LOS ANGELES – Streaming service Dropout found itself in hot water after an animal expert pointed out that the little guys appearing in interstitials for Make Some Noise only behave that way under extreme stress, sources report.
“I’ve worked with these creatures before, and this is not how they should be acting,” said Jackson Alberta, who initially posted his observations on social media before they were picked up by Dropout fans just one week into the Great Game Changer to Make Some Noise Migration. “As humans, we like to anthropomorphize certain animal behaviors as ‘cute’, when the reality is far more complicated. What looks ‘heckin’ good’ to a human can be akin to torture for an animal. A dog with a contorted face? That’s a form of paralysis. A cat jumping away from a cucumber? Fear response. The bleating of the pink thing’s trumpet-mouth in time with the opening theme of Make Some Noise? Textbook distress.
“In the wild, these creatures rarely use vocalizations—only really with their young—and even then, it’s a soft, gentle trill. It wasn’t letting viewers know it’s happy or even calling for attention: it was suffering under the weight of massive psychological stress, comparable to PTSD in a human or Sam getting asked where he’s from. You wouldn’t wish that on a person. So why would you wish it on a species of two-dimensional expression-forms inhabiting geometric shapes like cancer inhabits a body?”
“Look, I get it, I’m a Dropout fan too,” continued Alberta. “I love Game Changer, and not like a poser who skips the Covid season. I watched that Hallmark movie with Vic Michaelis. I have detailed maps explaining the geological possibility of Mountport. I’ve seen Ally Beardsley through every conceivable haircut and I know Grant’s sex life better than my own. But I simply cannot tolerate mistreatment of such intelligent, aesthetically-pleasing creatures, especially when I see them transforming into a three-part balance board where the blue one acts as the board, the yellow as the fulcrum, and the pink one rolls perversely on top. That’s a clear dominance display. If you see that in the wild, making some noise will be the last thing you do.”
While many assume ignorance on the part of the show’s cast and crew, others are more skeptical, pointing to Dropout’s history of playing exotic animals for sight gags.
“It’s not talked about openly, but everyone remembers The Mouth,” said cast member Lily Du, referring to an episode in season one of Game Changer that most mistook for a fever dream. “I remember showing up on set that day and hearing Ash say something about a ‘surprise’ backstage, so obviously I’m getting excited thinking maybe it’s Finnegan or a weekend stay in Big Sur, California. Imagine my shock when they wheel out this creature that can’t even stand on its own without Ash supporting it. The whole time we’re feeding it, I’m looking at Tao like, ‘Are we really doing this?’ Sure, sometimes The Mouth would make yum yum sounds when we fed it the right objects, but more often it was gagging in disgust.”
“After the show, I read about how foods like gingerbread, oil, and a brick of cocaine offer almost no nutritional value and just fill up a Mouth’s stomach so it can’t eat as much,” continued Du, having slid almost halfway out of her chair. “I felt so awful.”
In the wake of controversy surrounding the treatment of the interstitial mascots, Dropout host and CEO Sam Reich came forward to dispute the allegations.
“If you can’t run a company ethically, you shouldn’t run it at all,” said Reich, whose progressive views on business and inflicting psychological torment on Brennan Lee Mulligan are widely known. “I’m grateful for a community that supports us while also holding us accountable when we fail to live up to our own standards. Does the question of ‘involuntary performers’ apply to animals? Yes. Is it possible to misinterpret certain behaviors? Of course. Was it a mistake to have the three geometric guys in Make Some Noise twist and morph into each other in rapid succession, the flickering torch of consciousness being passed between them so violently that the lines between the mind-self and the meat-self blur into nonbeing? Hell no. Most viewers don’t know this, but those guys are freaks. They like it. Who am I to deny what makes them happy?”
At press time, a joint statement released by cast members Erika Ishii and Becca Scott announced the pair’s intentions to adopt “the blue one”, which will make its final appearance during this season’s Make Some Noise finale, or whenever they manage to catch it.
