NO: 30: Update-Sized Holiday Special

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Today's issue has been long overdue. A lot has happened since the last one. The forums are under renovation, Pico Day's creeping closer, a bunch of users have come and gone, the Audio Portal's 20th anniversary has been celebrated, and we've been late to the party for a long time, until someone remotely talented managed to walk into our office and got hired on the spot.

@Little-Rena

TOP STORY: TIME TRAVELLER GOES BACK IN TIME TO SUBMIT TO 5 SHADES OF BLUE COLLAB

Once this baby reaches 500° Fahrenheit, you're gonna see some serious tomfoolery.

PHILADELPHIA -- This just in, prolific Flash animator Dr. Nelson Teal has just submitted a collab part for the 5 Shades of Blue Collab

Teal, who joined Newgrounds in 1999 as OT, traveled back in time to March 16th 2005, 11:40 PM EST, using a remote-controlled gas-top stove and oven-themed time machine, in order to submit an animation he's been working on for 5 months. He has brought with him a copy of Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and 16 GB of RAM.

"I was very impressed with what Teal managed to bring to the table!" said @mynamewontfitin, organizer of the 5 Shades collab.

"A bald old bearded farmer cooks up some sort of magic powder to make his turnips grow, then one of them grows to the size of his three-story comically large mansion. He can't pull out himself, so he calls up his wife, his two children, his children's spouses, his 3 grandsons and 2 granddaughters, and the family cat, who all fail to pull the turnip out. Only after a funny looking mouse starts pulling on one of the granddaughter's shoes does the turnip break free.

THEN the turnip rolls down the hill, onto the street, over some cars, then in the ocean.

Plot twist: One of the boys managed to tunnel his way into the turnip and is now stranded on the ocean alongside a gang of human-sized insects, worms and other bugs.

Not only did the story get my attention, but his line-art is incredibly clean compared to the other parts by myself, Zekey, Xionic Demon, etc, he picked some good songs, AND he managed to cram it all in 95 seconds! Chef's kiss! Best thing I ever watched. Instant 5 stars!"

mynamewontfitin

|

Teal's previous works include the Flash game Cuphead (2005), a Metal-Slug-esque platformer that later inspired the Fancy Pants series. He was also a clean-up artist for the Eddsworld short Suction Cup Man (2008), and created the short film Spooky Month (2004) for Clock Day.

Tankman Triweekly presents: a new series...

THEME SONG:

Hello, I'm Nicholas Dick, world renowned internet detective, and this is my show DICK NICK! It is my job to uncover all the weirdest, craziest, unsolvable mysteries from ye olden days of the Internet and hopefully uncover their truths once and for all!

Today's case is all about teh g0d of teh pr0tal Piconjo, who after 18 years is definitely full of secrets worth uncovering. Let's get into it!

CASE 1: @LegendaryFrog and @Piconjo.

CLAIM: Piconjo allegedly helped LegendaryFrog and worked on a couple of Flash movies together, circa 2002-2003. However, Piconjo wasn't credited properly (presumably due to the multi-author system not existing or requiring a "buddy system") and the flashes became smash hits, and as a result, Piconjo created an entire movement dedicated to "pwning" LF as revenge.

This was what was listed in the Newgrounds Wiki so it must be true. If so, then between the three of us we're all dicks in one way or another. But then again, we need people like me to analyze the FACTS.

EXHIBIT 1: Legendof Zelda LF Tribute

This is probably the biggest piece of evidence that supports this claim. This is a flash movie created in March 2004 by user @SmashMaster, who may or may not be Piconjo himself.

In 2021, Piconjo reviewed the submission saying there's an easter egg at the end that proves Piconjo's involvement, ie. a text in the Matrix scene that says: "OMG MAYTRIKS RIPOFF!". Quite a subtle Easter egg, but it's not the only one.

If you download and decompile the Flash file, LoZSEv2.swf, you will find this lovely image in frame 4.

WARNING: NSFW

This proves Piconjo made this movie, but how does it prove his involvement with LegendaryFrog?

Obvious answer is that the style is exactly similar. If he can animate Link and the boys and replicate LegendaryFrog's style so well, then surely he'd be the one to start the ball rolling in the first place.

