Fact Checking Thread

Thanks for finding the source. Looks legit to me too.

From Retraux-Video Games :

Minecraft has intentionally very low resolution textures to go with the gameplay of moving giant pixels around. Originally the intention was to update to more modern graphics but fans had already become attached to the faux-16-bit textures.

(Suspicious parts are bolded)

I found this on Popularity Polynomial:

• Phineas and Ferb became the main success story in animation during its late-2000s Dork Age; between 2008 and 2011, only surpassed in popularity by Family Guy and SpongeBob SquarePants (co-creator Dan Povenmire had worked on both, while Jeff "Swampy" Marsh also worked on SpongeBob—as did a large part of the crew). However, its reputation soured after the TV movie, Across the Second Dimension, with many disillusioned fans claiming that it had now become Strictly Formula. Things got worse with the Marvel Universe and Star Wars crossovers; the former got such a negative response that Disney Channel gave the latter scant promotion, and the creators had to write a disclaimer noting that the Marvel crossover was not canon to avoid backlash. The SW crossover proved to be a failure, and the show's ratings had declined to the point Disney pulled the plug on a theatrical movie that was announced in 2011 and the "Fireside Girls" spin-off that was greenlit in 2010. The fact that, beginning in 2010, cartoons such as Regular Show (created by one-time staffer J.G. Quintel), Adventure Time, and Gravity Falls (respectively created by fellow SpongeBob veterans Pendleton Ward and Alex Hirsch) had introduced Character Development-driven story arcs, darker themes, and (in the case of the former two) raunchy humor didn't help matters at all, as the show was now suffering from Seinfeld Is Unfunny. The series ended with little fanfare in 2015, but soon after many who grew up with the show began to revisit it with some hints of nostalgia, specially as Disney Channel began scaling back on animation shows. A crossover with its Spiritual Successor Milo Murphy's Law was announced in 2017, and was met with surprisingly positive reactions, compared to the reaction the previous crossovers received. The show has only risen in popularity online since then, and memes featuring it have become very common along with serious analyses of the show's characters. It even got another movie on Disney+!

I know that online discourse dropped sometime during the third of four seasons, but I just figured that that was because of the casual audience (which was a particularly large portion of Phineas and Ferb's viewership compared to other shows) moving on to the next "new" show. I was also of the impression that the Marvel and Star Wars specials were well received, and the disclaimer just being made because of some Fridge Logic that I don't remember when looked at in the broader context of the show. And then there's the cancellations, which, I don't know much about the Fireside Girls project, but Disney execs are fickle, and the theatrical film might have been canceled because of a realization that a live-action adaptation might actually just be a bad idea? All in all, the "low" in popularity never seemed like it was to the extent implied by the trope when I remember the online fandom around the show's run.

The Marvel and Star Wars specials are contentious for their premise (I personally dislike the former and am okay with the latter) but I don't think they were negatively received. I only got into the fandom in a non-casual way in like, 2016 though, so I can't speak for how fans reacted when they first aired.

Also is "Mission Marvel" non-canon? I think only the Star Wars one was decidedly non-canon and that was more of a joke to avoid Fridge Logic, like you said.

I remember seeing something striking Mission Marvel from canon, but I don't know where it was or even if it was official.

Shinya Murata contains this following tidbit:

Where is this information from? I can't find any personal info of either authors beyond their works.

From AmericansHateTingle.Pokemon:

A few things seem iffy here:

• I'm not sure how to verify the popularity of various battle formats in Japan.
• The video game world championships have been held in the double battle format for over a decade now, so I doubt coverage of strategies is that hard to find.

Any competitive batting fans that can weigh in?

On Space Whale Aesop it says that the addictive effect of the candy in that one Arthur episode being caused by "molecules dying" is realistic of a drug addiction. Is that true? Are addictions really caused by "dead molecules"?

Molecules are not a living thing. So no.

Do they mean it decreases the presence of certain chemical components? Or maybe it kills cells?

Edited by mightymewtron on Jun 8th 2021 at 5:56:00 AM

I mean, if it's on Space Whale Aesop, then the consequences of the addiction as shown in the episode is not meant to be realistic to begin with, since by definition SWA is about "unrealistic consequences to realistic problems".

