🏝 Poptropica Help Blog 🗺

Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Smart Icicle. Enjoy!

Hi! I’m Smart Icicle and I would like to introduce a theory on the beloved Captain Crawfish in Poptropica. Now we all know what Captain Crawfish looks like, but could his appearance be inspired by other fictional pirates? Here’s what I think:

A major, modern franchise about pirates is Pirates of the Caribbean. This film series is about all of the misadventures of legendary pirate, Captain Jack Sparrow. So now, onto Captain Crawfish.

You might know that Poptropica’s iconic pirate is named after a lobster-like sea creature (the crawfish). Well, in Pirates of the Caribbean, one of the villains Jack Sparrow had to face was Davy Jones and his crew. In the films, Davy Jones is a pirate who ferries the people who died into the afterlife. He usually would send the Kraken, an abnormally giant squid, onto a ship to take sailors. So there is that connection of a fascination for sea monsters in both Poptropica and Pirates of the Caribbean. Of course, the legend of the Kraken predates the film series.

A 19th-century drawing of a Kraken (pic: Wikipedia)

Next, Captain Crawfish’s hat. His hat is red with a feather and has a green bandana. His hat closely resembles the hat of Hector Barbossa, Jack Sparrow’s rival. Barbossa’s majestic hat is black with a feather and includes a green bandana.

Captain Crawfish’s beard is somewhat similar to Captain Jack Sparrow and Blackbeard, another pirate of old legend who also appears as an antagonist in Pirates of the Caribbean (the fourth movie). Blackbeard has a long black beard with smoke, while Jack Sparrow’s beard consists of two little braids. Add those two beards together (sans smoke) and you will end up with a beard similar to Captain Crawfish’s.

Now let’s take a quick break and look at the storyline in Skullduggery Island. Fort Ridley is where the main story starts off. Before we arrive, Captain Crawfish has robbed every store — much like the opening to Pirates of the Caribbean, where Barbossa and his crew attack and rob the stores in Port Royal (where all the adventures begin)! Barbossa’s crew also capture Elizabeth Swann, the governor’s daughter in Port Royal. While there isn’t kidnapping in Skullduggery, Captain Crawfish does mess with the governor of Fort Ridley!

At the governor’s mansion in Skullduggery Island.

Back to appearances, Captain Crawfish’s outfit is similar to Elizabeth Swann’s outfit in the second PotC movie. Elizabeth’s pirate outfit consists of a brown coat with a white shirt and cross-body strap.

Also, Captain Crawfish has a gold skull on his eyepatch. This resembles Ragetti, another character from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Ragetti originally had a wooden eye, which he often loses. In the third movie, Ragetti had to give up his eye to Captain Barbossa. After he lost the eye, Ragetti puts on an eyepatch. Wonder what happened to Captain Crawfish’s eye?

Finally, we get to Captain Crawfish’s peg leg. Peg legs are sometimes associated with pirates (though perhaps not based on historic fact). In fact, Barbossa got one in the fourth PotC movie after he lost his leg in an encounter with Blackbeard.

What do you think about these connections between Poptropica, Pirates of the Caribbean, and other pirate legends? Do you agree or disagree? Either way, Captain Crawfish is an iconic Poptropica villain.

That’s it from me — Smart Icicle out! 📚❄️

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Smart Icicle. If you did, you might also enjoy another guest post that looks at the question of What happens to Poptropica villains after “the end”?

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! 📰✨

PHB Membership Giveaway: March 2021

March 24, 2021March 24, 2021 Slanted Fish

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, Silver Horse — you can finally get that pet pony to go with your horse (or unicorn dragon cat?) identity. I mean, have you seen the animal collection in his clubhouse?? 🦋😸🐦

In addition to calling a little pony mine, members also get to add a bunny, lizard, goat, and husky among their horde of pets. And, with the recent influx of new items in both the pet and clubhouse stores, you’re sure to find some new stuff to love — all the more if you’re a member!

