Happy Wheels

"Little boy, you okay- OHHH... Oh my... he's not okay, he lost his head. Oh God, what the f**k is wrong with this GAME?"

—UberHaxorNova, in his first ever session. 140+ sessions later, he's still at it.

A Flash browser game created in 2010 by Jim Bonacci that is like many other racing/driving browser games, except all the characters are Made of Plasticine and ride in vehicles with little to no protection aside from maybe a helmet.

Current List of Characters:

Wheelchair Guy: A guy who appears like a stereotypical homeless person, with patched-up clothing, missing teeth, and a beard. He rides in a wheelchair which inexplicably features a rocket booster.
Segway Guy: A guy in a suit that rides a ~~subway~~ segway that has the ability to jump and always stays straight up.
Irresponsible Dad: Pictured at right, a man who rides a bicycle with (presumably) his young son riding on the back. Also seems to be the most popular character. Often called "Bike Guy" to fit the Theme Naming of other characters. Can eject his son as an extra effort to get to the goal, or to trigger traps
Efficient Shopper: An obese woman who rides an electric shopping cart with her groceries inside. Her weight makes her easy to tip over.
Moped Couple: A man riding a moped with his girlfriend/wife riding behind him. The moped features a speed boost that briefly increases the speed by a lot, but of course not as much as Wheelchair Guy's rocket.
Lawnmower Man: A black man riding a mower. Anything that gets run over gets shredded and swallowed up by the blades. Probably the most violent character so far.
Explorer Guy: Largely based on Indiana Jones, he rides a heavy mine cart. Can link up and ride on rails by holding the space bar.
Santa Claus: Sits on a sleigh, pulled by two elves. The first character with three people and without wheels. Can fly by holding the space bar.
Pogostick Man: A man riding a pogostick wearing kneepads and elbowpads. Can jump higher and farther by pressing or holding the space bar. Voiced by UberHaxorNova

Play it here.

Tropes used in Happy Wheels include:

