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Webcomic: Princess Pi

Princess Pi apparently enhanced your life.*

Everybody loves Pi, including you. She is the ethnic ruler Barack Obama only wishes he could be.

-Princess Pi's official bio

Peter Paltridge, the host of Platypus Comix, created Princess Pi in 2011. The main character is an invincible Egyptian princess named, "Princess Pi," who reigns over the kingdom of Piscataway. This comic follows Pi's efforts to protect her kingdom from conquerors, such as a superpower-stealing American dictator named Princess Ip. Paltridge planned for Princess Pi to become one of his weirdest comics ever, so Pi's adventures tend to rely on nonsensical logic.

This comic provides examples of:

Action Girl
Advertised Extras: Eight of the celebrities listed on the first page of "The Princess Pi Holiday Special". The other people don't appear at all. Princess Pi herself turns out to be an Advertised Extra as well.
Alliterative Name: Princess Pi has one if you count her royal title as part of her name.
Aluminum Christmas Trees: Princess Pi gets over a hangover in "Princess Pi vs. Cerebus Syndrome" by drilling herself in the head. Doctors in ancient Egyptian times would really do this to patients.
Alpha Bitch: Sam, Alex, and Butch, also known as the Totally Nazis. The story "Princess Pi vs. The Alpha Bitch" even uses this trope's name in reference to Sam.
All There in the Manual: The character bios for this series managed to inform readers of five villains before Pi faced them.
America Takes Over the World: Princess Ip's main goal involves helping this possibility come true.
Anticlimax: "Princess Pi vs. Prince William"
As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Peter Paltridge has admitted that it didn't make sense to name an Egyptian character after a Greek number. This contemplation led him to try and prevent anything in the comic from making sense.
- Egypt came under Greek influence by the time Cleopatra was born.
Badass Princess
Bare Your Midriff: Applies not only to Pi, but to Princess Ip as well.
Bottle Episode: The middle portion of "The Princess Pi Holiday Special" consists of word balloons added to pre-existing photographs, with old videos playing below.
Bragging Theme Tune: The lyrics are written on the cover to the first comic.
Broken Aesop: In "Princess Pi vs. The Totally Nazis," Pi learns to believe in herself so bullies' insults don't bring her down. The Aesop breaks when she starts believing her most mediocre attempts at fulfilling her royal duties actually suffice, and doesn't let her subjects' complaints bring her down until they tar and feather her.
Brought Down to Normal: With help from a genie, a girl named Gertie takes away Princess Pi's throne and invincibility in "Princess Pi vs. Bottle Blonde".
Call Back: Some comics recycle at least one gag from the previous one.
Casting Gag: "Nick and MORE!" features Tim Allen as Nick Carville, a workaholic guilty of committing Parental Neglect.
Celebrity Voice Actor: Sometimes Paltridge draws text boxes next to characters, saying who he imagines him or her to sound like (eg, Opposite Guy has the "Voice of Tommy Wiseau").
Cerebus Syndrome: Princess Pi caught this in "Princess Pi vs. Cerebus Syndrome", after a marriage to the Trope Namer, Cerebus, caused her to speak only in depressing stories.
Christmas Episode: "The Princess Pi Holiday Special" marked the first time that Peter Paltridge made a Christmas-themed comic since Electric Wonderland's "Inevitable Christmas Adventure" in 2008.
Cliffhanger: Actually, Paltridge doesn't plan to write as many for this series as he does for his other comics. One shows up on occasion, though.
Comically Missing the Point: Nick Carville from "Nick and MORE!" gets turned into a potato as punishment for neglecting his son. What does he do after enduring days of embarrassment? Tap the power of Zeus from his son's magic teddy bear.
Couch Gag: Each story has a randomly selected picture as its front cover image and a random quote as its synopsis.
Crossover:
- "Princess Pi vs. Princess Ip" follows Pi's efforts to protect Mark Zuckerberg from Princess Ip.
- The crew accompanying Pi on her journey to the Frizzies' planet in "The Princess Pi Holiday Special" includes The Venture Bros., a Facehugger from Alien, Adam West, and Hannibal Lecter, plus Alf, Finn, and Toph.
Dead Baby Comedy: Deconstructed in "Princess Pi vs. Cerebus Syndrome", when Pi's depressing stories make her an unwilling comic phenomenon. Pi's displeasure with offensive humor also results in some in-universe examples of Dude, Not Funny!
Different In Every Episode: Each comic, a different celebrity is credited with Princess Pi's creation.
Everything's Better with Princesses
Everything Trying to Kill You: Pi suffers this in her first story, "Princess Pi vs. Everything."
Extreme Omnivore: Princess Pi. One example of this occurred when "Princess Pi vs. Bottle Blonde" began with Pi eating a pencil.
Fish out of Water: Princess Pi becomes one in "Princess Pi vs. Prince William, while carrying out a mission in the stereotypically British country of Gilliamsburg.
Girl Posse: The Totally Nazis have made a game out of insulting random people until they're Driven to Suicide.