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 Silver Horse, and as always, keep on popping on! 🐎

~🐠

Clubhouse, Guest Posts

Clubhouse Tour: Silver Horse 🏡

March 23, 2021March 21, 2021 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Silver Horse. Enjoy!

Hello, fellow poptropicans! This is your friendly neighborhood ASG-maker, Silver Horse. Every once in a while, I like to re-decorate my clubhouse — even on the outside, with umbrellas from the Wimpy Boardwalk and Poptropolis Games statues. Hop on in and enjoy the tour!

Our first stop is the relaxation corner, where I sit on my red beanbag and open treasure with a juice, because why not. It’s also where I like to paint (with kinda messy results on the door). There’s also a small section for music with a microphone, bongo, and a saxophone!

Next up, we’ve got the study area and dining room, on two floors each. The dining room comes with its own trampoline, as well as a cozy fireplace, where I eat pie (wait, do Poptropicans eat?) among other things.

On the floor above, the study room is a cozy place to read, relax, and research the strange customs of Shark Tooth Island with a Booga statue. There’s also a claw machine, popsicle poster, and old-fashioned TV, which I use to store books!

After that, here we have the upper floor of the relaxation corner. In this area, you can see my secret gem hoard, which was offered to me by the coin collector from Arabian Nights: Episode 2, along with a Trojan horse to guard it. Behind that, we have my fish tank full of wondrous fish (which my Poptropican may or may not want to eat, considering he is a purple unicorn dragon cat) as well as a unicorn beanbag and a poster from last year’s Trolls World Tour ad.

Right next to that we have an animal encyclopedia, from foxes to birds to fish that somehow miraculously survive on land, to armadillos, to mythical beings, and many more. Next to it, you can spy a mini Poptropica blimp, and above, some posters, as well as a stained glass window leading into the bedroom.

We are now up to the final area, the bedroom. Here, I’ve got a unicorn plushie to hug, a laptop for playing Poptropica in-universe somehow, a scratching post and ball of yarn for my tabby cat (some real Goofy-Pluto energy going on here!). There’s also a cozy bed, because even if my Poptropican is a purple unicorn dragon cat, they still sleep on a human bed! Then there’s a statue of Poseidon on a seahorse and some red curtains. (Hopefully the potion doesn’t fall on the scratching post!)

Welp, I hope you guys enjoyed my first guest post! If you would like to see this for yourself, friend me: bugsbunny96. Until then, see you!

~Silver Horse

P.S. Here’s what my clubhouse looks like as a whole, courtesy of idk!

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Silver Horse. If you did, you might also enjoy other clubhouse tours we’ve featured, like this one from White Fox. Consider sharing yours, too!

Merchandise

Pop Merch Review: Shark Boy Plush 🦈

March 22, 2021March 21, 2021 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Noisy Snowball (Inking 5). Enjoy!

Hello there, everyone! It’s me again, Noisy Snowball. And I would like to introduce a new post series here on the PHB: Merch Reviews! As the name suggests, it’s about reviewing all kinds of Poptropica merchandise, so if you have some items of your own, consider sharing about them here! More about writing for the PHB below.

To start off the series, let me share with you: the Shark Boy Plush!

The Shark Tooth Island icon, as seen on Shrink Ray Island.

I am a huge plush collector, from FNAF to Animal Crossing. So when I heard Poptropica had plush toys as well, I knew I had to get one!

Poptropica has two other plush toys: Dr. Hare and Cool Boy. But I decided on Shark Boy, because he looked pretty cool, and was the cheapest of the three. Now, onto the official review! Here’s a 360° view of my new friend:

He looks really cool to me! I love how the shark eyeballs pop out of his shark costume, but his actual eyes pop out as well. The suit also has teeth surrounding the open part of his head, and a shark fin popping out of his back. He is also holding a dead fish in his left arm (our right side), which is a very nice touch. It fits with him wearing a shark costume.

I’m no expert at judging plush quality, but it feels nice to me! A lot of areas like his head are filled with stuffing, but his body also has beads in it as well. He has also passed my hug test, and the quality of the fabric looks nice to me. This is an awesome plush!

