Deep in the woods, there is an abandoned mansion, where a group of ghosts reside. Two ghosts, a fat one named Su and skinny one named Uh, are trying to impress a ghostly girl, Lah, who lives with them. The duo of poltergeists try to impress Lah with their levitation abilities, performing a variety of tricks; lifting up plates, chairs, and other furniture in the process. Both Su and Uh compete against each other to prove their affections for Lah, until Lah wants to try it out and lift something by herself.
Ghost Tale
is a spiritual successor short by Marza Animation Planet, billed as a follow-up to the 2008 Halloween-themed Sonic the Hedgehog animated tie-in to Sonic Unleashed, Sonic: Night of the Werehog. This animation released on October 31, 2023, a whole 15 years after the original release of Night of the Werehog.
This short provides examples of:
- All-CGI Cartoon: Like Night of the Werehog before it and other Marza animations, this is short is entirely done with 3D CGI.
- Art Evolution: Ghost Tale is billed as having updated CGI compared to Night of the Werehog, which can be seen with the models of the three characters themselves. They are less translucent, but has a much more vibrant color palette, along with some objects looking more realistic. The lighting of the short has also been altered to fully take advantage of the strides Marza has gone through in fifteen years.
- Bedsheet Ghost: Su and Uh are stereotypical ghosts who both look like floating bedsheets. The smaller child-like ghosts are portrayed in a similar style.
- The Bus Came Back: Outside of various illustrations and animations posted to the Marza staff social media and discounting their brief cameo in the Misadventures arc of the Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) comics, this animation marks Lah, Su and Uh's first appearance in roughly fifteen years.
- Cock Fight: Following their rivalry from the previous short, both Su and Uh compete to prove their affections for Lah, using their ghostly powers to lift objects and show each other up. The rivalry is put on hold when Lah tries lifting a piano by herself, but is unable to, causing her to cry, so the two combine their powers to make her believe that she can and make her smile.
- Canon Foreigner: The smaller child-like ghosts that are watching with Lah were first shown in illustrations posted to the Marza_staff Twitter account, and weren't present in the original short.
- Fake Wizardry: Lah tries lifting a giant piano, believing she has the same type of ghostly levitation powers as Su and Uh. When she starts crying, the two ghosts use their own powers to make her believe that she could lift them. They maintain this facade in the stinger, where she then tries lifting a tree.
- Fat and Skinny: Su's the fat one, Uh's the skinny one.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: There is a surprising amount of detail that can gathered upon repeated viewings, with things in the background that help expand upon the characters a little:
- There are various posters that can be seen hung on the mansion's wall, based on classic horror films.
- Behind Lah and the baby ghosts is what appears to be a picture of Lah's possible human form before she became a ghost, along with photos of her parents.
- Lighter and Softer: Night of the Werehog was a Lightmare Fuel-pseudo action-horror animated short, where the ghosts are trying to scare Sonic and various kids that walk into the mansion. It also features a painful and nightmarish transformation sequence into the Werehog, along with a fight scene between Sonic and the fused form of Su and Uh, though a lot the antics of the ghosts are played for laughs. Here, there is no danger or anything too action-packed, where Su and Uh bumble their way into performing a show while Lah tries to levitate an object herself.
- Lying to Protect Your Feelings: Lah initially tries lifting a giant piano, trying multiple times to do so, but becomes disheartened when she doesn't have the same powers as Su and Uh. When she starts crying, the piano suddenly starts floating, much to her joy and surprise. It's shown that it was the combined efforts of Su and Lah to make her happy, with the two grinning after their accomplishment. Then she tries to lift a giant tree outside the mansion, where even Su and Uh are having problems to bring it up together.
- Mime and Music-Only Cartoon: Much like Night of the Werehog, the short doesn't contain any dialogue, with the music and actions being timed together. The characters only communicate through voiced grunts.
- Mind over Matter: Being ghosts, Su and Uh demonstrate their prowess with this ability, with the type of objects they can lift being proportional to their bodies (ie. the more rotund Su can lift a heavy chair as opposed to Uh, who is skinnier and can only lift a plate). This doesn't apply to Lah, who first tries levitating a piano, only to fail. To make her happy, Su and Uh work together to make her believe that she can levitate objects (though they struggle to lift up the piano together). Their lie backfires on them when she tries lifting up a tree.
- No Antagonist: Unlike Night of the Werehog, the ghosts are the protagonists this time around, where the only conflict is when Lah can't lift a piano because she believes that she has the same levitation powers as Su and Uh, along with Su and Uh trying to show each other up again.
- Pictorial Letter Substitution: The "O" in the title has a window pane in the middle space, which makes it look like one of the mansion's windows.
- Shout-Out: Lah has posters that resemble classic Universal Horror movies hung on her wall. These include: Dracula, The Wolf Man, Frankenstein, and The Invisible Man.
- Standalone Episode: The animation can be viewed without knowledge of the Sonic franchise or the events of Night of the Werehog. Despite the characters originating from the prior short, Ghost Tale doesn't reference the events of Night of the Werehog at all, besides mentioning it in the video description. Sonic doesn't appear in the short in any capacity either, so his name isn't present in the animation's title either.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: The genders of the baby ghosts that are watching with Lah are distinguished by a combination of their eyebrows and eye lashes, with the female ones having them while the male ones don't.
