Penguinstar Waddler

Penguinstar Waddler is an Antarctican animated cartoon available on TV and through "penguinstarwaddler.com". Although originally conceived as a children's book, the site is perhaps most popular with (and has been gravitating toward) young adult penguins.

Origin
Penguinstar Waddler was brought to life in Atlanta in 1996 by two friends, Mike Pengman and Craig Zoguin, who were working summer jobs surrounding the 1996 Summer Olympics. On a day off, they visited a bookstore where they found that the state of children's books was dismal. Intending to parody this, they wrote the original story The Penguinstar Waddler Enters the Quickest Penguin in the World Contest. This story featured Penguinstar, Peng Peng, Ninja Bad, The Cheating Puffle, and a few characters that are rarely seen in later cartoons: The Penguinbot, Mr. Boring, Peñgor, and the Fish Fairy. This hand-drawn book was the only incarnation of the characters for several years.

They later used a Super Snowtendo video game, Penguin Paint, to create the first cartoon of the series. The site domain was registered on December 6, 1999, and around the start of the year 2000, penguinstarwaddler.com was live. Matt Pengman provided the voices of the male characters, while Mike's wife Missy Penger provided Marzipenguin's voice.

The site grew slowly at first, but by mid-2001 it began to take off with the first Ninja Bad Mail. The number of visitors to the site grew. On January 30, 2006, Podguinstar Waddler was launched, allowing people to download select Ninja Bad Mails and other toon episodes to a video-enabled portable media player (such as an icePod). In 2008, a Snowtendo Vii game was made called "Ninja Bad's Cool Game for Awesome Penguins".

Characters
The episodes nominally center on the character Penguinstar Waddler, a somewhat dim but good-hearted athlete. The character Ninja Bad, however, is often more popular among fans, mostly because of his weekly "Ninja Bad Mail". Ninja Bad works closely with his sidekick The Cheating Puffle (occasionally called "The Cheater") and uses his brother Ninja Mad as the muscle in his operations. Together, the three prey on Ninja Bad's brother Ninja Sad.

Several other characters fill out the world: Penguinstar's friend Marzipenguin, his best friend Peng Peng, Coach P, local concession stand owner Bubbles, The King of Island and his Snowsmith. Rounding out the cast is Penginsar, an odd-speaking character created on account of (and in mockery of) a poorly-written letter to Ninja Bad.

Cartoons
A new episode was made nearly every Monday until the hiatus in 2010. Penguinstar Waddler features several "sub-cartoons" and spin-offs, such as Ninja Bad Mail, the most expansive and popular series. Some of these cartoons take place outside the normal Penguinstar universe, and the main characters of the normal cartoons do not necessarily appear in them.

Black-and-White (1927)
These cartoons take place in an old-time setting, with most of the characters having counterparts in the Black-and-White cartoons. These cartoons have a film grain effect added and scratchy audio quality. They parody the distinctive style of animated cartoons from the 1920s and 30s. The versions of the characters are, for the most part, similar to their standard counterparts. The names are mostly slightly changed (for instance, Ninja Bad becomes Sir Bad and Penguinstar becomes The Penguin Star) but some are completely different; for example, Peng Peng's equivalent is called Great Bobley and Ninja Sad's equivalent is called Willy Miserable.

Created by The Cheating Puffle
"Created by The Cheating Puffle" are cartoons created by the character The Cheating Puffle, hence the name. They feature main characters, but have an amateurish style of animation, nonsensical plots and bad voice acting. They parody poorly made Internet cartoons.

30?8
Another series of cartoons, "Ninjoman 30?8" (abbreviated to just 30?8; pronounced "Thirty-question-eight"), originated from a response to a letter asking Ninja Bad what he would look like if he were in an anime cartoon. The main character, Ninjoman, is an anime version of Ninja Bad with spiky green hair and robot boots. He is always looking for a fight, asking various characters he interacts with to engage him in a "battle" ("Are you asking to fight in a battle?"). The characters in 30?8 cartoons each have a counterpart in the Penguinstar Waddler universe, and their features are a parody of anime. Ninjoman's name comes from a conversation Penguinstar and Ninja Bad had while marooned on a cold, snowy island.

Puffle Agents
The Puffle Agents is a show about puffles in the EPF. The enemy of the agents is Red Blaster. The cartoon is constantly advertising its products in the cartoons by such methods as referring to the areas they are in as "playsets", a convoy truck as an "action figure storage vehicle", and by ending each cartoon with the phrase "Purchase all our igloos and action figures!"

Ninja Bad Email
Ninja Bad Emails (also known as "ninjamails") have traditionally been among the most popular features on Penguinstar Waddler. When it started in August 2001, the Ninjamails were initially brief, but grew to establish numerous spinoffs and inside jokes on the site. The format, though, has remained essentially unchanged since its inception (with the exception of updated mailboxes): Ninja Bad receives a letter from a fan or viewer, and starts saying his response. Most of the time a cut-away sequence is used that gets away from the talking. Once the events of the email finish unfolding, Ninja Bad sends the mail, and then "That Printer" comes down/up with a link to email Ninja Bad. Often, hidden animations (Easter Eggs) are displayed when the user clicks on a word or picture either during the email or after it has concluded. As of April 1, 2015, there are 212 Ninjamails (including the 6 bonus episodes found on the Ninjamail DVDs). Many Penguinstar Waddler objects or characters, such as Trogdragon, Penginsar, Mr. Pengmanguin, Ninja Team comics, and Ninjoman 30?8, originated from sbemails.

Ninja Team
Ninja Team is a crudely drawn comic strip narrated by Ninja Bad. It began after Ninja Bad received mail asking him to make a comic strip of a ninja. The comic features four ninjas, with heavy parody evident in the characters' nondescript names: "Ninjaman", "Ninjaguy", "Ninjaperson" and "The Other Ninja".

Marzipeng's Answering Machine
Marzipeng's Answering Machine has limited animation and consists of a series of phone messages left on Marzipeng's answering machine. These cartoons often include attempts by Ninja Bad to prank call Marzipeng. Ninja Sad is shown to have called many times, appearing to be friends with Marzipeng. In addition, less frequently featured characters appear, such as Pengoman, The Thbubbleman and Vector Ninja Bad.

Puppet Things
penguinstarwaddler.com also features a segment in which the regular cartoons are replaced by puppets that may do skits. Other videos include "Work Office Time," which displays Ninja Bad interacting with Penguinstar in his office cubicle.

Hiatus
On April 1st, 2010, the April Fools' Day cartoon Ultrastar Galaxy Force was released, the first update in 5 months. For the first time in the site's history, no Halloween cartoon was produced in 2010. On December 14, 2010, An Amazering Holidaystmas was released, temporarily ending the hiatus. This was shortly followed by Happy Halloweenstmas? on December 22.

December 22, 2011, marked the first time in the site's history that an entire year passed with no new content. The hiatus was briefly interrupted on April 1, 2014 with April Fools' 2014. At the end of that toon, the characters discuss the possibility of there being a substantial amount of time before the next update. This toon replaced the normal welcome screen and remained in place until July. Later, more cartoons were released in October, such as Wish For a Fish Eye, Have a Safe Halloween, and What Happened to Peng Peng?, followed by Ninjamail 206, the first Ninja Bad Email in 5 years. The website still releases cartoons occasionally, but not as often as they used to.

Trivia

 * It is a parody of Homestar Runner.