| “ | Togetherness makes anything effortless. | „ |
| ~ Bugbo's catchphrase. |
| “ | That's right, folks. It's time to solve yet another problem by asking ourselves "What Would Gradient Joe Do?". | „ |
| ~ Bugbo interacting with the audience. |
Bugbo is the main protagonist of the 2022 web series of the same name.
The series consists of recordings of a fake flash movie series from mid to late 2000s. This consists of the many adventures of Bugbo and his friends: Gerbo, a dimwitted spider shown to admire Bugbo and be manipulated with ease; Gradient Joe, a humanoid figure with a radial gradient for a head which doesn't talk but seems to be capable of common sense; and Hoppo, the iconic fourth protagonist of the series, whose presence is brief but felt.
He presents as a self-centered protagonist which logically analyzes any game his many friends find themselves in, looking to manipulate how they act in companionship of him and in their free time.
Bugbo is shown to feel no remorse for his actions and goes to any length, including murder, to complete the most mundane of tasks.
He is directly voiced by series creator bensilly.
Personality[]
On the surface, Bugbo is quite the admirable fellow. He strives to learn and teach valuable lessons to both his friends and his viewers, especially the dimwitted Gerbo. He's also willing to do anything in order to help, such as the time he tried to help the Hollow Clown by winning against the corrupt Mayor Quentin and making all circuses legal again. He also seems to hold his friend, Gradient Joe, and his every decision with upmost respect. Bugbo himself claims that, whenever faced with a conundrum or a difficult choice, he asks himself: WWGJD? (What Would Gradient Joe Do?)
This is, however, a facade for his more malicious side. Bugbo is often deadpan, dismissive, and borderline devoid of any emotion, remorse, or sympathy, even towards his inner circle. He was completely fine with accidentally killing the Stone Merchant and using his body parts as a means to build a meaningless tower of stones, as well as being completely unfazed after directly killing Mayor Quentin. Bugbo is also manipulative, especially towards his friend and companion Gerbo, whom he manipulates under the guise of "teaching lessons."
Gerbo mentions that Bugbo would never miss Wrecking Ball Day, which implies that he has a more destructive side to his personality.
Whenever Bugbo slips and reveals this facet of his personality, his tone becomes shifty and quick, coming across as even more dismissive and passive aggressive.
Biography[]
Set In Stone[]
The episode starts off with Bugbo introducing himself and his many friends. While walking around, he finds Gerbo collecting rocks. He immediately questions the spider, and tells him that everything must be done with a purpose and a final motive. When Bugbo and Joe hear Gerbo's expectations for his stone structure he's building, they are quickly overwhelmed and decide to set out to look for bigger rocks for a more moderately sized structure.
The main characters find a rock dealer made of stones. When they're told the finest stones are equivalently expensive, Bugbo straight up refuses to pay. When asked about it in the section "What Would Gradient Joe Do?", Joe offers a deal, which puzzles the dealer so much he dies. Gerbo, who wasn't paying attention to what was unfolding, takes the rocks not knowing they are part of a corpse.
Once they make the stones into a structure, a wizard called "Inepta the Stone Mage" is summoned by the formation, thanks the main cast, and proceeds to petrify themselves.
The main cast farewells the viewer and promises more adventures on the way.
Under the Oak[]
The episode starts with Bugbo meeting Gerbo, who is relaxing under a tree. Bugbo deems the tree "inconsistent" and asks Gradient Joe to cut it down. The tree falls to uncover a hole. Joe is at first reluctant to go down and refuses to take the initiative, which angers Bugbo who verbally harasses and pushes him into the tunnel and brings Gerbo in.
On the other side they find an abandoned carnival with a tall, creepy clown residing inside. This clown calls itself the Hollow Clown, a clown born and raised to the underground carnival who never knew anything outside of the circus. Eventually, the mayor of the city tripped on a circus ball rolling on the stage while he gave a speech, to which in a fit of rage he responded with the illegalization of all circuses.
With the recent banning, most owners of circuses in the area weren't too reluctant to close their tents, except for the Hollow Clown. He hid his circus under an underground tunnel and placed a fake tree to mask it. Hearing this, Bugbo and friends get to working on a plan to make Gradient Joe the mayor in order to override the law.
They have Joe run for mayor and they manipulate the voting to be held tomorrow. Once they're backstage before their respective speeches, Bugbo and friends realize that Joe can not even talk, to which the mayor laughs. While the mayor gives his speech, Bugbo breaks into the stage, interrupts him, and disintegrates him, completely killing the mayor and making Joe win by default.
