In case you haven't surmised already, this blog is approaching its twilight. I'm not sure how any more posts I'll be adding to it as I'm looking for a new social media outlet with (hopefully) an actual audience. But The World Games are coming to Birmingham this summer and are close enough to where I live to be both a traffic obstruction and a reminder that The World Games are in fact a different entity than the Olympics. As I'm told. Suffice to say after the 2016 Summer Games and the 2018 Winter Games I was hoping for one final visit to the undefined land of Cowbania.
What is Cowbania? I imagine it's a place where fictional characters agreed to claim for themselves as a nationality for whenever they needed an excuse to enter a world competition. It's grassy, hilly, and has a flag drawn by Gary Larson.
So pretty much anything goes in selecting the nation's competitors, but I'm going to enforce a rule that nobody can compete in The World Games who's already been in either of the Olympics; which disqualifies the following:
Apollo Creed, Ashitaka (Princess Mononoke), Barbara Gordon, Bugs Bunny, Carmelita Fox, Charlie Brown (yes, seriously), Condorman, Diddy Wishingwell (The Weebles), Dirk the Daring, The Doctor, The Expendables, Frank Martin (The Transporter), Genaa (Below the Root), Harpo Marx, Indiana Jones, Ivy Valentine, Jason Voorhees, Kronk, Lara Croft, Lilith Aensland, Linus and Lucy Van Pelt, Luke Skywalker, Marcie, Mary Poppins, Meggy Swann, Michael Myers, Morrigan Aensland, The Murray, The Prince of Persia, Princess Daisy, Princess Peach, Princess Zelda, Rocky Balboa, Sarge (Toy Story), Scrat, Sly Cooper, Sydney Lotterby, Sydney Lotterby, Sydney Lotterby & Sydney Lotterby, Tiny Kong, Tom (Tom & Jerry), Wadsworth, and Zorro.
I'm going to be ignoring the the invitational sports like Flag Football and Wushu, as well as the handful of events that appear in the Olympics as well (Archery, Rhythmic Gymnastics, Trampoline Gymnastics). I'm also inclined to combine a few events into one. I know Ju-jitsu, Karate, and Kickboxing are fundamentally different things, but at the core it's two people trying to hit each other and that's as much research as I'm willing to do on the subject.
In fact let's get that one out of the way.
The Combo Menu: Combined challenges owing to my own laziness
1. One on One Kombat: (the aforementioned and Muay Tai)
For my last go-round it's a bit boring to select someone obvious like Bruce Wayne who allegedly knows all martial arts. Likewise I don't really want to get any boring old Street Fighter; I need a wild card. For this series of fighting styles I'm recruiting Nathan Drake. Nate's not the most skilled fighter; he can hold his own against street criminals but he's not exactly tournament ready. However he's got two attributes that give him an edge in four different events: he can take a hell of a beating, and he's got an otherworldly luck meter. Nate's luck runs out when he's under a constant barrage but tournaments have a lot of start and stop, allowing him a replenishment. The others don't have that, and I highly doubt any of them are as funny.
2. Wheels on Heels: (Track Speed, Road Speed, and Artistic Roller Skating)
So for this I need someone fast with stamina and a natural sense of grandstanding; the ability to skate is secondary. I need Spike Spiegel. He's obviously got the balance and the adaptability to different terrains, and as much as he smokes I've rarely seen him out of breath. Can he skate? It doesn't matter. Once he finds his footing he can dance his way through any combat situation. Here he only has to appease his own ego.
3. Tumbling Cycle: (Acrobatic, Aerobic, and Parkour Gymnastics)
It's not hard to find someone in Cowbania who can excel at any one of these, but all three together and we need strength, dexterity, charisma, and perhaps a little insanity. Harley Quinn seems obvious, but truthfully she's more likely to bust on every event than actually complete them. I need someone who's going to land on her feet. Get me Bloodrayne. As a dhampir she may be the first successful gymnast to perform entire in six inch heels. We know she can do flips, cartwheels, and pole swinging. She skates on cables and she can land like a cat after falling several stories. Now just take away the armies trying to kill her and let her work it all into a series of routines and you've got a winner. Preferably when it's cloudy.
4. Know Your Roll (Bowling & Boules Sports)
Okay, I don't know what Boules Sports are; I've looked it up and I still can't explain it. Apparently you roll a metal ball and try to get it close to a target, or some shit (I'm guessing it's the downgraded version of Curling). In any case, throwing a ball at a target sounds an awful lot like Bowling, so I'm using the same athlete for both. I think I may have found someone good at rolling things. His nickname is Buddy and he's kind of a cross between Chewbacca and a sasquatch. He's the sidekick of the 1991 Nintendo-hard video game Another World, and while he isn't personally shown rolling grenades all over the place his species demonstrates a knack for it. And if things get hostile, Buddy's got a great set of 16 bit punch sound effects. Wa-tu ba!
