BOTVGH (short for Battle of the Video Game Heroes) was a fan-fiction...thing that lived in relative obscurity and can now be found here
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It was essentially a nonsensical, wacky crossover of every video game (and a few other things) ever with new installments written by tons of different people, though the main cast mostly consisted of your Nintendo classics like Mario, Link, and Samus, many of whom are comedically Out of Character with crack pairings (Cranky Kong X Princess Zelda, anyone?) abound. It has a unique style in which a picture is used instead of a name, but is otherwise standard script format. It was done in the style of a TV show, having "episodes" and "seasons,"while in-universe ads for new episodes of things are seen on TV, regardless of the fact that lots of the Breaking the Fourth Wall moments that lampshade the fact that the show is nothing more than a "cheap crossover fanfiction with pictures." New "episodes" were made from 1996-2002, explaining why many of the jokes are very, very out of date. The quality of the actual episodes themselves tends to vary wildly, Depending on the Writer; lots of writers with different styles and interpretations of the characters lead to lots of inconsistency, though the more dramatic story arcs by Sean Kelly were rather popular. The general tone seems to be more comedic with a cynical style and with No Fourth Wall.
Has quite a few spin-offs. Most of them are ridiculously broken - several episodes "haven't been posted yet after the move" (this was many years ago and they still aren't there), several images are missing, and in the case of one of them, half the episodes were completely lost (extensive internet searching will find a few missing ones on some archive)
This work contains examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Season 2's finale ends on a cliffhanger, in which Peach and Toad have armed themselves with power-ups and are about to confront three incarnations of King K. Rool. Season 3's premiere doesn't address this at all.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Plenty, but any mascots from rival consoles consistently tried to oppose everyone that was a Nintendo character.
- Author Guest Spot: Two in-universe examples.
- The first one, Bowser's First Episode, involves Mario character Bowser playing the role of Author. Unfortunately, he winds up abusing his Author Powers and Martin revokes his author privileges.
- Luna the Cat from Sailor Moon gets one for the New Years Episode after winning a bet against UDX in a game of Super Smash Bros. Melee. Though it is rumored she retired from the author scene sometime after it was done.
- Author Avatar: Happens a lot. Some have the same Mario-like image of a person with the trademark Mario hat. Others have their own unique designs(Ex: UDX, Sean Kelly, Klawkat). Author Chris Johnson averted this trope twice.
- Berserk Button: Seymour Big Cheese in the early episodes brings his old berserk button from Samurai Pizza Cats in, only now it seems he's become rather more of a
- Hair-Trigger Temper: with him exploding a lot.
- Big Bad: Dr. Wily usually has this role, although there have been a few story arc villains.
- Butt-Monkey:
- Luigi in the early shorts.
- This usually happens to anyone caught in the crossfire.
- Crossover: Mario meets Samurai Pizza Cats, Legend of Zelda, Mega Man, Pokemon, Final Fantasy, Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, etc.
- Depending on the Writer: The style of humor in an episode, character personality consistency and frequency of cow droppings varied wildly because of the increasing amount of rotating authors, a problem that led to decreasing quality, as acknowledged by H Cuz after the series wound up on hiatus (and before its eventual abandonment}.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: One of the shorts ended with the Cow King trying to drop a cow on Sean Kelly, for having been humiliated by him. In retaliation, he was put under arrest and sent away to the villain's resort for a few seasons.
- Drop the Cow: Constantly. Usually to end an episode when it ran its course, but occasionally mostly for other reasons, like punishing a character for having done something to offend the author, or just plain stupidity.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: See below. In addition, dropping the cow had only been used as a one-off gag in relation to Earthworm Jim being in one episode, before it became commonplace.
- Excuse Plot: The series started out as a bunch of arguments between Mario and Cranky. It got better defined once more characters have steadily shown up.
- Face–Heel Turn: Author Wario the III becomes the evil Sir Goodn.
- Failure Is the Only Option: The series' main setting is DK Island, with everyone stuck on it. Naturally, any attempts at leaving it inevitably result with coming right back.
- Jerkass: Oh ye Gods, so many. Especially Mario, Cranky, and SO MANY of the authors and writers.
- King of All Cosmos: Besides the authors, there is also Cow King and his subordinate General Cowamov, cow beings responsible for the many cow drops that occur.
- Lampshade Hanging: All the time.
- Love Martyr: Link's attempts to woo Samus Aran rarely end well.
- Medium Awareness: Confusing in that they are both aware that they're on a webpage and that they're on TV in their own universe. So they're aware of a false medium within their real medium, while also being aware of their real medium yet lampshading their regular medium, too.
- Moral Guardian: The Fat Lady from Earthbound, introduced in Season 5 Episode 19: Strict BOTVGH, who wanted to replace BOTVGH with a more Disney-themed Fan Fiction.
- No Fourth Wall: Clearly evident. Many, many episodes have the characters speaking with both the author and the narrator, and this is merely a casual occurrence.
- Running Gag: Well, there is this one running- *cow falls on troper*
- The First season had Big Cheese exploding. And Cranky Kong is usually the victim of the explosions.
- Power Trio: The Rock of WWE, Brock of Pokemon and Chunky Kong sometimes formed a wrestling trio.
- Say My Name: Subverted. No matter how many times Mario complains, Cranky Kong always calls him Jumpman.
- Self-Insert Fic: The authors themselves are in almost every episode, though rather than being Mary Sues they're merely regular people who are sometimes even hated by the characters themselves.
- Shout-Out: The cow running gag may be one to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Though it also came off of Earthworm Jim
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The more comedic (and often better) episodes are definitely closer to the cynical side. To quote Peach, "...........Oh, wait, no. This is BOTVGH; peace is impossible."
- Spin-Off: The series had a few of these. The most noteworthy one was Reign of the Video Game Villains (named after an attempted takeover of DK/BOTVGH Island), which featured the most recurring villains hanging out in their own resort.
- Take That!: As BOTVGH was a Nintendo-themed service, it often poked fun at SEGA's Sonic the Hedgehog
- The Fat Lady's demand for a more Disney-themed fanfiction poked fun at Disney's family-friendly tune
- Some authors (Ex: UDX) took this trope too far by bashing fellow author Ian Pugh and his Full House time. This forced Martin to implement some rules.
- Terrible Trio: Sonic of the Sonic series, Sigma of Mega Man X, and that Mama's boy Sephiroth of Final Fantasy VII.
*cow falls on whatever random character happens to have said something*
