Webcomic / Mulberry

Mulberry fears no authority.

"Not everyone in a regal situation is an airheaded whiny stuck-up bimbo. No, some of us are intelligent. Some of us pose an actual THREAT to you. Get me?"

— Mulberry Sharona

Peter Paltridge, the host of Platypus Comix, created Mulberry in 2004. The title character, who has also become Platypus Comix's mascot, had previously appeared in the final strips of another comic, Marin Meadow. Mulberry features Mulberry Sharona, a 16-year old heiress from Seven Springs, California, who has managed to avoid becoming an Upper-Class Twit thanks to Parental Abandonment. Accompanied by her friends Jack, The One Guy, and Taffeta "Taffy" Sparks, the Dumb Blonde housekeeper, this Non-Idle Rich girl makes adventures out of any scheme she comes up with.

Mulberry made a leap to the printed page in 2012, when Peter Paltridge began including new comics of hers in his periodical, BANG! Magazine.

Not to be confused with the web game Millsberry.

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This comic provides examples of:

Webcomics

• Accidental Innuendo: Mulberry accidentally lets Brad Pitt's and Angelina Jolie's children, left for her to babysit in "Heiress A Parent", overhear some invoked examples.
• Acronym Confusion: "Just Another Manic Monday" has a flashback in which Mulberry mistakes a meeting of the World Wildlife Federation (sic) for a slow-paced World Wrestling Federation match. Tired of constantly forgetting which "WWF" stands for what, she asks some "powerful allies" to change the World Wrestling Federation's name to something with different initials-hence their re-branding as World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: "Enpoopification (Taylor's Version)" has Burger Food restaurants equip their drive-thrus with an AI that sounds like Taylor Swift. Despite their tendencies to misunderstand orders, the original AI quickly grows smarter with additional customer data, and swears to somehow replace the real Taylor Swift.
• All Just a Dream: The last three pages of "Just Another Manic Monday".
• Animated Actors: Mulberry even has an account at the forum of Platypus Comix's parent site, Toon Zone.
• Armor-Piercing Question: In "Mul/Kerry/Bush", a bunch of protestors on the front lawn of Mulberry's mansion, angry over her forced Fusion Dance of Bush and Kerry, point out that a leader like this won't be able to defend the country effectively — and even Mulberry realizes they have a point, since having two conflicting brains means Mulkerrybush can't make up their mind on anything.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Mulberry's struggles in "Heiress A Parent" to find something appropriate for the kids to watch include bypassing TV shows with "sex, violence, violent sex, violence", and "Bob Saget".
• Art Shift:
  • "Mul/Kerry/Bush" shifts to brown-and-white sketches as Mulberry and her friends drop Dr. Badass out of the 2004 election.
  • "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mulberry" became more realistic-looking for Mulberry's three-page recap of the first season finale of Heroes.
  • "Mulberry's Epic Yarn" turns Deliberately Monochrome as Mulberry and Taffy decide to have some "PB&J" by singing the Peter, Bjorn, and John song "Young Folks."
• Artifact of Attraction: In "A Terrible Fate", a Majora's Mask Nintendo 3DS XL stolen from Mulberry becomes craved by seemingly every Nintendo fan in the vicinity of Seven Springs.
• Ass Pull: In-universe: Mulberry has to come up with one for Brittany's Murphy's final movie in "Murphy's Lawn," since it originally had No Ending. When the movie comes out with her ending attached, all the viewers seem amazed and satisfied with the twist.
• Attention Whores: The Seven Spring heiresses who grew up to become ditzier than Mulberry, such as her adversary, Spoiled Brat Mary Roach.
• Author Avatar: Mulberry herself.
  Peter Paltridge: It's pretty obvious here, but in the Comic-Con spread and several other instances, Mulberry is just a stand-in for myself — me in the body of a teenage rich girl. (Why? Because Mulberry is cooler than me.)
• Author Tract
• Awesome McCoolname: "The Game of Life" gives Mulberry control of a Deceptively Human Robot she names " Davy Doowop-Abop-Shadoom-Boom-Pow," needing to come up with a better name than current greatest-name-holder Cherry Chevapravatdumrong. He's called "DD" for short.
• Berserk Button: Mulberry will make you pay if you call women overemotional.
• Bottle Episode: The majority of "Just Another Manic Monday" occurs in a nondescript room of Mulberry's mansion.
• Bowdlerise: "Enpoopification (Taylor's Version)" censors the more profane term for "poop" in its title and Title Drops. This page even writes it in a different color than the rest of the word.
• Brick Joke:
  • Both of Mulberry's flashbacks of meeting Britney Spears in "Death by Captain and Tenille" involve her holding a hideous creature (first a stray kitten, then Kevin Federline) and asking, "Look! Isn't it pretty?" Thirteen pages later, a terrorist expresses disgust at America's "uncovered women," prompting a scene of Britney mooning paparazzi and repeating the question she asked Mulberry twice.
    • Mulberry meets Britney again in the next issue, "Scary Berry." Britney shows off her shaved head and asks once again, "Look! Isn't it pretty?"
  • "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mulberry" begins with Mulberry and her friends attending Veronica Mars' funeral following her show's cancellation. A fanboy suddenly enters and tries in vain to bring her back to life. Near the end of the comic, he encounters Veronica's actress, Kristen Bell, but she has taken on the form of Elle Bishop from Heroes.
• The Cameo:
  • Ilana, Lance, and Octus of Sym-Bionic Titan share a bus ride with DD in "The Game of Life".
  • Nemi and Cyan make an appearance in "Hielten Sich Für Captain Kirk".
• Characterization Marches On: When the series first started, Jack was a little bit dimmer and seemed more easily excitable. He soon settled into being more of a moderating force between Mulberry and Taffy.
• Christmas Episode: "Mulberry's Surrogate Family".
• Cliffhanger: "Scary Berry" ended with Mulberry in rehab. Readers didn't learn the resolution until "Prison Broke" came 5 1/2 months later.
