Hello! I'm Slanted Fish, the editor-in-chief and creator of the Poptropica Help Blog (PHB). I'm a writer, Hong Kong native, and Christ follower. My Poptropica username is slantedfish 🐠 Don't forget to be awesome!
Hey Poptropicans! Sometimes good things come in small packages, and I’ll be sharing about one that I got: the Dr. Hare button!
The Dr. Hare button is available from Poptropica’s Zazzle merch store for US$2.25 and comes in various sizes (ranging from 1 ¼ to 6 inches) and shapes (round or square). I went for a classic round shape with a small diameter of 1 ¼ inch. Here’s the packaging it arrived in:
For its small size, the button sure came in a large packet. Cactus not included.
And here’s Dr. Hare with Dr. Hare to show off the front and back of the button. The way the distinct goggles and teeth are surrounded by lots of negative space gives the design a nice minimalist feel. Overall, it’s definitely a cute pin of Poptropica’s pinkest punk!
Front
Back
You can stick this button anywhere that the pin can poke through, like your backpack, denim jacket, lanyards, or more. As for me, my Dr. Hare button has found a home among my pin collection.
Can you spot the carrot thief?
Thanks to the Poptropica Creators for sponsoring this post! The Creators kindly hooked up the PHB with a generous Zazzle gift card, so we’ll be sharing more merch reviews here soon. Stay tuned! 👀
For more about all the Poptropica merch that exists, from Zazzle to beyond with toys and more, check out the PHB’s Merchandise Guide. ✨
Hey Poptropicans, we’ve got some fun fashions in this post, with Pop-arazzi snapshots of celebs, and fan art features, including an epic comic full of villains. 😈 Take a peek! 👀
The Poptropica Creators’ Blog just put out a post serving up red carpet looks, apparently inspired by a recent sighting of an unnamed celebrity near Pop HQ. The Pop-arazzi have arrived to capture the looks of pop stars Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, and Harry Styles, Poptropica style!
Are you batting your Eilishes at these Grande ol’ Styles? Fancy looks are definitely in season, because here on the PHB, we’re getting ready to host our annual Poptropica fan awards show, the Poppies! Stay tuned for the deets on our fashionably fun month-long event. 🔥🏆
Anyway, besides Ariana, this isn’t the first time these famous people have inspired Poptropican looks! You might recall that earlier this year, the Creators featured a fan drawing of Billie Eilish as a Poptropican. And if we go way back to One Direction’s peak in 2012, you can find an old PHB Pop-over of the British boy band, including Harry Styles in all his wild hairstyling. Still looking beautiful after all these years.
One Direction (photo: J-14)
Billie Eilish (photo: The Guardian)
On Instagram, the Pop Creators have shared another batch of recent fan art, featuring high-energy villains and OCs! Enjoy the looks:
Be sure to catch the full “He is a villain” comic by adventurersnhunters on the original Instagram post, as it contains more fantastic panels of the Poptropica villain gang than the ones highlighted by the Pop Creators!
Hey Poptropicans! You may find goggles good for where we’re going in this store update and fan art feature. Let’s dive in! 🧜♀️
As shared on the Pop Creators’ Blog, there are two new items in this week’s store rotation: a Striped Romper for all and VR Goggles for members only. The VR piece matches with the VR Headset available for members’ pets (“a VRy cute combo”).
Striped Romper
VR Goggles
VR Headset for pets
The Creators’ Blog post also gives a bit of a teaser for what’s coming with The Baron’s Cabin of Curiosities. In addition to what they shared earlier, they added, “The airship also includes a number of other features that’ll bring Poptropicans together and enhance the players’ experience.” 🎈 Guess we’ll have to wait and see what that’s all about!
Over on Instagram, the Poptropica Creators featured a single spectacular work of fan art by the PHB’s Gentle Dolphin! The piece depicts her Popsona as a mythological siren of the sea, with her tail and fins based off of the Amazon River Dolphin. Would you trust her? 🧜♀️
“Gentle Siren” by the PHB’s Gentle Dolphin (@phs_animations) was featured on the Poptropica Creators’ Instagram story.
That’s all for this update! What are your thoughts on the new items? Are you excited for The Baron’s Cabin of Curiosities and the free, monthly, winning costume designs, along with whatever surprises await? Let us know in the comments, and pop on, Poptropicans! ✌️
Hey Poptropicans, we’re approaching the end of the month, which means it’s time to announce another lucky Poptropican to win our monthly membership giveaway! 🎁
Congrats, Giant Dragon — you can finally unlock some of the epic members’ items you’ve been craving, including the Rumpelstiltskin and Barbarian Warrior costumes from the store! Plus, you can hop on the blimp for an exclusive adventure on Time Tangled Island.
If you’re not a member, you still have the chance (or many chances, in fact): the PHB is hosting a giveaway every month, and it’s easy to enter! Just comment on the Free Poptropica Membership page and leave at least two other comments around the PHB within the month to be entered into that month’s giveaway.
We’ll announce a winner sometime in the final week of each month. If you don’t win, you can always try again for the next month! Full details »
Congrats again to Giant Dragon, and as always, keep on popping on! 🐉
Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Barefoot Knuckle. Enjoy!