Joe's first act as a mayor is to unban circuses, which earns him overwhelming praise, causing such commotion that the clown's thought to be late father comes out of the ground. However, a circus ball rolls on stage and Joe trips on it, which causes the newly elected mayor to throw a fit and abruptly ban circuses again.
A Familiar Foe[]
Before this episode could even begin, in the middle of Wrecking Ball day, too, Bugbo is kidnapped by his self-proclaimed arch-nemesis, Thomas Flyswatter, a former Human who became a humanoid Flyswatter following a tragic incident in the Swatter Incorporated. As such, Bugbo takes little to no participation in the episode due to being limited to the confines of Thomas' evil lair, located on top of the steep Mount Bobo.
Thomas would send a letter announcing Bugbo's kidnapping to Gerbo and Gradient Joe, telling them that they have 12 bug hours to find him and rescue Bugbo, unless they want him to DIE! This prompts the pair to start searching all over the globe for Bugbo, even phoning their good pal, Hoppo, for help. Unfortunately, Hoppo was preoccupied fighting an unnamed war, so she wasn't able to assist in the search for the bug.
As the pair search all over the bug globe, Thomas evilly announces to Bugbo his malicious plans while the bug hangs from the ceiling. Thomas explains the three possible outcomes: The clock counts down to bug zero, and Bugbo is killed alone; Bugbo's friends arrive and are forced to watch their good pal and friend die; or they don't even show up and Bugbo dies alone, knowing that his friends never cared all that much for him. Bugbo's immediate reaction to the last possibility was to explain to the viewer the importance of true, loyal friends, and how those without friends grow to become spiteful lunatics with a mind only focused on themselves. Thomas unfortunately covers Bugbo's mouth and threatens him to activate the device should he continue before he's able to continue with this valuable lesson.
Thankfully for Bugbo, Gradient Joe and Gerbo were finally able to find the evil lair he was being held captive in thanks to the help of the Red Brother and his helpful items, particularly a snake whose sole purpose was to help them climb up Mount Bobo. Thomas finally reveals his true identity to the trio via his tragic backstory which no one really cares about. Bugbo, tired of Thomas' wrongdoings and being kidnapped, simply shape tweens and exchanges places with him. With Thomas being the one helpless and tied, the trio leaves the evil lair as Thomas shouts out generic villain quotes, such as "We are more alike than you think" and "If you kill me, you'd be just like me.", but also says "If you kill me, you'll never know the truth about your father!" as the audio fades out.
Bugbo congratulates Gerbo (and completely ignores Gradient Joe) for successfully managing to find him and rewards him with a golden star, which is sadly taken away from him shortly after under the excuse that all of this could have been avoided should he have been more attentive. The episode ends, as usual, with Bugbo saying his iconic catchphrase "Togetherness makes anything Effortless" as a wrecking ball destroys the remains of the evil lair. Also, you can see Thomas fly out of the wreckage.
In Other Media[]
ROBLOX[]
Bugbo's presence is palpable even in the online gaming platform of ROBLOX, where he and all of his three acquintances are purchasable as cosmetics in the User Generated Content (UGC) in-game store. Bugbo also makes appearance in some games, where he is also voiced by series creator bensilly himself.
Regretevator[]
| “ | Now I'm not one to partake in the act of collecting rocks without reasoning, but today I've given it a purpose to win this minigame! Begin. | „ |
| ~ Bugbo, alerting the players about the next minigame's objective. |
Bugbo makes an appearance in one of the floors in the ROBLOX game Regretevator, the titular "Rock Collection" floor. In this floor, which is heavily based on the Bug World seen in the first two episodes, Bugbo hosts a minigame where the players need to find all the rocks scattered about the map.
The Stone Merchant, alive and well, also makes a cameo, which could imply that the events of the minigame take place before the Bugbo series itself, making this Bugbo's first chronological appearance.
Trivia[]
- Bugbo was inspired by a now-private video of a character from "Jumbo's Wonderland." [1]
- Bugbo's name was originally Bilblo. [2]
- Bugbo's full name is just Bugbo.
- His motive is "Education & Fun".[3]
- In a Q&A, it is said that Bugbo is actually just a generic bug, considering the creator doesn't know much about bugs.
- Ben has said that the people who consider Bugbo to be an ant are "maybe right."[4]
- Ben considers Bugbo's species to be ambiguous.
- Ben replied about Bugbo's darkened eyes in Under the Oak saying: "Maybe just some kind of emotion, who knows".[5]
- Many people theorize that Bugbo is an ant and/or has wings that hide behind him. Bensilly has not confirmed or said anything on the wing theory.
- Everyone outside of his close circle that have antagonized him end up dying.
References[]
See Also[]
- Bugbo on the Bugbo Wiki
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