• Consummate Liar: DD in "The Game of Life". Among other things, he becomes Mayor of Portland by feigning a relationship with the Kennedys, and claims that Mitt Romney considered him for a running mate. Justified in that he needs a backstory in order to pass off as a human and "win" the Game of Life.
• Continuity Cameo:
  • Joan of Arc, who had risen from the dead in a two-part comic titled "Raiders of the Lost Arc," makes appearances in "Franken-Berry."
  • A news report in "Obamadramarama" contains appearances by Dan Blather and Keiki character Andrea.
  • Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson, as portrayed in the Platypus Comix miniseries True Believers,form part of a crowd scene in "If Ya Don't Eat Your Mulberry, Ya Can't Have Any Pudding! How Can Ya Have Any Pudding If Ya Don't Eat Your Mulberry??"
  • TeBOING!ss, the Kesha caricature from the Scrambled Eggs comic "It's Square to Be Hip," smokes a bubble hookah in "Mulberry's Epic Yarn."
• Couch Gag: Ever since 2005, issues have used old, unusual-looking comic book covers instead of covers that bear direct relevance to the story. Some of them have Mulberry photoshopped into the scenes, but issues from October 2008 onward depict the covers unaltered.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: As Mulberry informs Jack, he wouldn't have gotten pursued by the government in "Jack the Ripper" if instead of downloading an illegal patch for Planet of Warcraft, he just asked Mulberry for $64.95 to buy an upgraded version.
• Criminal Amnesiac: George W. Bush's daughter Barbara in "Year Six."
• Crossover:
  • Peter announced two fake ones as a prank: a video game titled, Mulberry and Sonic at the Olympic Games, and a graphic novel titled, Archie Meets the Punisher Meets Mulberry.
  • "Artifacting" has Mulberry race against Indiana Jones and Lara Croft in a quest for Ren and Stimpy's History Eraser Button.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Taffy defeats a zombie Orville Redenbacher in "Franken-berry".
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: At the end of the page where Mulberry introduces herself, Jack, and Taffy to new readers, she claims the site has infected one of the reader's folders, and opening that folder would render the computer incapable of visiting any website other than the one for Dora the Explorer.
• Darker and Edgier: One of Pitt's and Jolie's children becomes corrupted in "Heiress A Parent" after playing an M-rated version of Cooking Mama.
• The Dead Rise to Advertise: "Franken-Berry" contains a literal example. Procter and Gamble win an auction for MIT scientists to resurrect one deceased person, and pick Orville Reddenbacher (sic) as the person to bring back so that he can create new popcorn commercials.
• Deadpan Snarker: Mulberry on occasion.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: In "Just Another Manic Monday," Jack overhears Mulberry speak some of her darkest secrets while sleeping.
• Dirty Old Man: Mulberry abuses one in "Mulberry Sharona, Slayer of WASPs". She then finds out lots of heiresses in her town desire him because of his high social status.
• Disney Death: Two in the recap at the beginning of "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mulberry".
• Disproportionate Retribution: "Mulberry: OFFENDED!" has Mulberry set out to kill a comedian who called women overemotional a year earlier.
• Does Not Like Men: Jezebel in "Jeboozled".
• Dub-Induced Plotline Change: In-universe, Mulberry presents one of Naruto in "Mulberry's 2004 Fall TV Preview".
  Mulberry: Through the magic of editing, 4Kids Productions has turned a ninja cartoon into a depiction of daily American school life! Naruto is now known here as Larry and His Socially Conscious Adventures, and it's being hailed by critics as "Doug for the 21st Century! Here's a peek!"
  (Three page preview plays)
  Mulberry: Some complain that things like this destroy the original artist's vision. I say, who cares? The man's all the way back in Japan; how's he gonna find out?
  Jack: And he probably doesn't have internet...
• Easy Amnesia: Barbara Pierce Bush loses her memory in "Year Six" during a terrorist attack, and regains it after Taffy pushes her out of Mulberry's helicopter right before she can stab them.
• Engineered Public Confession: In "Mulberry's 2009 Fall TV Preview", Mulberry tricks a writer for The CW into publicly broadcasting his beliefs that Viewers Are Morons, but none of The CW's viewers feel offended because they really are morons.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In "Obadramarama", power-hungry Jerkass Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mulberry accidentally switch bodies. Hillary tries to seize the opportunity to rise to even greater power than before, but decides to switch back after her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, fails to recognize her with her new body and voice.
  Jack: Really? You want to go back?
  Hillary Clinton: As long as I'm in this body, I'll never see Chelsea again! Even if I gain the world...it's not worth it if I lose my only child! It's not worth it...I've been so stupid! I've been so greedy and stupid!
  Jack: Well...wow, I have to say I'm surprised...
  Hillary Clinton: What kind of a monster do you think I am????
• Fake-Out Opening: "Jack the Ripper" begins by showing a fire-launching, silhouetted person exploring a village, but it turns out the person is just a character Jack is playing in an online game.
• Faking the Dead: To protect themselves from terrorists and their father's haters, Jenna and Barbara Bush resort to this at the end of "Year Six." The girls' father refused their kidnappers' demands to pull troops out of Iraq, leaving them in danger of beheading, and the building where they were being held hostage exploded.
• Finger Gun: Mulberry's main weapon in "Mulberry's Epic Yarn".
• Fish out of Water: "Mulberry Sharona, Slayer of WASPs" lands Mulberry at a country club gathering of airheaded heiresses.
• Filler Strip: "Murphy's Lawn" was written to tide Platypus Comix readers over as Peter spent extra time completing a four-part Electric Wonderland comic.
• A Friend in Need: Mulberry often acknowledges the importance of her friendships with Jack and Taffy, whether she or one of them is the one in need.
• Follow the Leader:
  • "Mulberry vs. Wal-Mart" begins as Mulberry learns her companies are losing money to Wal-Mart. In response, she, Jack, and Taffy, then spend a few hours in one of their stores. At the end of the comic, Mulberry applies what she learned from the trip into opening her own store.
