Tak and the Power of Juju
No, this is not related to Jujubes candy, nor to the Tak from another Nicktoon.
Tak And The Power Of Juju is a series of Platformers that was later adapted into an All CGI Cartoon TV series made in 2007 by the Nickelodeon network. In the game, Tak is a boy who is the apprentice of a jungle-dwelling tribe's Shaman. When the tribe's patron Juju (god), The Moon Juju, is captured by the evil shaman Tlaloc, she is supposed to be rescued by a prophesied hero. But the tribe's greatest warrior, Lok, was also turned into a sheep by Tlaloc. So Tak gets sent in a series of quests to find the means to restore him to normal. It eventually turns out that it was Tak himself who was the hero all along. The game has had four sequels so far.
The cartoon drops most of the adventure elements from the game and instead focuses on the comedic ones. Everyone in the show is an idiot, though some are dumber than others. The gags come fast one after another, with common sense and even reality taking a backseat. In most episodes (each of which contains two stories) Tak himself is to blame for the problem going on, by causing them or making them worse. Tak is often helped by Jeera, the Tomboy daughter of the tribe's chief. The utterly bizarre Jujus are also usually involved. Lok is also in the series, still admired as a hero when he's really just a boastful coward (not that Tak is much better.) Some of the jokes cross the line of good taste occasionally.
- Absurdity Ascendant: The tv show is full of this.
- Adults Are Useless: Tv Show
- The Ace: Lok in the tv show
- Adult Child: Lok and Slog sometimes
- Affectionate Parody: The tv show's characters
- Cheif looks a drugged-up version of Great Mighty Poo and plays a similar role to Moneybags (minus the conning).
- The antagonist version of Lok looks like a drugged-up version of Dr. Neo Cortex and plays a similar role to both King Dedede and Chapion Bomber.
- The Pupununu Tribe look like dugged-up versions of the Hoodlums and play a similar role to the Shy Guys.
- All Just a Dream: The entire second game. Or Was It a Dream?
- Ambiguously Human: Chief, Lok, Slog, Zariah and the Pupununu tribe.
- Animated Adaptation
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When Jibolba describes the plight of the Pupanunu people in the first game, he calls the Moon Juju "good, and wise, and pretty." Then he mentions Tlaloc having imprisoned her, and states that Tlaloc isn't good or wise, "and he's certainly not pretty."
- Ax Crazy: Cheif.
- Baleful Polymorph: Tlalok's sheeping curse. He turns Tak into several different animals in quick succession during the first game's final boss fight.
- Beat Them At Their Own Game: Tak uses Tlaloc's own tricks to defeat him.
- Non Sequitur Episode: Love Hurts and Beauitful Girls
- Border Patrol: The electric jellyfish in the original game.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall
- Butt Monkey: Tak, Lok, Zariah and The Pupununu Tribe
- Camp Gay: The Pupununu Tripe
- The Chew Toy: Lok
- Canon Foreigner: The majority of characters from the show.
- The Chosen One: Jibulba names Lok as the Mighty Warrior of the Pupanunu People's Prophecy at the start of the first game. He's wrong. It's Tak.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Lok and Cheif
- Deranged Animation
- The Ditz: Lok and the Pupununu tribe.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Tak in the TV series
- Dumb Muscle: Lok and Slog
- Everything's Better with Monkeys: A curse turns the Chief into one.
- Fat Bastard / Fat Idiot: Chief
- Fake Ultimate Hero: Lok
- Fetch Quest: The entire first game is a long string of fetch quests.
- G-Rated Drug: The love potion from "Love Hurts".
- Gonk: Lok and The Pupununu Tribe.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar: One of the episodes in the show, the singer uses the word "gay", though it's used for the original definition.
- Hey, It's That Voice!: We got Saya, Brock Samson, and Brain in a comedy show.
- The games feature Jason Marsden as Tak, while the show has him voiced by Hal Sparks, best known for playing the cult leader Zoltan in Dude, Where's My Car?.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Tak beats Tlaloc in the first game by Having a polymorphed Flora fling Tlaloc into his own giant Bad Juju cauldron, turning him into a sheep.
- Idiot Hero: Tak (Tv show only).
- It Was with You All Along
- Jerkass: Lok, Cheif, Zariah and The Pupununu Tripe
- Life Meter: Exhibited by changing colors in the feather on Tak's head.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Tak has appeared in two titles THQ's Nicktoons Unite! crossover game series.
- Mean Boss: Lok and Cheif.
- The Napoleon: Tak in the cartoon show, (considering the tripe treats him poorly)
- Ninja Butterfly: Juju Flora. Flea!Jibulba in the real world in the second game. In the dream world, it's the Dream Juju. AKA Tlaloc.
- Odd Friendship: Tak and Jeera.
- Only Sane Man: Jeera.
- Painting the Fourth Wall: The first game opens with Jibulba summoning a mighty Juju to guide Tak through his adventure. This turns out to be the player. Jibulba marvels at the "power stick" the player holds, and the "mystic box" the player watches him on, noting that it is clearly "the most important thing in your hut."
- Reality Is Out to Lunch
- Save the Princess: The second game appears to be a basic Save the Princess plot, with the dream world thrown in for flavor. Turns out there is no princess, just Pins and Needles on top of each other, and the "Horrible Beast" Tak takes out is the Dream Guardian. Oops.
- Screwed by the Network
- Super Drowning Skills: Lok takes damage whenever he enters water in The Great Juju Challenge—not because he can't swim, but because he attracts angry fish. (If the water is full of gators, Tak's no better off.)
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: The Lobster Suit lets Lok walk around underwater indefinitely.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Fauna and Flora
- In the TV series Jeera and Zaria.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Lok bullies Tak in certain episodes of the animated series (as seen in "Bad Luck's Bad" and "Love Hurts").
- Those Two Bad Guys: Pins and Needles.
- Tree Buchet: used in the game.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: Powder Canyon and Numa Dunes change the game from a platformer to Tony Hawk-style extreme sports. Similarly, the boss fights against Pins and Needles later in the game take the form of fighting on ostriches or a Dance Dance Revolution-style dance-off.
- The Unintelligible: Needles.
- World Gone Mad: Pupununu Village