Video Game / Um Jammer Lammy

My guitar is in my mind!

"Leave it to Lammy!"

— Lammy's motto

A Rhythm Game developed by NanaOn-Sha and released by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation in 1999, Um Jammer Lammy is a rock-themed Spin-Off of PaRappa the Rapper. It features the same visual aesthetic and gameplay as its predecessor but focuses on musicianship rather than rapping and has a tighter storyline.

Lammy is an extremely talented yet cripplingly shy lamb-girl who plays guitar for the garage rock band MilkCan with bassist/vocalist Katy Kat and drummer Ma-san. On the morning of a big concert, Lammy oversleeps and rushes to make it on time, only to encounter one silly obstacle after another. It's up to Lammy to use her super guitar-playing skills to make her performance.

For one of its soundtracks, see Make It Sweet!.

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Um Jammer Lammy contains examples of:

• Answer Cut: After finishing the final trail with a Good rating, Lammy calls out "Who's my next challenger?", and the scene cuts to the audience, where both Rammy and PaRappa are shown.
• Artificial Stupidity: When they're not kicking your ass in Versus mode, it's screwing up all the notes and sometimes overriding any points you earn in co-op mode! Thanks, guys...
• All There in the Manual: In the JPN/EUR version, when the (fake) credits roll when Lammy ends up in Hell, it lists the names of each instructor. Due to the cutscene being re-animated for the American version, there is no way to know most of the instructors' names unless you read the manual.
• Another Side, Another Story: Beating the main game lets you play remixed versions of the songs as PaRappa!
• Babies Make Everything Better: This is even lampshaded in the Stage 3 Intro's parade song "Treasure", whose full version can be heard here.
• Balloon Belly: Plot-relevant! After level 2, Lammy eats so much pizza she's Mistaken for Pregnant by a nurse caterpillar with a vomiting problem who thinks Lammy is in labor. Lammy digests the pizza after being dragged into the maternity ward, so the nurse realizes that Lammy wasn't pregnant, but she insists that Lammy should rock the babies to sleep.
• Banana Peel: Lammy dies and gets sent to Hell this way in European/Japanese versions. She gets out though.
• Berserk Button: Annoy Ma-San too much and she'll mess you up.
• Big Ball of Violence: This happens in the intro cutscene where Lammy fights 2 jerks.
• Bonus Feature Failure: For whatever reason, Ma-San's little personal movies after the credits, as well as those viewed through PaRappa's storyline, have a seriously choppy framerate and subpar sound mixing, presumably to fit them on the disc without sacrificing the overall picture quality for all the FMVs. It's enough to make you think your disc is defective until you see that they're the same way in the PSN Store's downloadable version.
• Bowdlerise: The American version went through an admirable amount of this.
  • The cutscene for Stage 6 was re-animated so that Lammy gets flung back through time and ends up on an exotic island, instead of dying and going to Hell. Also, the line where Yoko threatens to kill Lammy with her guitar (before she remarks that she's already dead) was removed and dubbed over.
  • Certain lyrics were changed too. References to the devil were changed to "a man" (PaRappa's version) and "somebody" (Lammy's version) (while "The angel's been mean to me, that's for sure" became "My friend's been mean to me, that's for sure" in PaRappa's version), "...so you can play in Hell" became "...so you can play in an island" ^note (though the original "So you can play in Hell" line is still heard on the Winter 1999 Jampack demo disc!), "Choppin' the trees down for the fun" became "Knowin' that we're here for the fun", and "Chop all of 'em down, every single one down" became "Come on and get down, way single one down". (In PaRappa's version, "I love choppin' down trees just for fun" became "I love rockin' to the beat just for fun" and the entire "Choppin' down trees, just for fun" lyric became "Rollin' up high in the sun".)
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: If you fail Stage 6, Teriyaki Yoko will break out of the ground and order you to start over, saying Lammy should be banned from every game, to she will ask if she means the one she's already in as well. In addition, at the start of the original version, when she sees she has died and gone to Hell, Lammy will say that means the game is over, and comment on how stupid that is.
• Catchphrase:
  • Lammy has two that she says to pump herself up before every level, sans the final level.
    Yeah, that's right! My guitar's in my mind.
    Leave it to Lammy!
  • There's also variations of "gotta move on," which Lammy usually says at the end of a level. The phrase is also worked into the lyrics of some of the songs in the game, including one actually titled "GOT TO MOVE!"
• Chainsaw Good: The fifth stage has Lammy and Paul Chuck carving a guitar with a chainsaw to rockabilly.