  • Mulberry finds herself resorting to this in "Mulberry's Lawn," while trying to turn Brittany Murphy's last movie (Asylum Pictures' UFO vs. Killer Unicorn) into a Hollywood blockbuster. Universal nearly rejects the film for not having enough blue people, but she manages to get around that by promising "4-D" special effects instead. Mulberry also broadens appeal by changing the title to The Feel Sandwich, in hopes of earning a Hurt Locker-level of critical acclaim, and turning Flava Flav's character from a little boy to a sparkly vampire.
• For Inconvenience, Press "1": Taffy's attempt in "Death By Captain and Tenille" to help Mulberry order an airplane over the phone doesn't go well because no button exists for such a request, and the voice responder mishears Taffy when she asks to buy a plane. Mulberry blows up the responder by delivering a Logic Bomb over the phone. At the end of the comic, an old lady tries to order tickets to Las Vegas from the same airline Taffy called, and instead gets sold an airplane.
• Forbidden Fruit: "Hielten Sich Für Captain Kirk" has Mulberry warn a woman not to watch Threads, simply because it will "ruin [her] life." After she does so, the graphic imagery of nuclear fallout leaves her traumatized and fearful of a nuclear strike.
• Foreshadowing: "Franken-Berry" contains a scene Mulberry asks Taffy if she remembers the time they searched for the History Eraser Button, but after Jack says he doesn't, Mulberry remembers that comic won't appear at Platypus Comix for another seven months.
• Formula-Breaking Episode:
  • "Mulberry's 2004 Fall TV Preview" consists of Mulberry and Jack promoting mostly non-existent shows and commercials to the readers.
  • "Faces and Places" has Mulberry inexplicably hosting her own talk show and interviewing an animation veteran.
• Global Ignorance: Mary attempts to attract tabloids in "Prison Broke" by landing herself in jail. However, things don't go as planned, so she asks Mulberry to come to Mexico and rescue her. It later turns out that Mary actually ended up in her family's California hotel.
• Go Seduce My Archnemesis: Mary Roach tells Mulberry that she treated her more nicely than usual in "Mulberry Sharona, Slayer of WASPs" in hopes that Mulberry will seduce a policeman that wouldn't accept Mary's bribes.
• Grand Theft Me:
  • In "Obamadramarama," Mulberry's scheme to take control of Sarah Palin's body goes awry when she and her friends obtain the wrong hair sample, giving Hilary Clinton control over Mulberry's body.
  • At one point in "Mulberry's Epic Yarn," Mulberry and Taffy find a room full of View-Masters that allow users to see from the perspective of a celebrity, and also control what that person says and does. Incidentally, Mulberry briefly uses one to finally control Sarah Palin.
• Heroic BSoD: Mulberry's reaction in "Murphy's Lawn" to the news that Brittany Murphy died.
  Mulberry: NOOO-HO-HOOO! Every time I said, "Kill all celebrities," I would always whisper, "except one." Brittany Murphy was that one!
  Jack: I'm sorry... This is really hitting you hard, isn't it?
  Mulberry: This isn't like Michael Jackson or Patrick Swayze...I actually mean it this time!
• Here We Go Again!: "Hielten Sich Für Captain Kirk" ends with Mulberry warning the leader of Iran not to watch Threads.
• Homage: "GameSaw" has a storyline kind of like Saw, except that the torture involves working at GameStop.
• Homage Shot: After getting shot by a bazooka in "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mulberry", Hayden Panettiere heals in a manner similar to that of the T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Taffy lampshades this by asking, "Cool! What other movies can you imitate with your body?"
• Hurt Foot Hop: In a page of the comic "Artifacting", Jack steps on the sharp object that substituted for an Indiana Jones-style Paramount logo and howls while holding his foot.
• I Am Not Spock: In-universe Nice Character, Mean Actor Hayden Panettiere doesn't react kindly to Jack calling her, "Claire" in "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mulberry". Later, Kristen Bell asks a Veronica Mars fan not to call her, "Veronica Mars", since that show had died.^note This comic predates the Veronica Mars movie. She does allow him to call her, "Elle", but only after she finishes getting into that role.
• I Should Write a Book About This: "The last page of "Enpoopification (Taylor's Version)" begins with a news report of Taylor Swift releasing a new hit song based on her encounter with the AI.
• Insistent Terminology: Mulberry, Taffy, and Jezebel insist in "Jeboozled" that men always refer to people with a female gender as "women" instead of, "girls", although women can call each other girls.
• Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha!:
  • Mulberry's battle with Hayden Panettiere in "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mulberry" includes some robots.^note Mulberry controlled the silver and purple 'bot, while Panettiere used the gray and green one.
  • "The Game of Life" has Mulberry literally play the game by controlling a Deceptively Human Robot to find a career and love, among other things.
• Intoxication Ensues: The contents of Paula Abdul's Coke glass have this affect on Mulberry in "Scary Berry."
• Invisible Parents: Apparently, Mulberry's parents have spent so little time with her, she has forgotten what they look like. (Once, she nearly fell for George W. Bush's attempt to pull a Luke, I Am Your Father on her) Jack and Taffy have admitted to having parents, but they do not live on the Sharona estate.
• It's Been Done: Mulberry tries to find legendary objects in "Artifacting," released the same month as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but explorers from all areas of fiction beat her to each object she tries to find during the first nine pages.
• Jumping-On Point: Peter wrote "Hielten Sich Für Captain Kirk" especially to help acquaint BANG! readers with Mulberry's resourcefulness and possible lack of tolerance, in case some of them never visited Platypus Comix.
• Justified Criminal: In "Prison Broke", Mulberry learns that Mary's kidnappers only want better treatment while they work at the Roach Hotel. She decides to help them fulfill this desire.
• Justified Title: "Year Six" is explained as referring to the sixth year of George W. Bush's presidency, the time Mulberry has predicted will mark the Democrats' largest effort to get him impeached.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Early on in "Obamadramarama," Mulberry explains that whoever she will switch brains with later will not remember anything she did while in Mulberry's body, and instead assume she went unconscious for the duration of the switch.