Enter The Return of Ganondorf, posted Jun 20, 2003, which shares very similar character rigs.

There are some slight changes, some of the colors are a tad different, very noticeable on Zelda, but otherwise they appear to be replicated very well. Maybe traced, but that's just some WILD speculation. I would never suggest that!

Do keep in mind that the multi-author system was discussed in December 2002 and implemented in April 2003, long before The Return of Ganondorf, so it isn't likely that Piconjo was involved in this specific movie.

EXHIBIT 2: The Invisible Ink in the Thumbnails

I discovered a dirty little secret. You see, Piconjo secretly imprinted his name into the thumbnails! Here's how to find them.

1) Right click the thumbnail and select "Copy Image"

2) Load it up into Photoshop or some other software

3) Crank up the contrast or click the fill tool on whatever blank space free real estate. He's written his name where no one will find them.

Here's the one in All Your Pie:

However, what we also discovered is that there exists a Thumbnail Crew that was established in 2020, so maybe these thumbnails were added later by Piconjo himself (or one of his disciples)

EXHIBIT 3: LF himself denies this.

Aug 23, 2004: LegendaryFrog himself posted this beautiful gem,

"Everyone should know by now that whatever comes out of that guys mouth is a total lie. Its sad that everyone so far on this topic believes it."

Joseph "LegendaryFrog" Blanchette

Keep in mind that LegandaryFrog himself allegedly covered up Piconjo's involvement, so should you really trust him with this crazy over-the-top conspiracy theory that Piconjo's fabricated this whole story for personal gain?

EXHIBIT 4: The 10 Second Showcase

Piconjo collaborator @T0MMY hosted this collaborative megaproject in August 2004, where a large amount of participants (which include both Piconjo and LegendaryFrog) create a 10 second animation.

The author comments state:

"This is the first (and to date) only time that Piconjo and LegendaryFrog ever worked on a single project together officially!"

This should debunk everything, but KEEP IN MIND... the word "officially". Also keep in mind that they both worked separately on individual parts. Also also keep in mind that this is one of those large-scale collabs where anyone with decent animation skills can submit a part. If this counts as "official", then who decides that their previous alleged involvement (before this allegedly), then what else does?

CONCLUSION:

Anyhow, from what I've found, there seems to be no decent evidence to support Piconjo's direct involvement in any of LF's movies. There were also plenty of claims that LegendaryFrog got other people to animate his movies for him, including Chris Boe, who would later join LF as part of Toonwerks, and The-Super-Flash-Bros, but at least he was more open about it.

Boe helped with the Alien vs Predator review

Super Flash Brother Dim helped with this Final Fantasy cartoon

The only other explanation would be that Piconjo was originally known as something else before becoming Piconjo, possibly an early Piconjer who wasn't even a Newgrounds user at the time. I'll follow this up once I gather more information or either of the two parties speaks up.

CASE 2: Piconjo Worked at Pixar

CLAIM: Piconjo had an internship at Pixar circa 2003-2005,

This may have stemmed from one of his Confessions, but as for actual proof, I could not find any evidence or information about this online. I've heard somewhere he was able to hide some obscure easter egg in The Incredibles

If he did work on any Pixar movies, he wouldn't be credited as Piconjo, he'd use his "real" name, which we do not know.

I could comb through every single animator and artist who worked on that movie and try to narrow it down in order to find the man behind teh p3n0r, but honestly that's a lot of work for a single detective.

Do keep in mind these two factors:

1. An internship is a low-level form of job typically used to gain experience in an industry (like animation, but it can also include any job). For all we know, his involvement could be limited to just serving his boss some coffee.
2. Pixar primarily does 3D animation, whereas Piconjo's output is almost entirely 2D. He could've easily backed up this claim by posting some 3D work onto any website, including Newgrounds, such as a portfolio or showreel, which would add a little bit of validity to his claim. However, this would normally be impossible on NG in 2004, since vector-based SWF files, but Battle for the Portal (2003) got around this by rendering a video and embedding a low-quality version of it inside the SWF, and Swift 3D's definitely a thing nobody's even tried to use over here, right?

