Trivia / Club Penguin

• Ascended Fanon:
  • The Rainbow Puffle had been rumored since the later 2000s, but it finally arrived at the March 2013 Puffle Party.
  • The Golden Puffle also came, just before Operation: Puffle.
  • The ending of Operation Blackout revealed that Aunt Arctic is the Director.
  • This exchange in a comic:
    Lime green penguin: I've mastered ALL the elements! Fire, Snow, AND Water!
    Orange penguin: Not ALL the elements.
    Lime green penguin: You know Shadow?!
    Orange penguin: I know Cheese!
  • Players had tried "tipping the iceberg" with drills for probably as long as the iceberg had been a thing, but it was only when the game was about to close down in 2017 that the ability to tip the iceberg was finally added.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: Club Penguin once sold gangbusters unlike any other virtual world. Enough to merit its own merchandise, books, and spin-off games. Ultimately, however, it was run down to the ground and discontinued when it stopped being profitable.
• Creator Backlash: Former staff member, Chris Hendricks (known by his username Screenhog), who worked in lots of things during the game's initial years, regrets making the penguin's design on the player card the way it is. While he does appreciate how iconic and loved that drawing has become, he's pointed out in some videos that he sketched and finished the drawing in under 15 minutes, on his first attempt, back when Club Penguin did not have a definitive art style yet; by his own words, it looks "dumpy-looking, with a clueless expression its his face, and its beak is a weird shape", and besides stuck out like a sore thumb in comparison to the rest of the artwork seen on the game's later years. However, it had to stay for the remainder of the game's duration because it would be insanely hard and time-consuming to redraw every item on the player card if the penguin paper doll was changed.
• Development Gag:
  • The Costume Catalog was located in the Puffleberry Mall, which replaced the Stage. The store's sign that contains it even has the comedy/tragedy masks that used to be seen above the theater.
  • In the PSA mission "Operation Spy and Seek", a penguin calls the Hydro Hopper "you old biscuit", a reference to the game's original name, "Ballistic Biscuit".
  • Among the country flag pins is the obscure Central American country of Belize. This was added as a reference to programmer Chris Priebe, who was working on Club Penguin remotely from Belize at the time.
• Fandom Nod:
  • PSA mission #10 references the famously rumored "golden puffle", with it instead being a literal golden puffle statue.
  • The Halloween party had a painting showcasing the iceberg being tipped.
• Follow the Leader: Club Penguin had lots of MMOs which simply copied its format, such as Pandanda and Panfu.
• Franchise Killer: The negative reception of Club Penguin Island caused the game to be shut down by the end of 2018, putting the lid on the series. Attempts to continue it unofficially by fans were mostly squashed by Disney sending out DMCA takedowns in 2020 after predatory allegations were made towards the owner of Club Penguin Online, leaving Club Penguin Rewritten the sole option of Club Penguin living past Flash until it was forcibly shut down on April 13th, 2022. That was one month before Club Penguin Legacy opened and became the sole option as well. Time will tell for how long CPL is going to be up for.
• Milestone Celebration: While an anniversary party was held each year, the 10 Year Anniversary Party from 2015 was probably the most effort put into a party in years, with most rooms having the decorations of parties from every previous year, and even going so far as to have a dedicated yearbook in the book room.
• No Budget: The budget for the very first versions of Club Penguin was minuscule, the game effectively being an update to an experimental chatroom program that Lance Priebe had made in his spare time. Chris Hendricks recalls that they used Swift 3D as their modeling tool mainly because they couldn't afford the $1,000 license for 3D Studio Max.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: The sole reason why Club Penguin Rewritten was forcibly shut down in April 2022. In the lead-up to said shutdown, the developers implemented advertisements in the Rockhopper's Daily Treasure that players were forced to watch and could not skip with an adblocker. They also patched a workaround for that to ensure this happens. Monetizing the game like this gave a law enforcement group called "Operation Creative" means to take control of the website and shut down the server, resulting in the arrests of at least three of its developers by the City of London Police.
• Throw It In!: Aunt Arctic being the PSA/EPF Director wasn't the original intention; "clues" such as her gaining sunglasses when you mouse over her portrait in the newspaper and her initials corresponding with the mysterious 27th cipher letter weren't actually intentional, but once the idea of the spy agency having an anonymous director was pitched, Aunt Arctic was the only candidate who made sense at the time, and all the "clues" turned out to be pretty useful coincidences that worked in her favor.
• Urban Legend of Zelda:
  • There was a rumor which mentions that if many people use the Hard Hat and jackhammer one side of the Iceberg, it will tip over. It didn't. Until the shutdown was announced, at least; now this is exactly the method to tip it over, revealing a setup fit for a dance party and a message from the devs.
    • In the mobile versions, the Iceberg would tilt very slightly depending on how many penguins were on either side, though it would never completely tip over.
  • There were many rumors stating how to get to Rockhopper Island. One of the more popular ones was to stay on the Migrator past its leaving date. Word of God states that Rockhopper Island was to be implemented in the game at one point, but was never put in.
• Word of God: The reason why there weren't any bed furniture items in Club Penguin was to prevent players from simulating inappropriate actions (although some players improvised their own beds by mixing-and-matching existing furniture). When kids asked about it, the mods gave the excuse that they didn't have bed furniture because "penguins sleep standing up".
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Aunt Arctic being the Director was actually an afterthought. Despite players interpreting several clues to have been foreshadowing towards the Director's true identity (such as Aunt Arctic's glasses becoming darker when the player hovers the cursor above it on the newspaper), it was stated that the Director was originally conceived with no clear identity in mind, and Aunt Arctic was chosen simply by process of elimination, as she was the only mascot that would fit the role at the time.
• What Could Have Been: Has its own page.
• Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things:
  • There was once a postcard called the "Get Better Soon" postcard, which was meant to be sent to players who were sick. However, people started using it as a form of death threat, which caused it to be removed from the catalog in 2008.
  • The ability to type numbers into the game chat was removed to discourage kids from sharing phone numbers and other personal information with it.
  • One of the early emoticons was a skull, which was meant to be used for ignoring other players. It was removed in November 2007, when players started using it to pretend to be dead or, like the aforementioned postcard, use it as a form of death threat. The emoticon only remained as the symbol for the ignore list. The heart emoticon was removed at the same time, although it was brought back a couple months later.
• Working Title: The original 2000 program by Lance Priebe that would evolve into Club Penguin was named Experimental Penguins, followed by the more recognizable Penguin Chat.
• Writer Revolt: In a video by artist and musician Chris Hendricks titled "5 Things I Didn't Want in Club Penguin (but got in the game anyway)", he explained that the game's implementation of realistic hair was this. Chris was against this idea, feeling that it looks weird on the penguins and that it humanizes them too much, despite hair being a popular fan request. The 'Clown Hair' wig was first implemented as a protest against this idea before the Big Wigs catalog was introduced with three major conditions: The hairstyles would explicitly be named "wigs", they would look like wigs rather than natural hair, and a vote would be held in the newspaper as to whether the wigs should stay in the game. Eventually, the pro-hair side won out, and more realistic-looking wigs were added down the road.

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