• Continuity Nod: In the first level, Lammy is late for her own concert and is desperately trying to think of a good excuse; specifically, having a Potty Emergency when everyone in line for the bathroom wants to out-rap her. Which she then immediately dismisses.
• Contrived Coincidence: Luckily for Lammy, she runs into a lot of things which remind her of dojos and casinos, which remind her that she can just imagine she's holding a guitar.
• Cosmetic Award: The various effecters Lammy gets from her instructors. You can change the way your guitar sounds, but the effecters otherwise have no effect on gameplay or performance.
• Cranial Eruption: Fussenpepper gets one every time he is hit on the head with the loose circuit board in the Stage 4 cutscene. It doesn't happen during gameplay however.
• Crowd Surfing: Getting Cool Mode in the final stage will cause Lammy to jump into the audience who will then carry and pass her around.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: In the song of Stage 1's Dream Sequence, "I Am a Master, and You", Chop Chop Master Onion raps about fire, a baby, a plane, the "necessary [wood-chopping] skills to build a guitar", and Hell/a tropical island, which is what Lammy will have to undergo in the following stages. The final line names them all in order: pick, burn, cry, fly, chop, choke.
• Everything Is an Instrument: Everyting is a guitar to be precise. Lammy can use Mind over Matter on anything to use it as a guitar. Including fire hoses, babies, airplane controls, and chainsaws. Yes, chainsaws.
• Extremely Short Timespan: From the time Lammy wakes up and everything that happened before showtime, the entire adventure was in the timespan of fifteen minutes.
• Fake Band: MilkCan, consisting of Katy Kat as the vocalist and bassist, Lammy as the guitarist, and Ma-san as the drummer.
• False Teeth Tomfoolery: In the intro to Stage 5 ("You Said Anything, Didn't Ya?"), Captain Fussenpepper takes out his false teeth, called the "Wah-Wah" Effecter, and tells Lammy to put it to use on her next journey; and at once she obliges.
• Firehouse Dalmatian: Chief Puddle, the firefighter who guides Lammy in putting out a fire in the first level, is a Dalmatian.
• Fission Mailed: The intro to the Hell stage (in the Japan and Europe versions): "If... if I'm dead, then the game's over! What a stupid game!!" Roll credits. Or... not.
• Floating Limbs: The character Cathy Piller is shown to have floating segments when viewed from the side.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the Japan and Europe versions of Stage 6, right before Lammy slips on a Banana Peel, there's a close-up of the peel that, if you look REAL close and REAL fast, has a sticker label on it that says "NaNaOn-Sha", which is the name of Masaya Matsuura's game developer.
• Funny Answering Machine: Lammy's is long enough for her to almost leave her house, go back in, turn off all the appliances she had left running, cuddle with a stuffed toy, and leave before it ends.
  Answering Machine: Hiii. This is Lammy? I can't come to the phone right now, b-b-b-because the MilkCan l-l-live show is coming up real soon, and I'm not really ready for it, b-b-but Katy, Ma-san and I have spent our last time in the studio, and my solo's not really the way I want it to be, so I kept practicing and it turned out to be okay! Anyways, leave your name and a b-b-brief message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible, okay? Bye-bye!
• Furry Confusion: Not seen in-game, but the credits song "Keep Your Head Up" has Katy sing about taking the dog for a walk at one point...
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The cutscenes for PaRappa's story mode have fudge all to do with the game's stages, following a story of PaRappa and PJ Berri attempting to form their own band with no acknowledgment whatsoever of PaRappa helping Chief Puddles extinguish the flames of a burning building, getting the babies in Cathy Piller's daycare to sleep, flying a plane because the pilot has a split personality preventing him from doing his job, being sent to an island (or going to Hell after slipping on a banana peel) or even joining in MilkCan's performance at the end of the game.^note The first stage with Chop Chop Master Onion for some reason is omitted in PaRappa's story mode.
• Hot as Hell: The original version of "Taste of Teriyaki" has lyrics like "the angel's been very mean to me" and "if I could have another wish, I want the devil to join my next dish". The US version changed these lyrics to refer to "my friend" and "a man," respectively.
• Hypocritical Humor: In one cinema before PaRappa's Stage 4, an ad for Joe Chin's Foundation for Natural Preservation is shown. Immediately after this ad comes an ad for Joe Chin's Brand Chains, one of which, combined with a chainsaw, is able to chop down whole trees (even though Paul Chuck sings "NEVER USE JOE CHIN'S CHAINS FOR THEM" in both versions of "Power Off, Power On!").
