called Blocko which barely got past the title screen.
- Character Title: The series is named after one of the two main characters. Although the character in question had his name changed to "Nerv" by the fourth episode, the title of the show itself is retained.
- Christmas Special: Apparently the 3rd episode wishes you a merry christmas... even though the episode had nothing to do with christmas.
- Deranged Animation: The animation constantly changes styles, and the characters have no consistent appearances to speak of.
- Fictional Holiday: The balloons of the world are released into the air to celebrate the day the Earth tilts on its side.
- Funny Animal: Nerv.
- Grand Finale: The video Evaporate: The Lost Segments is the finale of the series, even ending with a message saying "Thanks for watching Evaporate."
- Greek Chorus: An orange-haired head keeps popping up in 12 after each skit. According to Lenstar, the dream that came from was about a TV network with that head commenting on each program as a gimmick.
- Hotter and Sexier: The next version of Windows 98 is the "Simplified Sexy Edition", with a bikini-clad woman on the box and a sultry voice greeting the user. Too bad the Sexy Edition is actually the Evil Edition.
- Identical Stranger: An example involving a fictional video game character. Necky shows Nerv a game called "The Great North American Mery Weather Skate!", whose main character looks a lot like Necky.
- I Do Not Own: Kirby explains that Nerv's fan film is not associated with Nintendo, but then says it's entirely for profit. Thanks for your money.
- Mind Screw: You'd have to have a lot of brainpower to figure out the meaning of anything in this series.
- My Grandma Can Do Better Than You:Necky: My uncle can sing better than that, and he doesn't exist!
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Nerv causes all of the continents in the world to disappear... because he popped balloons labeled with the world's continents on them.
- Non-Indicative Name: Pointed out in Episode 18 with the main character of the fictional game Blocko being made of round shapes and spikes instead of blocks.
- Non Sequitur: See here.
- No Plot? No Problem!: The series has no overarching premise, instead being a collection of short segments where all sorts of nonsensical things happen.
- NOT!: When Nerv gets kicked and sent flying all the way into a dojo, the owner tells him "You are welcome here, in my dojo... NOT!"
- President Evil: The video "Acid Rain" reveals that the one responsible for the acid rain is President Donald Lincoln, who is represented as a photograph of George W. Bush's face seated in the Oval Office with spindly arms and glaring eyebrows scrawled on. As if his actions causing acid rain isn't enough to emphasize his wickedness, his scene also has him do Bowser's Evil Laugh from Hotel Mario.
- Real Dreams are Weirder: The entire premise of the series is that it's an adaptation of real dreams that are weirder.
- Reference Overdosed: These being based on Lenstar's weird dreams, they reference lots of other works, from Nintendo to Cyberchase.
- Retraux: The series is meant to emulate videos from 1998-2007, with heavy compression, often an MS Paint look, and a MIDI soundtrack.
- Series Fauxnale: Episode 16 ends with a live-action clip of Lenard waking up, along with a message that it was the end of Evaporate until further notice. It didn't stick, though, and Episode 17 came out four months later.
- Shout-Out: So many that it has its own page.
- Stop Motion: Most of the Shows Within A Show are presented this way, along with most of the Author Avatar's appearances.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Things blow up a lot.
- Stylistic Suck: Even more so than any of Lenstar's other works.
- Sudden Name Change: The two main characters were originally named Evaporate and Necklinne. Later episodes shorten their names to Nerv and Necky, respectively.
- Suddenly Shouting: Usually in a completely different voice.
- Synthetic Voice Actor: Billy Bass.
- This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!:Nerv: Dang BITCH, what are you my MUOOM?
- Time Crash: Trying to time travel to the year AD 0 will leave you stuck there forever.
- Toilet Humor: Episode 13 begins with a teaser for Shrek, the announcer obviously on the toilet while speaking.
- You Wanna Get Sued?: Nintendo sues Nerv for making a fan film.