• Last-Second Word Swap: After Mulberry fails in "Heiress A Parent" to convince the President of Television to lessen the amount of programs children can't watch, she exclaims, "Go to...a field of daisies!" after noticing one of her wards standing near her.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: As a result of her interactions with Mulberry in "Year Six," Jenna Bush becomes more defiant and beats up terrorists who try to kill her sister.
• Lightmare Fuel:
  • When the wards in "Heiress A Parent" start laughing wildly at news reports about the "weinergate" scandal, Taffy tells them about a PSA in which a man laughed so hard at dirty jokes, he turned into a donkey, then exploded. Taffy then asks the children if they want to die that way.
  • The Mitty Bear from "The Game of Life."
• Lonely Rich Kid: Mulberry realizes she's one in "Mulberry's Surrogate Family," as Jack and Taffy prepare to visit their families for Christmas, and she confesses to them that her parents are never around.
• Made of Iron: "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mulberry" reveals Hayden Panettiere to have as much invincibility as her Heroes character, Claire Bennet.
• Malicious Misnaming: When Mulberry interviews Zooey Deschanel in "Mulberry's 2012 Fall TV Preview", she asks Mulberry to pronounce her name like, "Zoe". Instead, Mulberry calls her, "Zoo-ee".
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Fed up with all the Product Placement she must endure while watching Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in "If Ya Don't Eat Your Mulberry, Ya Can't Have Any Pudding! How Can Ya Have Any Pudding If Ya Don't Eat Your Mulberry??", Mulberry decides to unleash balloons of popular, completely random characters. The characters end up having an epic battle, until]] Santa Claus blows them up and makes candy rain down.
• Medium Blending: "Let's Scare Mary Roach to Death" combines character drawings with photographic backgrounds as Mulberry forces Mary to spend a night in the abandoned, decaying Dixie Square Mall.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • By the end of "Artifacting," Mulberry has obtained the History Eraser Button before Indy and Lara, and even turned John Kricfalusi into less of an egomaniac. Unfortunately, she accidentally sits on the History Eraser Button, seemingly erasing history in the process.
  • At the end of "Heiress A Parent", Mulberry decides to directly remind Pitt's and Jolie's children that TV doesn't always accurately teach right from wrong, especially when sex and/or violence become involved. However, after the children assure Mulberry that they won't follow Barney's pornographic-sounding suggestion for a Google image search, Mulberry tells them, "Remember, this is the same TV that keeps telling you Santa Claus is real!" The children don't seem to react kindly to this.
  • Mulberry learns in "Mulberry's 2012 Fall TV Preview" that Community is getting Screwed by the Network as revenge for her ticking off an NBC executive.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The technicians of the torrent website in "Jack the Ripper" resemble Gabe and Tycho.
• Nonstandard Character Design:
  • John Kricfalusi, in "Artifacting," is drawn in the style of his cartoons as opposed to Peter's comics.
  • In "Murphy's Lawn," Brittany Murphy resembles Luanne Platter. Peter once had plans to draw her like this more often.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Mulberry tries to prevent Jack from hearing any more of her secrets in "Just Another Manic Monday" by asking him to check all of the mansion's smoke detectors, lest she make him face Smokey Bear "again".
  • When Mulberry asks Jack in "Prison Broke" why she didn't try to restrain her after Intoxication Ensued, Jack explains that he felt scared that she would shoot him. She asks him to remember how many times she nearly shot him, so he reminds her that it happened five times.
  • When Mulberry meets Brittany Murphy's angel in "Murphy's Lawn", Mulberry exclaims that she's not crazy. Murphy then corrects her by saying Mulberry really was crazy the last seven times she saw her angel.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Everything Mulberry did to ruin UsefulNotes/HillaryClinton's life in "Obamadramarama".
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Mulberry wears eight in "Let's Scare Mary Roach to Death", including one of "some bum person". Mary doesn't see through any of them until the end, when Mystery, Inc. explains everything to her.
• Perpetual Beta: The second half of "Prison Broke" and "Obamadramarama" received black-and-white releases in 2007 and 2008, respectively, and still haven't been colored in.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Taffy has rarely done any housecleaning onscreen. Possibly justified if Mulberry's adventures leave her with not enough time to do her work.
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: Too many examples to list here.
• Punny Name: In "Mul/Kerry/Bush," Taffy remarks that if Mulberry were George W. Bush's daughter, her name would be "Mulberry Bush." After combining Bush with John Kerry,Mulberry decides to name her creation "Mulkerrybush" as a variation on the name.
• Refusal of the Call: Having raised the possibility on the third page of "Franken-Berry" that some zombies want to revisit their loved ones instead of eat brains, Mulberry initially refuses the opportunity to fight zombies at a TV commercial studio. She caves in two panels later.
• Russian Reversal: When Mulberry and her friends visit Russia in "Prison Broke", Jack claims to have trouble believing they're really there, since "the movies aren't watching people, the hamburgers aren't eating people, [and] the pants aren't wearing people". Mulberry explains that things have changed since the Soviets lost power. However, a later panel shows an anthropomorphic burger threatening to eat a Russian.
• Schmuck Bait: Taffy falls for some in "Death By Captain and Tenille" when she buys a bottle of perfume promising to contain Britney Spears' favorite smell. The perfume came from when Britney was still married to Kevin Federline, so it smells like his armpit.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Non-Idle Rich girl Mulberry manages to pull off such schemes as messing with Presidential elections and staging a fight between Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Mulberry and her friends investigate Mexico and Russia while searching for Mary Roach in "Prison Broke", only to find that she and her kidnappers never left Seven Springs.
• Shout-Out:
  • Some scenes in "Murphy's Lawn" parallel "Wings of the Dope" (which Peter has listed as one of his favorite King of the Hill episodes), such as Murphy showing Mulberry her new name tag ("Brittany Murphy's Angel") and Mulberry and Murphy bouncing on a mattress as "Life in a Northern Town" plays.
  • Mulberry's viewing of Once Upon a Time in "Mulbery's 2012 Fall TV Preview" turns into an homage of The Neverending Story.
    • Another scene references Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart.
  • When Mulberry asks Jack in "The Game of Life" who has the coolest name he can think of, he answers by name-dropping Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, one of the co-producers of Family Guy.