• I'll Kill You!: Parodied in the Japan/Europe version of Stage 6, when Teriyaki Yoko picks up Lammy's new guitar and threatens to kill her, believing her to be Rammy (see Instrument of Murder):
  Yoko: I'm gonna kill you!
  Lammy: Eh, I think I'm dead already.
• Impact Silhouette: In the U.S. version of Stage 6 ("Vital Idol"), Lammy gets catapulted from the guitar store and flown away until she lands in an island's jungle, leaving a Lammy-shaped hole in the ground.
• Informed Species: Lammy's a lamb; she looks more like a goat or fawn. The original Lammy sketches looked a lot more lamb-like, but the executives wanted Lammy to look like a cool college girl. In concept art for early Lammies,◊ one of them looks like a jogger and several of them look a bit like poodles. Then they found the right one... almost.
• Instrument of Murder: Teriyaki Yoko attempts this in the Japan/Europe version of Stage 6 by picking up Lammy's guitar and threatening to kill her, believing her to be Rammy, before hearing that Lammy has already died and promising to bring her back on the condition that Lammy "play right". In the U.S. version, however, Yoko makes no death threat, though she does pick up the guitar and point it at Lammy for no reason while the latter explains how she ended up on this island.
• It May Help You on Your Quest: After completing their level, Lammy's instructors give her items which can change the way her guitar sounds.
• Killer Rabbit: Ma-San looks adorable, but she can drum hard enough to literally bring the house down.
• Left-Handed Mirror: Lammy is a left-handed guitarist and Rammy is a right-handed guitarist.
• Limited Social Circle: Averted realistically; Katy is part of two friend circles that don't interact with each other. By PaRappa the Rapper 2, though, they've consolidated into a single social circle, playing it straight.
• Lip Lock: The part where Yoko points Lammy's guitar at her and threatens to kill her with it was dubbed over in the American version, and it's painfully obvious.
• Look Both Ways: Narrowly averted in the Japan and Europe versions of Stage 6 when Lammy avoids getting hit by a car. She does, however, end up getting killed by other means, though...
• Medium Awareness: If you screw up on Teriyaki Yoko's level, she'll say "Start all over! You should be banned from every game," and Lammy will respond, "From every game?? Even this one?????" Same goes for PaRappa's screw-up on said level, when PaRappa responds, "But... but.... but.... ha......"
• Mickey Mousing: Many of the cutscenes feature this kind of music.
• Mistaken for Pregnant: Cathy Piller sees Lammy with a bloated stomach from eating too much pizza and incorrectly assumes she's pregnant, taking her to the daycare alongside the pregnant bunny women.
• Motor Mouth: Apparently, the rapping style of Captain Fussenpepper's Sergent personality involves speaking very fast. Possibly a side effect of the fact that it's a "Metal" song^note For which "singing fast" is a common style of singing there being adapted to Hip Hop so that PaRappa can rap the song instead of singing it.
• New Game Plus: Beating the game's seven levels unlocks the option to play with PaRappa, either separately or co-op with Lammy.
• Noodle Incident: Whatever happened to Katy and Ma-san that caused them to nearly be late, too. Katy somehow ended up dressed in the same kind of jungle camo as Lammy, and whatever Ma-san did involved camels and turbans.^note This happened in the U.S. version, anyway. In the Japanese/European version, both girls (and Lammy) are wearing their normal clothes.
• Non-Mammal Mammaries: Cathy Piller has breasts. As if she wasn't freaky enough.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Chief Puddle seems to be the only firefighter actually trying to fight the fire, with all the others dancing or singing backup—even the ones holding hoses aren't spraying!
• Planet Heck: The second-to-last level (at least in the Japanese and European versions).
• Playing the Heart Strings: Both played straight briefly and parodied in the original version of Stage 6: first, when Lammy is killed in a Banana Peel accident and her black-and-white soul Ascends to a Higher Plane of Existence... sort of; and then, when Lammy laments her own death in Hell, "PaRappa's End Roll in G Minor" plays briefly during the fake end credits... right before Jack Smash appears and stops the credits before taking her away to Teriyaki Yoko. (The full version of the sad-string song can be heard in the original soundtrack, though.)
• Pumpkin Person: Teriyaki Yoko's agent is a pumpkin-headed man named Jack Smash.
• Precision F-Strike: Barely subverted. If you fail level 3 as Lammy (or in one of the team modes), she will say "Fudge!"
• Random Events Plot: PaRappa's story mode cutscenes have very little to do with the levels. PaRappa and PJ are practicing with guiros one minute, and then the next minute PaRappa is in Hell performing a concert with Teriyaki Yoko.