Godwin's Law: Practiced in "Princess Pi vs. The Alpha Bitch", when Sam's attorney says anyone who arrests her would be Hitler.
Groin Attack: "Nick and MORE!" has two examples.
Princess Ip: How could that work? He doesn't have anything there!
Immortal Hero: Pi has this power.
Indy Ploy:
- Pi using her recorder to turn all the murderous objects inanimate again in "Princess Pi vs. Everything." Unfortunately, she also kills all the other animals and plants in the process.
- Pi performed a riskier ploy in "Princess Pi vs. Bottle Blonde", when having to remove Bottle Blonde's bottle from a concrete block.
Interactive Narrator: Princess Pi uses a narrator more often than Paltridge's other comics do, and Pi can even talk to him/her sometimes.
I Thought It Meant: Pi misinterprets the title of "Princess Pi vs. The Alpha Bitch" in-universe.
It Got Worse: "Princess Pi vs. The Alpha Bitch" goes in this direction after Sam steals a truck.
Last Of Her Kind: Princess Pi's bio claims she is the only Egyptian in the world.
Meaningful Name / Punny Name: Bottle Blonde, a Literal Genie, lives in a bottle and acts like a Dumb Blonde.
Negated Moment of Awesome: Pi never gets to fight the Frizzies in "The Princess Pi Holiday Special" because she gets stuck in traffic.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: An indirect example in "Princess Pi vs. Princess Ip." Pi takes away Mark's handheld so Princess Ip's troops wouldn't trace their location. She accidentally drops it at Erica's house, so Erica uses it to destroy Facebook out of spite against Mark.
- "Princess Pi vs. Everything" had another example.
No Celebrities Were Harmed: In "Princess Pi vs. Cerebus Syndrome," Pi meets Cheery Girl (Ellen DeGeneres), Jonah Mound (Jonah Hill), and Gilbert Gotfreak (Gilbert Gottfried).
Non-Indicative First Episode: "Princess Pi vs. Everything" runs about twice as long as the usual comic, and does not boast a Villain of the Week.
- "Princess Pi vs. The Land Shark From Saturday Night Live", the first comic drawn, runs shorter than the usual comic, and boasts a more unoriginal plot.
Recurring Extra: A man who apparently sounds like Dan Green keeps showing up during disasters to assure onlookers that the victims will survive.
It's all right, I can see their parachutes!
Royals Who Actually Do Something
Save the Villain: What Pi does to Ip at the end of "Nick and MORE!"
Shout Out: The kingdom of Gilliamsburg was named after Terry Gilliam.
Status Quo Is God: Lampshaded when Pi closes her first issue by assuring the readers she'll have her world fixed by "next week."
Sugar Bowl: Gertie and Bottle Blonde turned Piscataway into one in "Princess Pi vs. Bottle Blonde".
Take That:
- Pi's bio boasts that she has the best webcomic ever, "even better than Sonichu." (Considering Sonichu's large Hatedom, this might also sound like faint praise of Princess Pi.)
- Pi's stint as an animation writer in "Princess Pi vs. Cerebus Syndrome" includes some criticisms at cartoons that try to draw too much of their humor from acting insensitive. (Allen Gregory in particular.)
Tomboyish Name: Two of the Totally Nazis, Sam and Alex, have the same name as girls from Totally Spies!, while the third, Butch, as a masculine-sounding name for consistency's sake. Paltridge admittedly hates it when girls have names that sound boyish.
- "Princess Pi vs. The Alpha Bitch" says Sam's full name is Samuel Lewinsky Jackson Adams.
Versus Title: Practically all of Princess Pi's comics each have one.
Victor Gains Loser's Powers: Ip has this power.
Viral Marketing: In the months building up to the first comic's release, "π" appeared at various places on the Platypus Comix main page (such as a jack-o-lantern◊ in the banner and Tuan Nuaghen's eyes in the link to the Scrambled Eggs archive).
- Even earlier than that, after Peter Paltridge wrote some bios for Electric Wonderland characters, and updated the ones for Mulberry and Keiki, he placed the symbol next to redrawn links to all the series' character bios. This provided the first hint that a new Platypus Comix series was in store.
Whole Plot Reference: "The Princess Pi Holiday Special" parodies The Star Wars Holiday Special, specifically the lengthy parts where the actors speak an unintelligible alien language, and the infamous "Fighting the Frizzies at 11" promo that aired that same night.
Widget Series
A Wizard Did It: Princess Pi once deemed genies responsible for talentless hacks unexpectedly becoming celebrities.
You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Princess Pi has naturally purple hair.
You Killed My Mother: Princess Ip's father killed Pi's mother, Queen Isosceles, for being part Magi. Pi, in turn, killed him, after eliminating the then-current members of the US Army. Pi recounted this to Sam in "Princess Pi vs. Cerebus Syndrome".
You Mean Xmas: Pi celebrated Life Day in "The Princess Pi Holiday Special", but the traditions shown in The Star Wars Holiday Special apparently became replaced with fighting the Frizzies at 11; the name refers to the fact the winner gets to live a longer life than the dead loser. Any assumptions that Paltridge used the phrase "Life Day" to avoid Christian references became negated when Pi explained they fight the Frizzies "to honor Jesus".