• Skintone Sclerae
• Spoof Aesop: Mulberry gives one in "Mulberry Sharona, Slayer of WASPs".
  Mulberry: What's the problem, boys?
  Boy: Our ball just went over that fence! And it's our only ball!
  Mulberry: Then I hope you've learned your lesson! This is what you get when you choose to play outside instead of sitting indoors playing video games!
  Boys: We're sorry. It won't happen again!
• Start My Own: "Death By Captain and Tenille" (sic) has Mulberry try to skip over the tedious process of airport security by buying her own airplane.
• Stating the Simple Solution: In "Jack the Ripper", Mulberry uses disguise and deception to free Jack from prison. Afterward, he asks Mulberry why she didn't just pay the bail. She answers, "This way was more fun!"
• The Stinger: The last page of "A Terrible Fate" cuts to white after Mulberry proclaims, "Now if you don't mind, I'm going to go outside and play with my rare defect amiibo of Mega Man with Mario's butt where his arm-gun should be!" After that, Mulberry runs into the thief of her 3DS again, but he declares that her amiibo doesn't seem worth stealing.
  Thief: Mega Man obviously defeated Mario, and acquired his weapon! It might not be a defect at all when you think about it! Yeah, I have no interest in it!
• Subverted Catchphrase: "Mulberry's Epic Yarn" does this after Taffy expresses a fear of exploring "Weirder Than Sid and Marty Krofft Woods". Admiral Ackbar from Return of the Jedi pops in, not to warn her, "It's a trap!", but rather to tell her, "It's perfectly safe!"
• Sudden Name Change: Taffy had the name, "Tiff," until 2012.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: invoked "Mulberry's Surrogate Family" has Mulberry declare The Star Wars Prequel Holiday Special superior to not only The Star Wars Holiday Special and the Star Wars prequels, but the original Star Wars trilogy.
• Take That!:
  • "Mulberry's 2009 Fall TV Preview" takes potshots at NBC, Network Decay, The CW, and Fergie.
  Jack: So, what are your picks for the 2009 Fall television season?
  Mulberry: Nothing! TV is past its prime! It's a dinosaur! Your evening entertainment is much better gathered from the Internet! I'll be spending my vegetative time looking at pictures of LOLCats!
  • Targets of "Mulberry's 2012 Fall TV Preview" include The Big Bang Theory, Zooey Deschanel, the iPhone 4S, The Voice, and Beauty and the Beast (2012).
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: In "GameSaw," Mulberry subjects the CEO of GameStop to working at one of his own stores.
• Title Drop: In "Death By Captain and Tenille," Mulberry exclaims the issue's title after an airport security guard explains that he cannot allow vinyl records on the plane because someone could behead others with them.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Mary refuses to thank Mulberry for saving her at the end of "Prison Broke", because Mulberry decided to fulfill the kidnappers' desires first.
• Very Special Episode: "Murphy's Lawn" was promoted as one.
• Victory Is Boring: Mulberry successfully helps DD become President of the United States in "The Game of Life," then nonchalantly stands up and walks away, giving Jack a turn at the controller.
• Waxing Lyrical: "Enpoopification (Taylor's Version)" has the AI repeat a spoken portion of "Look What You Made Me Do" while shooting at Taylor Swift.
• Wolverine Publicity: Peter has announced that if his books ever reach the point where he created Mulberry Sharona, each volume will contain her name in the title.^note Except for Mulberry Likes This: A Platypus Comix Tenth Anniversary Treasury, the books currently go only up to May 2004, and BANG! seems to have taken up too much of Peter's time for him to release more.

BANG!-Exclusive Comics

• Aborted Arc: "Coporatocracy" ends on a cliffhanger, but the following BANG! issue has an unrelated Mulberry story, "My Fat Lady". Mulberry and Jack even admit forgetting what exactly happened in "Coporatocracy".
• Actually, I Am Him: In "Miraculous Adventures of Ledyba And Meowth Noir", Mulberry becomes the first Pokémon GO player to receive Missingno as her starter. After she uses it to win several battles, word spreads of a trainer with an invincible Pokémon, known only as the sole member of "Team Venture". When Mulberry engages in a conversation about her, the other players doubt that the trainer is a woman, until Mulberry challenges them one of them to a fight.
• All Just a Dream: "The Holiday Issue" is all just a pitch Mulberry makes for a possible Christmas Episode of her series.
• Attention Whore: In "Mulberrican Idol", Ryan Ryan does several crazy things for media attention.
• Author Avatar: Mulberry usually fills this role, but one of the minor characters in "Friendship is Voodoo"-Jeff, the "Socially Impaired Penniless Cartoonist"- does as well.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In "Friendship is Voodoo", Mulberry tries to make new friends at a coffee bar, but everyone becomes too distracted with their tablets to chat. One of her failed attempts to get their attention involves exclaiming that a meteor will destroy the bar, muttering, "...I wish!" afterward. Right after she leaves, a meteor actually crushes the bar and its patrons.
• Beware the Nice Ones: "Planet of the Jerks" has Mulberry and Taffy learn the hard way not to criticize Singin' in the Rain in the presence of Debbie Reynolds' ghost:
  Taffy: Hey, this is kind of like La La Land! I didn't know they had these back then!
  Mulberry: That girl in the middle, though...She could use some practice...
  (Debbie Reynolds shoots Mulberry with a bazooka.)
• Big Applesauce: Mulberry spends "The Holiday Issue" visiting New York City.
• Big Fun: Deconstructed in "My Fat Lady". Mulberry admits believing that pigeonholing Melissa McCarthy into this role limited her comedic range to simply embarrassing herself for fame and money, and tries to help her re-develop a classier and less shameful sense of humor in preparation for her upcoming Ghostbusters (2016) role.
• Brick Joke: In "Coporatocracy", a salesman at the Comcast Store tries to pressure Jack into buying some Comcast cottage cheese, even though he doesn't want any. At checkout, Jack gets charged for buying some cottage cheese, and fails to find enough time to dispute the charge through customer service. Later, a jet targets its laser at Jack, and the salesman pops out of the plane to explain that Jack hasn't yet paid the charges for 370 buckets of cottage cheese.