• Recurring Riff: "PaRappa's End Roll in G Minor" is a bit of a Tear Jerker version of "Thank You for Everything", the ending song from PaRappa 1. Only in the Japan and Europe versions, though. (The full version can be heard in the original soundtrack for Um Jammer Lammy.)
• Rewind Gag: The cutscene before level 6 in the U.S. version, where Lammy is flung backwards in time and flies by the previous levels in the game before landing on an island.
• Scare Chord: PaRappa's rendition of "Taste of Teriyaki" has several piano ones throughout.
• Shave and a Haircut: This starts forming when it's closer to the end of the Stage 1 song "I Am a Master, and You". And it occurs in the outro of Stage 1 too.
• Shrinking Violet: Lammy appears completely uncomfortable talking to people with whom she isn't already acquainted, and she becomes stricken with anxiety when put on the spot or made the center of attention. Further evidence toward this comes in when she flashes back to her and the band making the poster for their gig, specifically saying, "My picture doesn't have to stand out."
• Socially Awkward Hero: Lammy is utterly unable to work up the confidence to talk to people without her nerves getting the better of her and causing her to stumble over everything she wants to say. However, she can perform such deeds as single-handedly putting out a fire or spontaneously figuring out how to fly a plane, as long as she imagines she's doing it with a guitar.
• Speech Impediment: See the Funny Answering Machine example? Lammy really does stutter that much.
• Spin-Off: One to the main PaRappa series, though PaRappa can be unlocked as a playable side character.
• Split Personality:
  • Captain Fussenpepper flips between Drill Sergeant Nasty and a doddering old man whenever he gets hit on the head.
  • Lammy herself is a borderline example. She's normally a neurotic mess, but she becomes much more confident and capable when she has her guitar (or if she can imagine having it). By the end of the game, she learns to have more confidence in herself with or without her guitar.
• Stealth Insult: If you fail the last level, Katy Kat provides this little gem: "o, oh, I didn't expect you to do this bad." Take note of the emphasis on the word "this".
• Spoiled by the Manual: The credits section of the manual not only has Parappa's voice actor credited, but Parappa himself is actually seen (along with Sunny Funny and PJ) in the background image of the page.
• Stylistic Self-Parody:
  • The paper-thin art style is parodied in Um Jammer Lammy, when Lammy gets faxed at one point.
  • It was spoofed again in a cutscene when PaRappa asked Sunny if he could see how a dress looked from the side.
• Tareme Eyes: A handful of Um Jammer Lammy characters have eyes like this.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Rammy demands a guitar duel (2-player mode) because she doesn't get any calls on her beeper.
• Unknown Rival: Rammy towards Lammy. Lammy doesn't understand why Rammy is so hostile towards her and barely has time to acknowledge her presence.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Nobody seems perturbed by a newborn baby speaking perfectly coherent English and singing.
• Visual Pun: In the 3rd level you are literally "rocking" a baby to sleep.
• Violation of Common Sense: Need to put out a burning building? Play the hose like a guitar! Need to put hundreds of babies to sleep? Play one of them like a guitar! Flying a plane? Play the steering wheel like a guitar! Cutting down a tree? Play the chainsaw like a... take a guess!
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Cathy Piller is always coughing up a weird pink cloud full of God-knows-what as she talks, much to Lammy's dismay.
• Water Hose Rodeo: Getting Cool Mode in Stage 2 causes Lammy’s water hose to rocket her into the air.
• X-Ray Sparks:
  • These show up when you do poorly on Teriyaki Yoko's stage and get electrified. Even the little frog face on PaRappa's hat seems to be affected. Also, Lammy and Rammy's hearts can be seen through their ribcages if you look closely.
  • In one of the flashbacks in the Stage 7 cutscene, Lammy got this when plugging in electrical equipment and being electrocuted by it.
• You Can't Fight Fate: In the original version of Stage 6 ("Vital Idol"), Lammy avoids getting hit and run by an out-of-control car so as not to end up in Hell. As she keeps running, she doesn't notice the Banana Peel that PJ Berri has left because she is in too much of a hurry, then slips on it, falls down, breaks her neck and dies, thus fulfilling Chop Chop Master Onion's dream prophecy.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: By remembering Chop Chop's advice to recall her guitar to mind, Lammy can confidently handle any situation with the same confidence and skill she has at playing said guitar. Even by the end when she's holding an actual guitar she doesn't forget Chop Chop's advice, showing she's gotten more confident.

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