5. You Do the Hockey Saki (Floorball and Inline Hockey)
The differences here are skates or no skates and a puck vs a wiffle ball. But when you get past those very noticeable variations it's a team of five (including a goalie) batting something around with bent sticks, and I don't know that I'll be able to find two separate teams of five with that skillset. The best I can come up with (without bingeing a bunch of 2000's Cartoon Network) is Team Mulan, joined by Yao, Ling, Chien-Po, and Shang (who taught them how to destroy vases with sticks). The inline skates may prove to be a challenge but mastering them in a few weeks isn't out of the question.
6. Bouncing off the walls (Racquetball and Squash)
Okay here's the deal. I obviously want contestants who stand a chance at winning their events, but one) I don't want them to be impossible to beat (hence no Superman on Powerlifting) and two) I want Cowbania's participation to be as entertaining as it can be. And that's why I've chosen Mr. Linea as my racqueteer. If that name doesn't ring a bell, he was the central character in a series of Italian cartoons involving a single white line against a (usually) blue background. The animator's hand would trace the line around the outline of Mr. Linea and turn him loose to face whatever the obstacle of the day was. Mr. Linea was exceptionally versatile, instantly mastering whatever activity he encountered for the first time. His demise was often his own doing, but I expect with a clear opponent his focus will be much better.
Teamwork Makes Us Scream Jerk: Team sports for teams, by teams, a direct result of teams
1. Beach Handball
You know how the rest of the world calls soccer football, and the rationale is actually pretty unshakable (you're using your feet)? Well take the same game but throw the cantaloupe-sized ball around with your hands and you've got handball. Or better yet, play basketball in the sand with the hoops four times the size on the ground. A team of four that can throw and catch. Simple. The Flying Karamazov Brothers. Since I need four exactly, we'll go with the originals: Dmitri, Ivan, Alyosha, and Fyodor.
2. Canoe Polo
So now let's take soccer and put it on a lake and give everybody a double-bladed Nerf lightsaber. The important thing is each team has five players and they need to be able to paddle. Well that gives me a hell of a lot to work with. So a group of five characters with really good arm coordination and don't do much from the waist down. The Electric Mayhem. Now this can go two ways. In-universe, Dr. Teeth, Floyd Pepper, Janice, Zoot, and Animal (and Lips if we need a sub) are all very accomplished musicians, and while being able to play the saxophone doesn't directly translate to rowing skills Muppets are known for versatility. From a fourth wall perspective, Muppeteers can give Oscar-worthy performances with using their hands and I imagine any one of them would mop the floor with the other contestants in an arm wrestling competition.
3. Fistball
I'm learning a lot today. First, take volleyball but keep your fists clenched. And that's it. Real quick, I've just invented a new sport; it's called Bochery! You plant an arrow in the ground and use the drawstring to launch your bow into the air; last archer to lose interest is the winner. So a team of five fistballers. I need a group that can coordinate with each other with strength and accuracy. This took some out of the box thinking but I've settled on Team Johnny Five from Short Circuit. Out of the group of military robots only Number Five is alive, but he reprogrammed One, Two, and Three in mere minutes, and Four can be given instructions of defense. It's a solid team; no disassemble.
4. Flying Disc
Did you know the word Frisbee is trademarked? Anyway. The Flying Disc competition is composed of *checks internet for 23 minutes* seven players. So I need to find a team of seven that's good at throwing things at each other; that should be really fun for me. I think I've got the answer, Team Koopaling. I'm going to have to make a few assumptions about the overall skills of Bowser's children/high ranking minions (depending on the guide book). Larry, Morton, Wendy, Iggy, Roy, Lemmy, and Ludwig tend to split between lobbing projectiles and just pounding through blocks, but I expect they all have at least the ability to catch a saucer. And if this proves to be a massive continuity issue we've got Pom Pom and presumably others to tap in. And each can clearly take two major hits before going down.
5. Korfball
Okay without looking, what do you think Korfball is? Got an image? Good. It's not as cool as that. It's basketball with no touching, and pretty much no moving. A team consists of four men and four women and the additional rule limitations look like they were designed by Milton Bradley. I'm going to take a calculated risk and bring in the core cast of Ranma 1/2; boys and girls respectively: Ranma, Ryoga, Mousse, Kuno, Akana, Ukyou, Shampoo, and Kodachi. Yes, I know they don't get along and there's bound to be internal scheming that I can't do anything about. But they're all martial artists, and begrudgingly obedient to the technicality of the rules. I just expect the court will be demolished by the end of the tournament.
