Some Gumnutt Has Painstakingly Annotated Those Australian Pokemon

What’s better than a good joke? Having the good joke explained to you in painstaking detail of course!

Late last week Melbourne artist Paul Robertson — known for his intro animation work on Rick and Morty and viral pixel tributes to The Simpsons — unleashed his masterpiece, a completely Australian Pokedex. With gems such as “Slipp, Slopp, and Slapp” and the apt terror of “Loonaparc”, the 151-strong Pokedex is a crash course in Australian pop culture and nostalgia. It’s got wordplay (Platterpuss), social commentary (Goonfish or Veebee anyone?) plus deeper mythological allusions (Djinngo!!). It’s kitsch, it’s daggy, and very, very Australia-specific.

So naturally some people don’t get the joke. You could perhaps say they were left

ed.

Well, no matter. Now someone with a bit of time on their hands has been painstakingly translating and annotating the Pokedex, to help

out those left scratching their heads.

We’ve all been that person left wondering “what’s the joke?” when a seemingly unfunny word or situation sent everyone around you off in peals of laughter. It’s nice and all that someone’s gone to the trouble of carefully explaining the etymology of each of the new Pokemon to let more people in on the joke, and we’re certainly not saying the author is a

for doing this (there is always more to be learned after all). But it also, kind of, strangles the humour somewhat.

what a magnificent way to ruin this wonderful thing https://t.co/iffXAhowDL

— thomas violence (@thomas_violence) May 28, 2017

But who are we to

or

?

On the plus side, Reddit has gotten in on the fun and inadvertently spawned a second generation of jokes (though, in the true spirit of Pokemon, they are not as good as the originals). In a beautiful scene of cross-cultural exchange commenters have been marvelling at the fact that fairy bread isn’t an internationally-celebrated delicacy, while an American Redditor has caused chaos by claiming that Hot Cross Buns are a Christmas food.

There is also a decent amount of in-fighting, as Australians debate the “true” story of the dog on the tuckerbox, and a punch-up ensues over whether “Swagtail” is specifically a reference to Waltzing Matilda or not.

Joke enhancer or joke ruiner? It’s uncertain. The only thing we do know is that some things just

–

Check out the full annotated Pokedex here.