The Plagiarism of Mr. Puzzles

Recently, there’s been a bit of drama in a fandom I’ve never even heard of before today, and yet it’s much like many other kerfuffles. There’s people who have molded their personalities around their individual idea of what their fandom means to them and they’ve got a bone to pick with anyone who imagines their blorbos differently than they do. As much as this is a tale as old as time and ultimately not really worth talking about anymore than just reiterating Ana Valens’ pithy little BlueSky posts about it, I managed to stumble over a more interesting aspect of this fandom: potential theft of intellectual property. Now, granted, many characters and concepts out there are not able to be stolen because their roots are simply too deep in the general zeitgeist; think of things like “super powers derived from sunlight” or “bald villain good at technology,” but when certain design elements are too niche, that’s where you end up getting into trouble.

So, what fandom?

SuperMarioGlitchy4 or SMG4, created by Luke Lerdwichagul around 2011 for a SMG4 YouTube channel. Categorized as parody, the show began much like Red vs. Blue where funny dialogue would play over gameplay from a popular videogame series, this one primarily over Super Mario 64. For shows like this, Garry Newman’s sandbox software “Garry’s Mod” was influential in the growth of the franchise and eventually became the main software utilized in production as the show progressed away from derivatives. As the channel gained in popularity, it was essential to move away from parody-based meme humor to a more original base, leading to the creation of unique characters original to the show.

Here we run into a problem. For a show almost entirely based on derivative humor and intellectual properties, it must be difficult for creators and showrunners to shift into making shit up. Since the majority of characters introduced through the series run were just cheap knock-offs of Mario, Luigi, and other IPs, the introduction of completely unique personalities and designs must have been a chore…and we can certainly muse on that considering our current knowledge regarding design similarities seen between the SMG4 antagonist Mr. Puzzles and the creation of a relatively small comic artist whose character has been around at least a decade longer.

From the very first page of their visually stunning webcomic The Property of Hate published in February of 2012, artist and writer modmad introduced their British carnivalesque TV-headed character “RGB,” and he has remained within the narrative throughout. Being a prominent personality, RGB has a relatively unique design among many TV-headed illustrations as was pointed out by fans who dug into the meat of our Controversy™, featuring a lightweight suit and a boater hat with a pleasant little bowtie and spats to pull the look together. His neutral “face” is comprised of a mostly-blank television screen that features a “mouth” for emoting made of five colored EBU bars which sometimes flow off the screen. His TV is an older style featuring two dials (one for channels and the other for volume), antennae, and a set of vents on the sides which serve the plot as the function by which RGB’s personality is altered (if water is introduced through said vents).

So as far as SMG4 is concerned, it seems as though Mr. Puzzles is a cheap knock-off of RGB. Tumblr user timmyreads collected a myriad of receipts in their post on the subject, including pictures of both characters and in-depth research on the characteristics of each design and how individual choices could have been made. Since Mr. Puzzles was not introduced until 2023, there was a full decade of RGB history but not enough ubiquity in the construction of TV-headed characters to make their design choices overlap in the fashion they clearly do. Their similarities are simply overwhelming in number, and it’s not something even a casual could ignore. Down to the dials and vents on the television, Mr. Puzzles is an almost direct copy of RGB’s overall presentation with minimal alterations which include a bowler hat instead of a boater hat, and the presence of eyes and eyebrows over the EBU bars on his screen. He even has the spatterdashes on his shoes and the “leaky” EBU bar colors and if those aspects aren’t worthy of an indictment, I don’t know what could be. To help us out, timmyreads sorted through and collected 43 other examples of TV-headed characters from a plethora of sources (right down to Skibidi Toilet) in order to illustrate just how unique RGB is.

If only to reiterate this, it’s an interesting exercise to fully pick apart RGB’s wardrobe which to some may seem like overkill but manages to become something of a novelty in itself. From top to bottom, RGB has an era portrayed and though he exists outside of our known reality, his fashion is fairly tightly tied to the early-to-mid 1930s as his suit coat resembles leisure wear popular within the decade often paired with differently-colored front pleated trousers and, yes, a boater. Though spatterdashes (spats) were waning at the time, they were still considered in-fashion for the rank-and-file, giving us insight into further layers of characterization. In every single design choice, from television to his cane, RGB is purposeful and was clearly made with intent and love, his television head even meshing well with his carnival barker cane as a tongue-in-cheek admonishment of the loud meaningless chatter commonly found in the context of cheap entertainment.

It’s difficult to properly portray just how well RGB was designed and how many layers one could pick apart just from looking at him without knowing anything about his narrative. Meanwhile, Mr. Puzzles is just…a sad wriggling animated copy clearly designed to hold the attention of children and not much else. Unfortunately, the mindless masses of impressionable kids who watch trash YouTube channels (I watched most of Skibidi Toilet and found literary merit in it so when I tell you something is trash, it’s not an indictment of the merit, it’s just subjective opinion…but nevertheless, I am right and SMG4 is trash) managed to come to the belief that modmad had copied Mr. Puzzles instead of the other way around. The rabid fans of SMG4 sent a wild amount of hate mail which began modmad’s mental health spiral that is just now seeming to lighten with the greater support they’ve picked up now that the channel has ended its run and rational minds have discovered the (alleged) blatant IP theft.

Though SMG4 has reached its inevitable end, it has circulated that Mr. Puzzles may be getting a spin-off, which has enraged fans of The Property of Hate and has sparked modmad to ask for help from the general public, calling for those aware to write to Glitch Productions (known for The Amazing Digital Circus) to put pressure on them to either alter the design choices of Mr. Puzzles or find some other manner of dealing with the issue before the spin off comes to fruition. modmad’s statement on the subject is heartbreaking, detailing that every previous attempt at contact has been ignored but now that a new production company might be taking on the IP, it could be possible to reach more than just deaf ears. It’s unfortunate to note that a former producer of SMG4, known as FM or Cube, made a public statement claiming that the development of the character was “independent” and unrelated to RGB but they never did reach out to modmad directly to address the glaring similarities (well…what could they say?). On the other hand, the founder of Justice for Artists passed the issue by their legal team and the organization has decided to take on modmad’s case, at least allowing them resources to which they otherwise would not have access. That this org’s team believes the case has merit is just another vindication for those of us whose eyebrows hit the ceiling when we saw the two characters next to each other and provides hope that perhaps modmad will be able to rally their spirit enough to continue with their well-conceived and brilliant comic.

For starting the day not knowing a lick of anything about these two pieces of media, I’ve definitely come out breathing fire on behalf of a beleaguered comic artist who’s been unfairly maligned by brainworm-infested, meme-poisoned iPad kids who couldn’t recognize poignant art if it spat in their face. This isn’t to say that trash can’t have its own intrinsic value (I adore plenty of trash), but you simply cannot badly rip off a unique design from a well-formed and gorgeous piece of media with depth and vision and paste it haphazardly into brain rot without experiencing my indignant derision.

With all that said, I recommend giving modmad’s website a look-see and urge you to consider allowing your voice to join ours in the fight against IP theft from smaller artists.