Origin: Original
Intended Season: 7
Based off a dream I had, this man would have been an ordinary, modern-day reporter (who acted like it), who had a dark secret: he was under a curse. He'd actually been living for decades, cursed to remain immortal until he answered every pressing question he had, at which point he'd die. His own curiosity would keep driving him to answer everything he could, and he'd be pretty open-ended with the Kobbers - remove the curse? Help him keep going? I don't know! Ultimately, I couldn't really work the concept out to my satisfaction, so the reporter angle was rolled together with some aspects of the Unnamed Private Eye to create Kennedy Wilson.
Origin: Original
Intended Seasons: 7, 8
Not actually Dane Gustavia/Yutaka Kazami, but inspired by him, so he works as a picture reference. This man would have been a hardcore chef, firmly believing in the art of cooking being more of a battle than anything else. He would have been tough on other cooks who didn't meet his standards, but very friendly to those who did, and one idea I had was that we'd see his restaurant being staffed by ex-villains - for example, Business Chao was considered to be someone now working there. No real reason I cut him, my roster just never had room.
Origin: ...Wikipedia?
Intended Season: 9
One of my more esoteric ideas, this would have been the idea of Wikipedia itself, through quantity and conglomeration of information, actually gaining sentience and finding a way to manifest itself to the Kobbers. It wouldn't necessarily have been the Wikipe-tan appearance, but I hadn't finalized what it'd look like at all in my planning. The basic idea was to have it be thinking very "Wikipedian" - very citing sources, emphasis on neutrality, that kind of thing. Scrapped because I was dissatisfied with the idea and felt I couldn't extend the joke long enough to make a real character out of it.
Origin: Danganronpa V3
Intended Season: 9
Yes, another Danganronpa character from me. But this one would have been the bad guy! Shuichi's role would have been Evil Kaede - he would have loved and adored the Kobbers as much as her, but his fandom, rather than driving him to try and join them, would drive him to generate heroism. He would set up villains, challenges, and plots for them to overcome, all to watch the Kobbers do more and more heroics. Likely he would have shown up as a good guy and pulled a heel turn in the finale (though he would have been a pushover, like how Kaede can't fight)... which is part of why I cut him. Between the heel turn and the anonymous manipulation, it felt too close to Neo Dark Million, so I ditched him to mix it up more.
Origin: 8-Bit Theater
Intended Season: 3
Yes, we're going WAY back for this one. Long before Victor the Red Mage came onto the scene, when I was first ever joining ZFRP, I originally planned to just import the 8-Bit Theater Red Mage wholesale! He would have acted like he did in the comic, believing the world to be some kind of DND campaign and his stat sheet to have material effects on the world... though if I did it today, I'd probably do a plot twist where he did have an effect with his stats. He was slated to appear in BBB3 alongside Samus and Utsuho, but ultimately I didn't like the idea enough to go through with it... which resulted in General Cleft showing up for the third Brawl. And the rest is history.
Origin: Cartoon Network
Intended Seasons: 7, 8, 9
Yes, this is an entire plot on the cutting room floor, not just a character or two! Format Wars and Segaplot back in Season 6 got the gears turning in my head about how I could tap into my own 2000s nostalgia, and I looked long and hard at what the biggest source of it was for me - Cartoon Network. The details of the plot were never really worked out in full, but it would have included various CN stars (the Eds, the Powerpuffs, Dexter, Johnny Bravo, Megas XLR, Samurai Jack...) getting involved with the Kobbers in both friendly and rival ways, with the goal of... something. That part didn't get figured out, but I definitely planned on there eventually being a big bad to punch! Anyhow, while I kept this plot on the back burner as my early-season plot, I always kept kicking it back after I got more solid ideas for plots - Kawashiro in Season 7, Golfplot in Season 8, and Funky Plot for Season 9 - I decided to just cut it rather than stringing it along, similar to Soda Popinski for JRM. Of all the cutting room floor content in this batch, I'd say it's one of the more likely to make a comeback someday, but it'd probably be in Season 11 or 12 or something. Will it ever happen properly? Only time will tell!
And as a reward for everyone who read to the end: one of the characters in Rejected Chaoacters Volume 1 has been saved from the reject heap. Look forward to their involvement in Season 9!
Some interesting but understandably-abandoned ideas here! Swapping out Statowski for Victor was the stronger choice in the long run, and The Reporter had an interesting angle but you're doing with Kennedy most of what he would have done anyway. The chef idea sounds interesting but his likely lack of involvement with the Kobbers would limit him.
ReplyDeleteWikipedia almost seems like the sort of oddball JRM would throw at us, not a Chaoacter!
Shuichi as a villain is hilarious, but I do like the handful of gag references he ended up getting this year instead.
So Cartoon Network Plot has finally bitten the dust! I remember our talks about it via PM. I know that feel - sometimes an idea just sits on the backburner for years and years until you finally look at it and be like "I think it's time to admit this isn't happening".
I know who the rescued reject is~~~