"Hello, tiny planet explorers."
PJ Liguori (born 11 December 1990), known online as KickThePJ is an English-Italian YouTuber, filmmaker, and artist. In addition to his YouTube content, he regularly streams on Twitch.PJ gained prominence through his creative short films and perhaps most notably his web series Oscars Hotel For Fantastical Creatures. In many of his videos, he has a tendency to play with surrealism, often blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, as well as a tendency to show off his creative and artistic talent.
PJ studied at the University for the Creative Arts. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Brighton with his partner and collaborator Sophie Newton and their cat Fuji.
General tropes:
- Amazing Technicolor World: PJ's lighting and overall aesthetic evokes this, making use of purples, blues, pinks, reds, and greens, and often incorporating his art.
- Cartoon Penguin: An animated penguin named Fuzzwald appears in a couple of KickThePJ videos as a sinister sidekick.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": He only goes by his initials PJ, and has never publicly said what they stand for.
- Goggles Do Something Unusual: In The Sketchbook Soul, PJ finds a sketchbook by the sea. Initially believing the sketchbook to be mundane, he discovers his glasses enable him to see an Amazing Technicolor World as well as secret messages from Cosmo, an artist's spirit trapped in the book.
- Gratuitous Japanese: The Sad Ghost speaks Japanese (voiced by The Anime Man).
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Hate Dumb / Fan Dumb: PJ goes into this topic in "Are fandoms bad?". He says he used to look down on fandoms before realising he too engages with media in a fandom-like way. He concludes it is silly to judge a piece of media or even a fandom for the actions of a few fans.- He told a story about receiving hate messages for things his fictional counterpart did in fan fiction.
- Jack of All Trades: Although he does have a production team, PJ has a varied array of credits from production design to direction to editing to music/composition to acting.
- MacGuffin: The Lullaby Cube is a box invented to help people sleep.
- The Magic Touch: The galaxy hand featured in the video of the same name absorbs anything and anyone it touches into space.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The Sad Ghost is somehow affected by allergies to dust and also works out to keep in shape, something he claims he neglected to do when he was alive.
- Slipstream Genre: Many KickthePJ videos verge into surrealism.
Characters, shorts, and series with enough tropes for their own sections:
The Forever Train (2013)
Cast: Chris Kendall, Dan and Phil, dodie, and more
A passenger (simply named Hero) aboard a train that travels through time encounters many creatures as he tries to find his ticket and suitcase.
- Animate Inanimate Object: Hero picks up a newspaper to hide behind, only to find that it's a talking newspaper named Daisy.
- Blatant Burglar: Hero sees a woman wearing an eye mask and a pirate hat with his suitcase and says, "Hey, you found my suitcase!", to which she responds "Finders keepers, chump."
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Becca, a recurring character from Chris' channel, pops up and says "Hi! I'm not even supposed to be here. PJ didn't invite me, but I snuck on set."
- Cross-Cast Role: Dan Howell plays Daisy the newspaper.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Daisy the newspaper cries to her husband "He saw page 3, Colin!", to which Colin responds by berating Hero for being a "sick child".
- Disproportionate Retribution: Anyone on board the train without a ticket gets almost instantly killed with TNT.
- Karma Houdini: Hero repeatedly narrowly escapes the train conductor's interrogation about his suitcase and ticket until he finally finds it at the end.
- Oop North: Colin the newspaper has an exaggerated northern accent.
- Sold His Soul for a Donut: A child begins to ask if the train conductor could find it in his heart to let him see his grandma without a ticket, to which the conductor responds: "I DON'T HAVE A HEART! I sold it for a bag of rats."
- Unexpected Kindness: The train conductor is suddenly very polite and nice once Hero finds his suitcase with his ticket.
- Would Hurt a Child: The train conductor gives a child TNT for not having a ticket.
Wiggles the Clown
First Appearance: Introducing Wiggles
"Can I interest you in some clown services? The words clown and services are both very broad."
The world's worst clown- I mean, entertainer.
- Appropriated Appellation: A particularly spoiled child Timmy Thompson gave Wiggles his name (it was previously Waldo) whilst taunting him with a balloon worm.
- Character Tic: In "A Date with Wiggles the Clown", Wiggles claims he proposes when he gets nervous.
- Daddy Issues: Although we do not get the details, we get enough tidbits about abandonment and "disappearing" to suggest Wiggles has an uneasy relationship with his father.
- Dreaded Kids' Party Entertainer Job: He says more than once that he hates kids and didn't actively choose this job, "it chose me".
- I Need a Freaking Drink: He brings out the alcohol whilst answering questions in the Wiggles edition of Slurp, titled "LOVE IS OVERRATED".
- Ironic Name: PJ deliberately picked a name that would suggest Wiggles is a lot cheerier than he actually is.
- Jabba Table Manners: In the second date video, Wiggles serves and eats pasta with his hands.
- The Jinx: Everything seems to go wrong for Wiggles, which is especially apparent in the date video.
- Kids Are Cruel: "Wiggles Begins" is described as an origin story of how a particularly bratty child Timmy Thompson drove Wiggles mad with his demands at his birthday party.
- Laughing Mad: His attempts to literally laugh off his more questionable and incriminating statements and jokes devolve into this.
- Magic Misfire: As he is going to pull an engagement ring from behind his date's ear, he accidentally pulls out a knife.
- Noodle Incident: He hints at ambiguous trouble he has previously gotten into in his introductory video:Wiggles: I'll perform anywhere apart from states beginning with 'A', 'Q', or 'Z' but that's mostly for legal reasons.
- Practically Joker: His character design, make up, voice, and mannerisms resemble that of the Joker. However, although he has a sinister side, he does not seem quite on the Joker's level of evil, and said side is mostly played for laughs.
- Rambunctious Italian: Wiggles is Italian-American.
- Too Desperate to Be Picky: Regardless of how he feels about his job, Wiggles needs the work and is desperate for human contact, so he will entertain anything and anyone.