But that’s not all: He also came with a few tags and a credit coin! These are really from the bygone days of Poptropica, when you could redeem prizes with your toys through promo codes. That’s no longer around, but I thought it’d be worth mentioning here.

One of the tags is fairly simple, just stating the name of the plush. But the other two items are pretty interesting!

The plastic credit coin has a sticker with a code on the back of it, which was meant to be redeemed on the Poptropica website. The prizes for this particular toy were a special “Jump the Shark” power and your own in-game Shark Boy Plush! I don’t think I can enter the code anymore, but at least the credit looks cool!

The other tag is actually kinda interesting. It held the credit coin, and inside, there were instructions on how to redeem the code! But the most interesting thing is that the tag is dated from 2011. Wow, that is old, especially since I really only joined Poptropica in January 2021. Makes me curious about what Poptropica was like back then, and what I’ve missed out on!

As for how I got this discontinued toy, the plush was actually listed on a couple websites. One site was Toywiz, and the seller was Jazwares (the company that made Poptropica’s plush toys), still selling them in mint condition! They only had five left. But I didn’t buy it off that website — I ended up getting it on the Walmart website for $14.94, with free shipping as well!

That wraps up the first post on Poptropica Merch Reviews. Hope you all enjoyed it! This might not become a regular post series, but at least the idea is out there. If you have any Poptropica merch and want to write about it, go for it — I would love to read posts about all kinds of merch!

By the way, Poptropica has tons of merch from over the years, from toys to T-shirts! You can discover more of them on this PHB page under the Pop Plus tab: Merchandise: a guide to Poptropica shopping.

And don’t worry, Shark Boy will fit in perfectly with all of my other plush toys. This is Noisy Snowball, signing off!

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Noisy Snowball (Inking 5). If you did, you might also enjoy their other post, My Dream Island: Opposites Island.

Clubhouse, Creators, Merchandise, Pets, Store

Good luck in store for customers and creators 🍀💵

March 22, 2021March 22, 2021 Gentle Dolphin

Top of the morning, Poptropicans! Today, we will be looking at a few store updates as well as a recent message from a special someone. Let’s take a gander now, shall we?

Let’s start things off with a long-awaited clubhouse update. Here is the current clubhouse store lineup which includes four new furniture items: a star wall decoration, a gaming PC, a sound speaker, and a cat-shaped cactus pot.

After decorating your clubhouse, why not gift your pets some St. Patrick’s Day costumes? Sure March 17th has already come and gone, but you can still dress your pets in festive green gear. Lucky pets can wear a Leprechaun Hat, a Clover Face, and a Green Backpack. 🍀

Moving on from the game to the real world, the official Poptropica Zazzle store has gone through some changes. There are some interesting new(ish?) items, like this Poptropica 8-bit Pixel Mug ($15.95) of Drs. Beev and Hare with a heart between them, a Poptropica Dr. Hare Button ($2.25) and even Dr. Hare Poptropica Wrapping Paper ($20.95).

Sticker prices have been lowered with most going from $4.95 to $2.15! Also, a Zomberry Clown Postcard is now available for purchase for just $1.10 (now the cheapest item in the store!).

To cap off this post, we a have a special update coming from the creator of Poptropica himself, Jeff Kinney! Yesterday, Jeff tweeted a photo of himself visiting three other OG Pop Creators during his recent book tour. It’s nice to see Jeff acknowledge Poptropica, even if he’s already moved on the greener (and richer 🤑) pastures.

Poptropicans reunite! Got together with 3 of the original team members today in Utah. These guys were behind all of those first islands! pic.twitter.com/alFDZxIqRf
— Jeff Kinney (@wimpykid) March 21, 2021

That’s all for now. What store items (real or digital) are you looking to buy? If you were to meet Jeff Kinney or any Pop Creator, what would you ask them? Leave your comments below!

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

—Gentle Dolphin 🐬