Review: Happy Wheels “Welcome to Happy Wheels”

Chocolate NarRAIN-tion.

Spoilers Below

Happy Wheels, a ragdoll-physics browser-game that has now been made into a series of shorts produced by Machinima and released on the fledgling (and floundering) video service go90, who you might know from that collection of passed kidney stones that was Transformers: Combiner Wars. But that’s not the only thing this new show has in common with that one, because they seem to have a similar sense of timing, or lack thereof. Remember that the comic storyline for Combiner Wars, which the animation was based on, started and finished in 2015, while the series began and ended the following year. Well, Happy Wheels blows that right out of the water, because the game came out IN TWENTY-FRIGGIN-TEN (2010). NEARLY SIX AND A HALF YEARS AGO. And there’s been no mention or even hinting at a sequel to advertise for, so have to ask: WHAT OR WHO IS THIS SHOW FOR? I admittedly am not that up on all the nooks and crannies of gaming culture, but I don’t remember this game even making much of a splash when it was new, let alone half a decade later. A Flappy Bird series would be more appropriate at this point.

But I should probably talk about the game itself for proper context. Essentially, Happy Wheels sells itself on using characters that look like really average folks that have the epidermal strength of a lepper and then placing them in levels and courses that will see them stabbed, punctured, amputated, beheaded, disemboweled, and other ways of putting the organs, giblets, and various viscera on display. The game also prides itself on its massive amount of user-generated content, which is bait for Let’s Players, who still play and scream at the results to this day. Incidentally, much of the cast for this new series is made up of notable Let’s Players, and sponsored an unrelated channel to play the game on their site, so there is at least some of that awareness of how this game has made itself known. I don’t really watch many of those types of channels outside of the occasional Game Grump or Achievement Hunt, but I recently went through some of the videos of a screaming Irishman named “jackspecticeye”, and got quite a few laughs out of it (who knew there were so many ways a man could get harpooned and still ride a segway?). However, the main appeal of watching Let’s Players (as far as I can tell) versus scripted productions is that the former usually ISN’T scripted. They more often than not hold attention through their spastic and random behavior, usually in regards to frustration in completing a game that their viewers can relate to, and that’s definitely what I got out of Jack. What we have for this series is attempting to work this world that people love for its randomness and switch it to a medium that has very established structure and pacing to it. And I’m highly uncertain it can pull that off.

We follow morbidly obese wise man Dennis (played by the only cast member I can recognize, Tay Zonday, of “Chocolate Rain” fame) as he introduces the viewer to the town while inadvertently shredding townspeople in his power mower. This is to set the tone of the show, where violence will be happening rapidly and consistently to the point you will be numb to it within the first three minutes, which is coincidentally how long this first episode is. Dennis says every town has a thousand stories, but he only has time for five, even though he only holds up four fingers to symbolize this. As a severed ear floats through town like a leaf on the wind, we meet Charles, a wheelchair bound drunk in rags who is approached by a child, questioning why there is a giant functioning saw blade behind him. Charles retorts that it’s part of the town’s heritage. He then tries to get up, stumbles back into the chair and rolls into the blade before exploding into a red mist. This causes the blade to break free and rampage through the town because of course it does. This leads us to Janet, who is possibly more obese than Dennis, as she is constantly sucking convenience store soda into herself while rolling around on her rascal right into the street, causing a car to swerve into other cars and then into a bounce castle full of children, which then explodes. Distracted by this, she gets knocked off, spills her drink, and then is run over by a truck while futilely trying to refill her cup. Next, we meet Jim, a divorced dad, and his son Cody, who he is desperately trying to spend time with…even if that involves watching him bike into a conveniently placed bed of spikes which then pull the body in two. Jim is naturally distraught about this, then casually asks a dude on a hoverboard if those spikes were there a minute ago. We conclude with Dennis being killed by several arrows while his corpse passes by our last main cast member, the overcompensating Stephen, who is trying to have a nice wine date before being eviscerated by the oncoming saw blade. And then Forest Gump eats the ear when it lands on his chocolates.

If this and the trailer are anything to go by, this show is going to be about as much fun to watch as being repeatedly spiked through the nuts is for these characters. That is to say, probably not very much. It’s clearly going for the ironic clashing tone of having a town of Stepford Smilers while everyone is torn to shreds every episode and then comes back fine in the next. Sort of a slice of life, if you will (HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR). But based on my experiences with what people like about this game, it seems like a far better way of implementing what the community has contributed to it would be throwing these characters into obstacle courses based on ones resembling the more popular types of levels users have made. They’re clearly not going that route, though, so best to put that hope to rest and try to enjoy the ride.

And if that weren’t nice enough of them, Machinima/go90 has given us the first three episodes all at once! So, see you in the next two.