CONCLUSION: Very unlikely, but this could've been before his rise to g0dhood he had 2day, so who knows? We all start somewhere.

And that concludes this episode of Dick Nick. Until next time, where I'll be figuring out what ACTUALLY happened to NG's beloved icon, Anusboy, and what caused his disappearance.

Other News:

News of the past, present, and future.

2009

Feb 26th: ZekeySpaceyLizard told @TheInterviewer that he'd like the BBS to be deleted because it's a toxic hellhole

"delete it.

there is seriously no fixing it at this point. half the laughable moderation staff only sign on like once a month. the other half are people who brown-nosed the staff and now just do the whole "HEY I'LL BAN A BUNCH OF PEOPLE AND WRITE A REALLY RUDE POST HAHAHAHA I AM SO EDGY EPIC" thing, while a slew of 10 year olds make 40 new naruto topics. the amount of stupid kids and even stupider kids trying to troll the stupid kids is massive. and then we finally get a new forum, the art forum, and its slowly ruined by people posting stolen art, people who fly off the handle when someone accuses someone else of stealing art, and people who cant do art at all posting their own crap in all the other threads.

the bbs is a tumor.

but of course, dont point the flaws out or you get banned!"

Source: The Interviewer No. 3

2014

Nov 26th: In another interview 5 years later, Zekey was asked again about his thoughts on deleting the BBS.

Pay attention: This will be important later on.

"I wouldn't know. I visit Newgrounds only maybe once a year, usually only if a friend links me to something there. For all I know maybe the BBS has grown into a nice mature forum where people discuss philosophy and animation techniques. But I really fucking doubt that. If I'm wrong, and by some miracle it's actually good now, then I must give major kudos to the moderation staff for remolding that cesspool. But again, I wouldn't really know. Were the spirit to seize me and make me visit Newgrounds willingly, the last place I'd be interested in clicking is the BBS, since that is not where the content of games and cartoons are kept and thus there's little reason to really go there!"

Source: The Interviewer No. 132

2023

Jan 12th: @Royal-Harmonica successfully stole the secret Krabby Patty formula from the classic version of @Anonymous-Frog and applies it to a Street Fighter parody.

Feb 13th: The Audio Portal turns 20 today, with its first song "Chilled 1".

Feb 20th: "Classic" @Anonymous-Frog comes out of retirement to participate in an Eddsworld fan collab.

Feb 28th: The Flash Flood is now over. You can still submit Flash for the still ongoing Flash Forward Jam.

March 2nd: The Washington Post is recalling every single newspaper with Dilbert in them and is now reprinting them with @hcnone's Endless Monday in its place.

March 4th: Royal-Harmonica achieves what Classic Anonymous Frog never did, win a Daily award.

March 10th: Mario Day. Weird that we didn't get many Mario movies today. Thought we'd be packed!

March 12-14th-ish: BBS spammer HTFLumpy has finally been shut down.

March 18th: The 1,000th song on Newgrounds celebrates its 20th anniversary. It's old enough to watch Bluey.

March 22nd: The BBS has grown into a nice mature forum where people discuss philosophy and animation techniques, and by some miracle it's actually good now. Kudos to the moderation staff for remolding that cesspool!

March 31st: As the timeline starts shifting, Bridge Kids fades out of existence.

April 20th: Flash Forward Jam pushed back by another 10 minutes to accommodate for just one more lazy-ass dev who can't be bothered to finish on time.

June 2nd: Street Fighter 6 set to release. A fan poll reveals that Ryu is more beloved than Solid Snake. Keep in mind that this poll was originally posted in a 5 star review on Metal Gear Awesome.

Tankman Triweekly is a part of the Red Sea, the other part being The Tank Tribune

(C) 2021-2023

[PREVIOUS ISSUE | NEXT ISSUE | FOLLOW ANONYMOUS-FROG]

Thanks to all Patreon supporters:

thelord, Prime-Adam, forEVEr, Applesnek36, the-virgin-mary, CuckedJoseph, Sun-Noah-Tzu, Moses

Remember to follow this account to never miss a new issue.