• Broken Record: A Comcast commercial in "Mulberry's Wraparounds" consists entirely of the CEO repeating the word, "XFINITY", much to the viewers' annoyance.
• Celebrity Resemblance:
  • "Game of Homes" has an apartment-or rather, Microapartment-building owner who resembles Peter Dinklage. A café owner points this out, and Mulberry agrees with her.
  • In "Friendship is Voodoo", Mulberry gets mistaken for Aubrey Plaza.
• Character Blog: Mulberry had one to promote BANG!. In August 2013, Peter Paltridge took it over.
• The Chosen One: Mulberry calls herself this in "Miraculous Adventures of Ledyba And Meowth Noir", after achieving countless victories with Missingno.
• Christmas Episode: "The Holiday Issue"
• Comically Missing the Point: Mulberry holds a "Greatest Person Alive" Award Show in "First World Problems", and tells viewers to answer via the Internet. To her dismay, some Trolls declare Adolf Hitler the winner. The foremost reason Taffy sees not to give Hitler the prize money concerns the fact that he's not alive.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: In "Mulberry's Wraparounds", Mulberry and her friends act rather terrified at their inability to fast-forward commercials when watching TV live, instead of on their DVR. The stupidity of the following ads makes their fears seem justified.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: invoked Spoofed in "Miraculous Adventures of Ledyba And Meowth Noir". Before Natali Marmalade reports on Pokémon Go, Mulberry complains, "Ugh, not the media! Every time they report on Pokemon they never know what they're talking about!" Natali proceeds to botch the pronunciation of the game, the history of the Pokémon franchise, and the names and total number of the creatures.
• Cross-Cast Role: "My Fat Lady" depicts a cross-dressing Tracy Morgan as the fourth member of the "entirely female" Ghostbusters, instead of Leslie Jones (whose name Peter forgot while writing this story). The ending also reveals that Kristen Schaal will don men's clothing to play a male Ghostbuster.
• Crossover:
  • "Outatime", published September 2015, has Mulberry meet some Back to the Future characters, including Jennifer Parker.
  • "Disney Adventures" sends Mulberry and her friends to the Disney Vault, where they meet characters owned^note or formerly owned, in the case of Alpha-5 by different branches of the Mouse House.
• A Day in the Limelight: "Mulberry Killed the Brenda Starr" has Taffy announce "The first all-Taffy issue of BANG!" However, Mulberry admits that she forgot about promising Taffy the whole issue, and already gave most of it to the other contributors. Consequently, Taffy only ends up getting one page to herself, most of which she spends recapping "GameSaw".
• Deliberately Monochrome: The drawings look black and white, not unlike some of the other comics featured in BANG! Peter posted colorized versions of some of them on Platypus Comix.
• Deus ex Machina: Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation saves Mulberry from getting killed by Mitt Romney in "The Holiday Issue".
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Mulberry does this in "First World Problems" after saying that a Madonna song sounded good.
• Disney Owns This Trope: Satirized in "Disney Adventures", which shows the Disney Vault to hold a rather wide array of characters, memorabilia, and media.
  Jack: Is the "Beast" from The Sandlot behind there or something?
  Mulberry: Actually, as of 2018... YES! And so is Darth Vader, Han Solo, Chewbacca, The Muppets, every Marvel superhero (with some exceptions depending on who owns a pre-existing movie contract)...and they'll even own The Simpsons soon! The vault is swallowing EVERYONE! And once you're in, there's NO MEANS OF ESCAPE!
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Jack has no role in "Game of Homes," so when he pops up in one of the other BANG! columns, he asks, "Why is this my only appearance this issue?"
• The End of the World as We Know It: In "Outatime", Marty and Doc must stop Donald Trump (actually Biff in disguise) from becoming president, to avoid Trump//Biff from declaring nuclear war on England.
• Evil Duo: "Miraculous Adventures of Ledyba And Meowth Noir" features a real Team Rocket, consisting of a skinny man named Murray, and a fat man named Herbie. Their leader? Mark Zuckerberg.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: "Game of Homes" begins with Mulberry and Taffy eating at a café with a sign reading, "Best Burgers Ever". Taffy comments that the burgers live up to that claim.
• Gender Flip: "My Fat Lady" begins with Mulberry expressing disgust with a Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie starring Shia LaBeouf as "Beouffy".
• Get Back to the Future: In an inversion, "Outatime" sees Mulberry helping Jennifer return to 1985, after Marty and Doc leave her behind in 2015.
• Global Ignorance: When Mulberry and her friends visit Portland, Oregon in "Mulberry Killed the Brenda Starr":
  Taffy: HEY! Isn't this place near that city where fairy tale characters come to life and befriend you? There was something on ABC about that!
  Mulberry: You're thinking of Portland, MAINE. Portland, OREGON is where fairy tale characters try to kill you!
• Hair-Trigger Temper: "Mulberry's Wraparounds" portrays the title character of The Legend of Korra as constantly upset at anyone and anything that seems to try to boss her around. In the same comic, Mulberry eventually gets so fed up of the stupid commercial breaks, she smashes the TV with a baseball bat.
• Hilarity Sues: Happens to Mulberry in "Bunheads". After she helps a girl named Lexus get vaccinated, Lexus' hipster parents sue Mulberry over the possibility that the vaccines gave her autism.
• Humans Are Bastards:
  • By attending Vess MacMeal's Friendship Academy in "Friendship is Voodoo", Mulberry learns that friends tend to unexpectedly separate, mooch off of each other, and refuse to listen to each other's emotional problems.
  • "Miraculous Adventures of Ledyba And Meowth Noir" also has this as a theme. Missingno reveals itself as the true creator of Pokémon Go, and that it meant the app to help determine whether or not Pokémon could live on Earth. Unfortunately, Missingno decides that since the app has motivated players to perform crimes and distract themselves from important tasks, that humanity can't live peacefully with Pokémon. It proceeds to permanently shut down the Pokémon Go servers, and return to the world of Pokémon.