6. Women's Lacrosse
As the World Games only features Men's Lacrosse in the invitational sports I'll only be supplying the team for the Women's version. This is the sport with that weird catcher's glove stick you've seen pictures of but never experienced in gym. Women's Lacrosse differs from Men's Lacrosse in that the only player contact allowed is with the stick, and the team includes a whopping twelve athletes (where in the hell am I going to get this crowd from?). Anime is probably going to be my best bet again, and literally the only team I can think of is the Sailor Senshi; Moon, eight planets (including Pluto, science jerks!), and the Starlights, who qualify post transformation. Damn it, I was saving the senshi for the softball team. *See below. Like right now.
7. Softball
We all know what softball is, it's baseball with fewer amusing injuries. And I don't see anything jumping out at me on the Wikipedia article that says the team has to be all the same gender, so I'm going to stop looking. So I need a team of nine, a ragtag bunch of misfits with differing skills but capable of overcoming stacked odds. And something I give a damn about, so not Firefly. I'm going to go with the full cast of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda. In their prime (before Tyr left and Sorbo rediscovered the Bible) this show was great. And they could be just as great on the softball field. Use the first season lineup, throw in Rhade and Doyle to round out the team (I guess, I stopped watching when everybody else did), and go nuts.
8. Tug of War
Look, I'm not trying to be that guy but this really made it into the World Games as its own event? Not like one part of the Summer Camp Triathlon with Blind Man's Bluff and Tetherball? Well, okay. So a team of eight that can drag something heavy. Man, I want to say Santa's reindeer but I feel I need to draw the line at quadrupeds. Well...maybe I'll take one. A donkey named Eeyore. And the rest of the song: Kanga, Roo, Rabbit, Piglet, Owl, cram in Tigger somewhere, and Winnie the Pooh. I know they aren't exactly Fraggle Rock's rescue squad but it's kind of their collective M.O. to all band together in the end to accomplish a large but simple task. And it's a nice life's lesson; when we all pitch in we can make any other country's team go home in defeat.
The Dual of the Fates: Three for two
1. Dancesport
Ballroom dancing is now recognized as a sport, and I have to say I find this exciting. Dance has often been ignored by Olympic-styled competitions, and I really hope to see pole-dancing on the gymnastics roster in the near future. Now I could pick just about any acrobatic couple for this event, and I've actively tried to steer away from superheroes as much as possible (since they're such obvious choices). But here I'm going with Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle, preferably while they still have some antagonism between them. Bruce is stripped away from the Batman guise, but he's still got his athletics and strength, and Selina was made for this, and they're also not afraid to put each other in danger. Their dance would be one hell of a show.
2. Canoe marathon
Two person kayaking for at least six miles. That's it. That's the event. The strategy here is to put the dumb one in the back and give him a carrot to chase. The one in the front is that carrot, who keeps the boat pointed towards the goal. And thusly we have the canoeing team of Red and Wolfie from the censored 1943 classic Red Hot Riding Hood; a cartoon that's managed to become both not a big damn deal to modern audiences and somehow even worse. I'm not making a judgment on the cartoon here, I'm just taking advantage of it for my own benefit. What's more Hollywood than that?
3. Water Skiing
A quick glance at the rundown on this event shows both men's skiing and women's skiing events, and for that I'm calling this a couple's event, as whichever one isn't skiing will invariably be driving the boat. I only have a passing familiarity with Kim Possible but from what I've seen I feel justified in handing this one to her and Ron. Apparently they get in high stakes situations across the globe (and off it), I think waterskiing is something they can handle.
One is the Looniest Number: An extreme case of individualism
1. Air sports
Air sports is a catch-all term for bungee jumping, paragliding, wingsuit flying, anything that involves going from a high place to the ground without dying. I don't know what specifically The World Games has in store for this event, and I don't really feel like looking it up, so I'm just going to pick an athlete who can fall and not die; Chell from the Portal series. Even without the portal gun, she's a master of walking away from a fall. Anything else in the event is just thinking on her feet -or...well...in this case not.
2. Billiards sports
Can we really justify calling this a sport? Yeah, I get that it requires hand-eye coordination, but so does air hockey (and your incisors are taking a much bigger risk). I was hoping for someone a bit more obscure than Link but I think I'm going to settle for him. One, he uses a variety of weapons for a variety of reasons, and precision stick poking is in his arsenal. Two, in billiards (and whatever the hell else qualifies as any of its other sports) you're not in melee combat, which gives him ample use of that red dot his hookshot uses to aim. Three, it's too delightful imagining him screaming "Tey-yah!" as he calls his shots.