So I went to GACKT and found the new example what claims that he in a Japanese Dub of The Nutcracker in 3D. Is that true or it was a false research? Edit: Nevermind it was false.

Edited by Bubblepig on Jun 12th 2021 at 12:56:55 PM

On In the Heights:

• Like Goes with Like: Benny and Nina are the two black leads and are made the Beta Couple.

Is Nina (or rather her actress, Leslie Grace) a black woman? All I can find is her actress is Dominican. The original musical made a point about Benny and Nina being an interracial relationship but that was cut from the film so IDK.

EDIT: I found a claim on the YMMV page that she's Afro-Latino, so I suppose that helps explain things.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jun 14th 2021 at 5:22:33 AM

In the YMMV for Doctor Who there's an entry that says TARDIS is a play on the Latin word "tardus". This seems like coincidence though, since "tardus" means slow and there doesn't seem to be clever wordplay on why you'd name a time machine slow.

"Clever wordplay" here seems to mean "a word tangentially related to time".

I originally posted this on "Is this an example", but someone told me it was better to ask here:

I'm considering adding an example to Bowdlerise, but I'm not sure how true it is. According to Expedition Theme Park, after The Smiler at Alton Towers crashed in 2015, they removed its backstory, and also edited Oblivion's queue video to remove all mentions of it being unsafe. Problem is, this is the only place I've heard this. Can anyone confirm? ^note I went to Alton Towers the other day, but we didn't go near the X-Sector because we ran out of time.

I've seen a few places on the SpongeBob trivia pages saying that Doug Lawrence was going to voice SpongeBob using the same voice he would later use for Plankton, and that the deep voice SB sometimes uses (like "HALL MONITOR!") is an imitation of Lawrence's original audition.

Is there a source for this? I just have a hard time believing that a childish goofball like SpongeBob was ever going to have such a deep voice.

I doubt the claim. If no source is found, cut.

The wiki says Lawrence got the role of Plankton during a contest early in production. While vague, this implies he was chosen as Plankton quite early on, which doesn't leave much room for a potential role as SpongeBob. And according to Tom Kenny's Wikipedia and the SpongeBob Wkipedia page, Hillenburg approached Kenny to voice SpongeBob, based on a minor voice Kenny had done for Rocko's Modern Life. Hillenburg reportedly didn't want anybody else to audition. This suggests the voice was always meant to be Tom Kenny.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jun 19th 2021 at 2:58:39 PM

If that's the case, then we could also cut the example saying Rob Paulsen auditioned.

Wait, now I'm actually confused, as this source claims Jess Harnell auditioned for the show. However, technically he never says he auditioned for the sponge himself, though other articles indicate that's the case. But there's no deets on Rob Paulsen auditioning, though he did have a role in one of the movies.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jun 19th 2021 at 3:19:15 PM

It's entirely likely that Harnell auditioned for a different character, in spite of what other sources say. In fact, he said he did a number of auditions, suggesting he auditioned for multiple characters.

Edited by MrMediaGuy2 on Jun 19th 2021 at 12:25:58 PM

Sorry for the double post, but this was added to YMMV.Inside Out recently.

• Special Effect Failure: Near the end of the movie, Riley’s mom and dad are shown to have purple-coloured, alien-like faces with purple emotions (not just Sadness, all of them are purple) while cheering for Riley, who retains her normal appearance. You could assume this was done on purpose, but in “Riley’s First Date?” they are shown with their normal appearances, hinting it might’ve been a placeholder effect left in the final product. Either that or a Series Continuity Error.

I've watched the movie too many times to list, and have no idea what this person is talking about. Are they somehow confusing the blue and green sports makeup her parents are wearing for purple alien faces?

Just removed some misplaced natter by ~ergeis on Long Long Man which asserted that the series is in fact named Sakeru Gummy vs. Long Sakeru Gummy. If this is the case, the page would need to be moved — does anyone happen to have a source on this claim?

Since I wrote that, I can explain: the logo after each segment of the ad says "Sakeru Gummy vs. Long Sakeru Gummy" and at the end of the last one, the "vs." turns into an "&".