• Hypocritical Humor: At the end of "Mulberry's Wraparounds", Taffy asks how they can avoid obnoxious commercials if they turn up everywhere. Jack answers, "Let's use our WINDOWS PRODUCTS to find the answer!"
• Irony: In "First World Problems", Mulberry wins $10,000 in a Name That Tune-esque Radio Contest, which she entered only because she became fed up with having to listen to people incorrectly name the song.^note "Clocks" by Coldplay Since she already has plenty of cash to spare, she decides to give the money to someone who desperately needs more. It ends up going back to one of the radio station's DJs, who also gave Mulberry false reasons (partially ripped off of "The Christmas Shoes") for needing it.
• It Makes Sense in Context: The fifth page of "Game of Homes", located on page 11 of its BANG! issue, begins with a text box reading this:
  For those of you who opened this paper to the middle portion and are now wondering why Tyrion Lannister is living in a dinky apartment next to a group of rowdy fratboys, that's what you get for skipping ahead. Nothing but confusion!
  Go back and read this issue properly, from page one, like we suggested in the first place. Go on!
• Killing Your Alternate Self: In "Outatime", Jennifer meets a Jennifer from another timeline upon returning to 1985. She declares that only one Jennifer Parker can exist, and chops up the other one with an axe.
• Lampshaded the Obscure Reference: "Disney Adventures" has Mulberry and her friends find Aladar and Arlo guarding the Vault, neither of whom the gang can remember, much to the dinosaurs' frustration.
• Lonely Rich Kid: "Friendship is Voodoo" explores Mulberry's struggles in trying to make more friends.
• MacGuffin: Mulberry decides to explore the Disney Vault in "Disney Adventures" after Jack suggests that they could find a more Gorn-ridden cut of The Black Cauldron. Due to some misdirection from Little Hiawatha, whom Mulberry asks, "...do you know where they put Disney's deepest, darkest secret movie?", Taffy accidentally instead grabs an un-edited copy of Mickey Mouse's The Shindig, complete with Mickey pulling Minnie's panties.
• MegaCorp: "Coporatocracy" portrays a scenario in which Comcast owns America.
• Mirror Match: Mulberry witnesses one in "My Fat Lady", when she watches the movie Batman vs. Batman. To her disappointment, the Batmen spend their confrontation boasting how Crazy Prepared they are to face each other, and a "To Be Spread Out Over Six Movies" card appears before they actually start fighting.
• Mood Whiplash: "The Holiday Issue" begins with Jack promising the readers a heartwarming holiday story, only to get interrupted with news that New York must become vacated in preparation for a hurricane.
• Mr. Exposition: "Disney Adventures" has Alpha-5 inform Mulberry of various characters in the Disney Vault wanting to escape, as the Power Rangers did, and give her and her friends a map of the Vault.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: "Mulberrican Idol" provides Ryan Ryan as a pastiche of Jake Paul.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: "First World Problems" has one regarding news of Katy Perry endorsing a line of fake eyelashes.
• Older Is Better: "Mulberry Killed the Brenda Starr" has some waxing for the glory days of printed newspapers, as well as a brief piece of praise for independent video stores.
• Our Slogan Is Terrible: A Taco Bell commercial in "Mulberry's Wraparounds" bears the slogan, "Our ads are stupid! Just like you!"
• Parody Commercials: "Mulberry's Wraparounds" includes several.
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: Too many examples to list here.
• Prison Riot: "Disney Adventures" unleashes one inside the Disney Vault after 24's Chloe shuts off the security system, as part of Jack Bauer's plan to free everyone caged inside the Vault.
  Jack: It's like the Amy Mebberson cartoon from Hell!
• Product Placement: Spoofed in "Miraculous Adventures of Ledyba And Meowth Noir", when the creators of Pokémon Go allow such corporations as McDonald's and Comcast to add their spokespeople as new Pokémon.
• Recursive Canon: "Outatime" presents a roundabout example. When Marty visits the Cafe '80s, the Cafe has a poster for Free Spirit (1989), featuring Corinne Bohrer and Edan Gross as Winnie Goodwin and Gene Harper. The incarnations of Winnie and Gene from Peter's Free Spirit (2014) Fan Webcomics series previously appeared in the Keiki/Mulberry crossover "Haole Berry", implying that all three of those comics share a universe. Overthink these scenes, and it appears that Mulberry's universe has Winnie Goodwin and the Harper clan as both characters in an '80s sitcom, and an actual Cute Witch and mortal family living together.
• Repurposed Pop Song: One part of "Mulberry's Wraparounds" has Mulberry lament (by quoting This Very Wiki) that Blondie's "One Way or Another" gets used in advertising so often, she can't hear it without thinking of one of the many moronic commercials that played it. This segues into a collection of other examples of Repurposed Pop Songs, at least some of which actually happened.^note A 1977 Halls commercial with The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", a 1986 laxative commercial with The Beatles' "Revolution", a 1996 Mountain Dew commercial with Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", a 2006 Circuit City commercial with The Cars' "Just What I Needed", and a 2013 Ridiculously Loud Chevy commercial with Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit".
• Rule of Funny: Regarding "Outatime", the only obvious reason the Cafe '80s would sell Pepsi with artificial sweeteners (which the cashier refers to, "Pepsi Worse-Than-Before") instead of Pepsi Throwback and/or Pepsi Made With Real Sugar involves showing Marty's disgusted reaction to drinking the reformulated soda.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: During the last page of "Things I Actually Saw at Rose City Comic-Con", Mulberry notices her phone missing. She proceeds to borrow someone else's phone to call a ride home, then tell a policeman who she suspects of stealing hers. When Taffy comes to pick Mulberry up, she notices her phone in the back seat of the car, and realizes it must have fallen out of her pocket before the convention.
• Similarly Named Works: invoked When Taffy hears about Ghostbusters (2016) in "My Fat Lady", she asks who'll play Ansa-Bone and the gorilla, two characters from Filmation's Ghostbusters.
• Something Only They Would Say:
  • In "Outatime", Doc proves to Marty that Donald Trump is actually Biff Tannen when he shows him a newspaper with the headline, "Trump Says Mexico 'Full of Buttheads'".