3. Finswimming
Like I say, it feels like too much of a cheat to put Ariel in this so let me find somebody land based with a whole lot of leg power. Or I should say a particular kind of leg power; someone good at hopping, since finswimming requires your legs be strapped together. Someone like Q-Bert, but not him since we also need arms. This one was hard, but I'm going to go really old school. Ludwig Schlemmer; bringing the total of competing Ludwigs up to two. Who the hell is that, you ask? Why, none other than Bobby Van's character in the 1953 MGM musical Small Town Girl. Ludwig did the famous 'Jumping Song' less but more accurately known as "Take Me to Broadway", the number where Ludwig jumps across town to the beat of the music. See Peter Wolf's "Come as You Are" music video for a fairly accurate recreation.
4. Lifesaving
This is a variation on swimming but with a focus on some obstacle course elements and an ability to carry a victim. Does that sound like anybody in Cowbania? Why, yes it does! Old DK himself. The bulk of Donkey Kong's gameplay is obstacle course runs, many of which are underwater; and the ape can hold his breath indefinitely. He's also notorious for carrying things; barrels, other Kongs, etc, and if he's anything like his gramps he knows how to ape-handle a human.
5. Orienteering
Orienteering is apparently a race against time where you're dumped off in a random place and have to get your bearings and haul ass across uneven terrain; you know, day one of every University semester. This was an easy one. Aloy, from the Horizon series. Being able to plot a course on a mental map is kind of her whole gameplay, and she can travel through any climate at constant speeds.
6. Powerlifting
It's no fun to call in a legitimate weight lifter. Naturally we need someone who can accomplish the task, but we also need a bit of drama to break up the...let's say predictability of it. My underdog is going to be Donald Duck. Obviously he's going to be way outside his league and he's going to fail several times and get severely hurt, but we all know that the tantrum is going to come. The angrier he gets, the more his adrenaline goes up, and when that gasket finally blows he's got the strength of the Hulk. For a few seconds anyway. For Powerlifting, it's all you need.
7. Sport climbing
I like seeing this one on the list. Rock/wall climbing has always struck me as potentially fun from my lack-of-upper-body-strength distance. I've got a whole mob of characters who can climb but I'm going to go with an unexpected choice. Wile E. Coyote. It's part of his identity to lose, but this only seems to apply when it comes to catching prey. In reality he's a hell of a climber, apparently with a determination to lug all manner of objects heavier than him to higher venues. And if he falls? We know what the scrawny guy can take.
8. Sumo
Last one. I have literally nothing to say about Sumo apart from the mundanely self-evident. You've got to be big, strong, and able to push people around. Bowser. Because he's big, strong, and he pushes people around. And he has the ability to get bigger, stronger, and pushier as the situation calls for it. So, yeah. Anticlimactic ending. How sad.
The Closing Ceremony
And thus we come to a bittersweet farewell. Medals are given, careers are over, and ultimately everyone is a loser since we're playing outside in Alabama in July about a year away from irreversible climate change. Ordinarily the city hosting the event gets to decide who performs at the closing ceremony, but Cowbania doesn't spectate. Well start off with Ulala and Pudding recreating their guitar duel, leading to a brief appearance from Michigan J. Frog's "Michigan Rag". Willy Seltzer the singer of the Outlaw Golf/Tennis intros refocuses the crowd, followed by an appearance from Trip Cyclone (see Shivers 2) with "Was I Even There". GiGi from There is No Game: Wrong Dimension performs her melancholic ballad, and the Chipettes and Chipmunks do a live performance of "The Girls of Rock 'n' Roll". Then The Hex Girls perform a few of their big hits interspersed with "Parade Float" for Daffy Duck to appear inn the audience with his monster truck, and ending on Splashdown's "You Can Always Be Number One" (joined on stage by Goofy). Ulala returns as a bookend to lead the acapella climax of her first game as the conclusion. And finally GLaDOS descends to tell everyone to cram off with "Want You Gone".
Bringing our final roster of Cowbania World Games talent to 105 (83 athletes, *22 musical performers):
Aloy
Team Andromeda (9)
Bloodrayne
Bowser
Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle (2)
Buddy
Chell
The Chipettes/Chipmunks* (6)
Daffy Duck*
Donald Duck
Donkey Kong
The Electric Mayhem (5)
The Flying Karamazov Brothers (5)
GiGi*
GLaDOS*
Goofy*
The Hex Girls*
Team Hundred Acre Woods (8)
Team Johnny Five (5)
Kim Possible/Ron Stoppable (2)
The Koopalings (7)
Link
Ludwig Schlemmer
Michigan J. Frog*
Mr. Linea
Team Mulan (5)
Nathan Drake
Pudding*
Team Ranma (8)
Red/Wolfie (2)
The Sailor Senshi (12)
Spike Spiegel
Trip Cyclone* (5)
Ulala*
Wile E. Coyote
Willy Seltzer*