Hey everybody! It’s Barefoot Knuckle here and today I will be talking about the many similarities Fairytale Island has to other works in pop culture. Most of these are probably just a coincidence, but I think it’s very interesting to discuss, plus fun and hilarious at the same time!
Okay, this island has SO MANY similarities to other stuff, it’s insane. Of course there are the obvious easter eggs like the Poptropican Fairy Godmother being modeled after Shrek 2’s Fairy Godmother.
Fairy Godmother (Poptropica)
Fairy Godmother (Shrek 2)
But Fairytale Island mostly reminds me of the Happily N’Ever Afterseries from Lionsgate. Now although I only ever watched the first one, the second movie’s trailer was also reminiscent of the whole “Rumpelstiltskin causing Snow White to fall asleep” scenario.
The first movie (2006) was a lot like Fairytale Island though. You had one fairytale villain who seized power over all the happily ever afters and started messing them up so no one could have a happy ending. Then Cinderella learns how to be a strong, independent woman and everyone has different happily ever afters in the end.
Snow White and dwarves in Happily N’Ever After
Fairytale characters (Poptropica)
Prince Humperdink in Happily N’Ever After
Of course, they defeated the villain in the movie, and in the second movie as well, which was different from what happened in Fairytale Island. But other than that, Cinderella’s pink dress, Snow White’s purple and blue outfits, the dwarves’ tough looking design and the Prince’s personality and design all resemble how the characters are shown in Happily N’Ever After.
Another resemblance is the trend of showing fairytale princesses as modern, independent women. We saw this in Disney’s Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), where all the princesses gathered in lounge wear. And in Fairytale Island, the princesses are working girls. You can’t be lounging around the house when there are animals to cure, guitars to play, and pizzas to deliver.
Snow White in Happily N’Ever After
Snow White (Poptropica)
Princesses enjoying comfort in Ralph Breaks the Internet
(Also, comment if you want me to draw Poptropica’s princesses with Disney’s princesses and I will include it at the end of my next post!)
When Fairytale Island was first released, some fans noted that it was rare to see Cinderella as a Black woman, but it has been done before. In The Wonderful World of Disney (1997) Cinderella, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella was portrayed by Brandy (yes, that is her name). Although there isn’t much similarity in terms of dress design, her hair and crown does share a similar style to Poptropica’s Cinderella.
Combined with Happily N’Ever After’s Cinderella with her pink dress and story arc (though she never turned into a rock star), Poptropica’s new take on the classic princess had a lot of throwbacks to past concepts on the character. Also, is it just me, or does the pink hair and punk style remind anyone of the rock artist, Pink?
Cinderella (Poptropica)
Brandy as Cinderella in The Wonderful World of Disney (1997)
Ella in Happily N’ever After
Cinder (Poptropica)
Pink (singer)
Then there are the character designs in the “Red’s Food Delivery” side quest. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Red Riding Hood in a modern tomboy look, since the movie Hoodwinked (2005) (another movie I’ve only seen the trailer for) portrayed Red Riding Hood as a tough karate girl who wore jeans.
Fairytale characters (Poptropica)
Hoodwinked (2005)
Now Poptropica’s Red Riding Hood doesn’t seem like she’s specialized in any defenses, but she does have that tough girl look about her. And even though they don’t share the same personality, the grandma in Hoodwinked and the grandma in Fairytale Island share a very similar look. And from what I’ve seen in the trailer, the huntsman in Hoodwinked seems just as weird as the huntsman from Fairytale Island.
The whole island is kind of like a couple other middle grade book series about fairytales, like Whatever After by Sarah Mlynowski and TheLand of Stories by Chris Colfer. Red Riding Hood’s pet in Colfer’s series, Clawdius, is just about the equivalent of Fairytale Island’s Big Bad Wolf.
Concept art from Fairytale Island (Poptropica)
Clawdius (Land of Stories)
And what about that Gravity Falls similarity with these little guys, huh?
Dwarves in trench coat (Poptropica)
Gnomes (Gravity Falls)
The final easter egg I’ll bring up has to do with the island’s villain, Rumplestiltskin. You know that part where the player says his name three times and apparently he’s free? Well, the same thing happens in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice (1988) when this ghost couple and this goth girl say a creepy ghost’s name three times and he’s free to help them get revenge or something. It was recently adapted into a Broadway show (with a song called “Say My Name” — and that’s all I know).
Rumpelstiltskin in Poptropica
Beetlejuice on Broadway
But what do you guys think? Is Fairytale Island just a mashup of pop culture references? Is Cinderella’s pink hairstyle a nod to rockstar Pink? Did the creators intentionally put a Beetlejuice reference in the script? And what kind of pop culture reference would you like to see in Poptropica?
For more trivia, check out the PHB’s Fairytale Island Guide. Keep an eye out for my next posts! I think you’ll like them!
Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Barefoot Knuckle. If you did, you might also enjoy other guest posts here on the PHB!
The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. Interested in writing for the PHB? We’d love to hear from you! 📰✨
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