Silly Speculative Skylanders

So, a few nights ago while Firstborn was playing Skylanders, I asked if he'd found the Eternal Silly Source yet. For those unfamiliar with the game, the plot basically revolves around trying to recover various elemental sources (The Eternal Life Source, The Eternal Water Source, etc.) so that you can use them to rebuild the Core of Light, and thereby drive back The Darkness.

Firstborn has a particularly well-developed facepalm gesture. This is entirely my fault. So he drops his forehead into the palm of his hand and says, "Are you crazy, Daddy?" We went back and forth for a bit, with me insisting that I just wanted to know if he'd found it yet, and him insisting that "Silly" is not an element.

Well, Saturday morning while we were buying groceries, Firstborn started wondering if we could make up some new Skylanders, who would represent the Silly element. (The game has something like eight elements: air, earth, fire, water, life, undead, magic, and tech. So what, exactly, qualifies as an element is kind of an open question. I mean, "life" might qualify, but "tech"?)

Each element is represented by four Skylanders (so there are a total of thirty-two characters in the game, plus some special variant versions). So, in order to have a Silly element (and, by extension, an Eternal Silly Source), we needed four Skylanders to represent it. Here's what we came up with while we were pushing the grocery cart around:

Nosey The Clown: A goblin in a clown suit. Primary attack is stepping on Bad Guys with his oversized floppy shoes. Secondary attack is firing his red clown nose at bad guys. Suggested upgrades involve larger, floppier shoes; or rapid fire, bouncing, and explosive options for the nose attack.

Yap Yap: A circus dog with small wings. Primary attack is sonic - yapping at bad guys. This upgrades to improve range and increase damage. Secondary attack allows Yap Yap to balance atop a large rubber ball, which he rolls around to squash opponents. Upgrades include increased duration, better damage, and the ability to roll on water.

Dread Dodo: A large, flightless, silly-looking bird. Turns into a penguin when crossing water. Primary attack involves pecking at enemies with its beak, which can be upgraded for greater range (the beak grows when it pecks), increased damage, and like that. Secondary attack causes the Dodo to swallow a stick of dynamite and explode, damaging nearby enemies. A third ability (available as an upgrade) surrounds the Dodo with a cloud of feathers, improving armor and speed.

Tangle: A wobbly, walking piece of string. Primary attack causes noodly string-arms to reach out and tie opponents' feet together, causing them to fall on their noses. This can be upgraded for improved range, increased damage, and a longer stun period. Secondary attack causes Tangle to gather himself into a giant ball of yarn, which can roll around and bash into enemies, and also distracts every cat within a half mile radius.

So that's it. I'd play those guys. Wouldn't you?