Annoying Arrows
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: One user-created level "The Torture Gallery" featured a variety of horrific tortures, with the last one being a kid getting spanked.
Art Evolution: Version 1.6 adds realistic gore to the mix. Now the blood looks more like blood instead of red confetti.
Ascended Fanboy: UberHaxorNova, for voicing the Pogo Stick Man.
Bloody Hilarious: If you like that sort of thing.
Bumbling Dad: The Irresponsible Dad, natch.
Butt Monkey: Timmy (and occasionally the woman on the moped and Santa's elves) are often either abused for hilarity, or used merely to set off traps which may kill the main character. Timmy can go flying quite far and is great for disarming harpoon traps.
Chunky Salsa Rule: A variation of the rule: You only lose control of your character if he or she is decapitated or (after a few seconds) if he or she gets ripped in half. Until then, crossing the finish line by any means will count as a success, even if you lose other parts of your body or your vehicle and shimmy down to the finish QWOP-style. In the case of couple characters, this only applies to the man in front.
Critical Existence Failure: As long as your head's still attached to your body and part of your body's still steering the vehicle, you can keep going!
Crowning Moment of Indifference: Whenever the son of the Irresponsible Dad is killed, his only reaction is a flat and only slightly irritated 'dammit'. He sounds like he just lost a 5-dollar bet instead of seeing his son get horribly butchered!
- The man of the Moped Couple doesn't even react when his wife/girlfriend gets killed. The wife, however, says "WHYYYYY!?" in a Large Ham manner if the man is killed.
- There's also the case of Santa and the elves. The elves don't react when one of them dies, but when an elf is killed, Santa lets out a jolly "Ho ho ho!"
Dead Baby Comedy: Literally, in the case of the Irresponsible Dad.
The Determinator: All of the characters will keep going even after losing several body parts.
Difficult but Awesome: The pogo stick guy. His controls are very hard to deal with, and getting him to go where you want him to is a bit of a chore sometimes. However, he is one of only two characters that can actually jump with no outside influence, and he is surprisingly durable while on the pogo stick, especially considering how everyone else is Made of Plasticine.
- But then again, he is the only one wearing a full set of protective gear.
Expy: The Moped Couple of Irresponsible Dad, Lawnmower man of Efficient Shopper, Explorer Guy of Indiana Jones, and Santa of Santa.
High-Pressure Blood: Any injury will spew forth a small fountain of blood, which will spray out around a dozen gallons of blood before stopping.
Hive Mind: While playing as any of the characters that include two people, you control both, but you only notice it when the passenger is off the vehicle.
Hoist by His Own Petard: It's possible for the Lawnmower Man to get killed by his own mower.
Infant Immortality: Averted.
- "Dammit!"
Let's Play: One done by UberHaxorNova. And it is funny.
- Another one done by daneboe. Equally as funny.
- And several done by PewDiePie. Also quite funny.
Ludicrous Gibs: With remarkable attention to detail, including multiple organs, a coil of intestines (Which can hold the two halves of a body together), and multiple slimy chunks of each body part. If a character's body is destroyed completely, the camera follows the heart.
Made of Plasticine: One thing that makes Happy Wheels so challenging (besides the chaotic levels) is the fact that the smallest wipeout from a bike, wheelchair, or Segway can cause your character to lose limbs, break their neck, or sometimes explode into a bloody mess of gibs.
Major Injury Underreaction: Irresponsible dad will respond to having his limbs cut off with a simple "Damn it!" Arguably every character as well.
Plagiarism: While the game itself doesn't plagiarize anything, it happens in-universe with some of the levels being outright copies of other levels. Most common in rope swings, jet falls, and the infamous stair levels.
- A new level that appears to be getting plagiarized is a pogo man level in which you have the Pogostick Man jumping over blocks of increasing height.
Rube Goldberg Device: Levels of the "Don't Move" or "Heart Donation" type are like this.
Shout-Out: Some of the more popular levels are based on Mario, Zelda, And Limbo
Sturgeon's Law: In the early days of the game people would actually make real levels where the objective was to reach the end. Nowadays you will find the game populated mostly by guns, skeeball-type games, and "Kill Justin Bieber", with the platforming-type levels few and far between. Moderators have, however, recently begun making a token effort to try to avert this.
- Most "Knife/Weapon Throw" levels are practically identical.
- Level designers telling you to Rate their level 5 if you win is the rule, not the exception.
This Looks Like a Job For Aquaman: The Space Bar Ability of the Explorer Guy, the ability to attach to rails, can only be used if rails are made available and under no other circumstances. In all other instances he's slow, clumsy, top-heavy, and thoroughly useless.
- Explorer Guy, at the very least, is relatively fast and on wheels. Pogostick Man, on the other hand, has to hop everywhere, and moves about as fast as one might expect, rendering many levels completely impossible for him to overcome. His jumping skills, however, are rivaled only by Wheelchair Guy's rocket, allowing him to scale large heights and skip entire portions of certain levels.
Video Game Cruelty Potential: The Irresponsible Dad. There is even a popular kind of level where the dad is required to slam dunk the child like a basketball.
- Some levels feature harpoons which target the character and may kill them. Fortunately, they will target the child if you throw him in the way of them.
- This is taken absurd levels in some user-created levels. Examples include the "Harpoon Run", where your character will look like a Pin Cushion, assuming they even make it to the end, and It Keeps Happening, which is basically just a long stretch of stairs with a booster at the end; even if you try to bypass the stairs and go flying, your character will eventually land...and explode into a mess of bodyparts and gore. And of course, the Lawnmower Man. Anything he runs over will be cut up. That includes people.
X Meets Y: Line Rider meets Happy Tree Friends, or possibly Trials meets LittleBigPlanet plus extra gore.
Your Head Asplode: A decent hit to the head will cause it to explode gloriously.

↑ "I DON'T CARE!"

[1] "I DON'T CARE!"

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