  • In "Disney Adventures", Alpha-5 meets Mulberry and her friends while wearing a Brown Bag Mask, but she recognizes him after he panics, "Ai-yi-yi-yi-yi!"
• Spirit Advisor: "Planet of the Jerks" has Mulberry receive advice from Carrie Fisher on how to survive a bigoted society. Unlike most spirit advisors, Carrie does make herself visible to more people than just Mulberry, at least when necessary.
• Stepford Smiler: Among other pieces of discouraging advice Mulberry receives from attending Vess MacMeal's Friendship Academy in "Friendship is Voodoo", Vess encourages students to suppress negative emotions, instead of ask friends for comfort.
• Suddenly Speaking: In "Miraculous Adventures of Ledyba And Meowth Noir", Missingno doesn't start talking until the second-to-last page.
• Take That!: "First World Problems" has Justin Bieber get denied an invitation to Mulberry's Greatest Person Alive Award Show.
• Take That, Audience!: In "Planet of the Jerks", as Mulberry and Carrie Fisher people-watch, Carrie points out the people's afflictions. At one point, she appears to point at the reader, and exclaims, "And that man over there? He's just dumb!"
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: "Game of Homes" has Mulberry challenge the propietor of a cheap residential complex to live among the tenants for a week.
• Tempting Fate:
  • While getting pursued by a Sinister Silhouette in "The Holiday Issue", Mulberry comments, "I don't see how this day could get any-", shutting herself up before she can say the word, "worse." She then nearly gets engulfed in a hurricane.
  • Mulberry declares in "My Fat Lady" that she won't watch any more brand-driven movies, not even a new Ghostbusters. Cue a news report announcing a new, all-female team of Ghostbusters.
• Trade Snark: When Taffy mentions Bing in "Mulberry's Wraparounds", a trademark symbol appears next to the name.
• Uncle Pennybags: "First World Problems" has Jack and Taffy use Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a female example.
  Jack: She must do something with that Seinfeld syndication money, right? She doesn't even need it!
  Taffy: Yeah! She must have funded like, forty hospitals by now!
  Jack: Yeah...
  Taffy: Presumably...
  Mulberry: She's NOT reading this, knock it off!
• What Happened to the Mouse?: "Disney Adventures" begins with some boys asking Mulberry to grab their baseball, which they accidentally threw over a fence, into the Disney Vault. Once she gets into the Vault, she never seems to bother looking for the ball.
• What If?: "Outatime" relies heavily on the thought of the events of Back to the Future Part II landing Marty, Doc, and Jennifer in a 2015 shaped by the actions of the obscenely wealthy and powerful Biff seen in the "1985A" sequence of the movie. (BTTF II had them leave 2015 right before the Delayed Ripple Effect of Biff's changes to the past kicked in, and also included a moment in which Doc gunned down Marty's idea to go back to 2015 and stop old Biff from stealing the DeLorean, explaining that plan would only send them to a future altered by those changes.)
• Will Talk for a Price: "Disney Adventures" has Taran, the star of The Black Cauldron, inform Mulberry where she could find the unreleased cut of his movie, after she agrees to pull the Big Electric Switch that could free everyone caged inside the Disney Vault. Chloe disables security before Mulberry can reach the switch.
• A Winner Is You: "My Fat Lady" ends with the "Conglaturation!!!" screen of Activision's Ghostbusters NES game appearing in the sky, with its typos intact.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: "Friendship is Voodoo" has two of Mulberry's seemingly successful attempts at making a new friend fall flat. First, her new friend becomes too preoccupied to talk to her again. Later, she strikes a geeky conversation with some other guests at a party, only to learn that they're actually Portlandia cast members who mistook her for Aubrey Plaza.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: "Miraculous Adventures of Ledyba And Meowth Noir" explains this as the reason Missingno looks more like a scrambled glitch than an actual Pokémon to humanity.

Platypus Comix Banner

• Angels Pose: Starring◊ Mulberry, Shroomy, and Princess Pi.
• Built with LEGO: No LEGO bricks involved, but this banner◊ shows a Mulberry minifigure with a sneering expression and a shirt reading, "No Real Than You Are." A later version◊, displayed after The LEGO Movie achieved critical and financial success, changes her shirt to read, "Phil Lord & Chris Miller Are Gods."
• Crossover:
  • Mulberry meets◊ Little Orphan Annie.
  • Mulberry joins◊ The Avengers.
• Drama Queen: Mulberry doesn't react kindly◊ after Nintendo makes an underwhelming announcement at E3.
• Expecting Someone Taller: This banner◊ has a Mulberry ornament tell an ornament of Sam the Snowman, "You looked much taller on TV."
• Homage: Mulberry meets◊ Scott Pilgrim.
• The Illegible: Mulberry has admitted◊ having trouble reading Peter's signature.
  Who's "Petea Pittiiadwuge"?
• I'm a Humanitarian: This banner◊ shows Taffy apparently tempted to eat chili cooked by Eric Cartman, and/or a pie baked by Arya Stark.
• Logo Joke: One banner featured Mulberry dressed as the Columbia Pictures Torch Lady◊. It served as the image on This Very Wiki's Platypus Comix page for most of 2010.
• Schmuck Bait: Taffy recalls here◊ that last Christmas, she gave her heart to WHAM! Mulberry asks, "Then what happened?", only for Taffy to embarrassingly admit that she doesn't want to talk about it.
• Take That!:
  • Mulberry offering a code◊ for 100 free Disney Movie Rewards points and explaining, "I, myself, will never buy enough teenybopper garbage and Hannah Montana pantyhose to earn the one worthwhile item offered in this program, the DuckTales movie DVD."
  • Mulberry donning a Hockey Mask and Chainsaw and preparing to kill Flo, the Progressive Insurance Girl◊, then Midori Francis, a Liberty Mutual Insurance spokesgirl◊.
  • Mulberry once displayed the cover for Lady Gaga's Born This Way and commented, "Really? That's kinda sad.◊"

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