Everything We Loved About The Cuphead Show! Script by: Allison Grosser
On February 18th, The Cuphead Show premiered on Netflix, to huge success. It was no doubt that a
franchise as popular as Cuphead would become a great cartoon, especially with the creators of
the game, the Moldenhauer’s and developer Dave Wasson working on it. We enjoyed watching the
firsts batch of twelve episodes when they first came out, and we can’t stop rewatching them. We
loved the show so much, that we just had to talk about all the great things about it and why people
should watch it. And of course, the second drop of the show is coming out August 19th,
so now is the perfect time to catch yourself up on the episodes as we wait for new episodes.
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge, and this is Everything We Loved about The Cuphead Show!
We love the fact that anyone can watch the show. What we mean by that, is that you don’t need to
have played the games to enjoy the show. It’s written as a separate canon from the games,
but the characters are all the same, and they revolve around the same concept; Cuphead loses
his soul to the Devil. Of course, some stuff was changed to make things more appropriate for
younger audiences, but it works! It’s a great way to introduce more people to the Cuphead franchise.
Speaking of changes, the change from Cuphead owing his soul to the Devil
because he gambled at the Casino to him losing at skeeball is brilliant! Like with gambling,
it shows Cuphead’s overconfidence in his abilities, and he doesn’t notice or
recognize the consequences until it’s too late. We can’t talk about The Cuphead Show without
talking about the animation. The animators really did their homework on 1930’s cartoons,
mimicking the style and techniques used back then. This includes the character designs,
using 3D backgrounds, the grain effect, and more. They even do the episode title cards done during
the time; for a comparison, think of early Looney Tunes title cards. And we love it.
Related to talking of 1930’s animation, there are so many callbacks and references to animation
from that era, especially Disney and Fleischer Studios. We’ve got Felix’s Initiation references
during the Devil chase scene in the first episode, the Devil painting the fence a la The Sorcerer’s
Apprentice from Fantasia, and so many just in the episode “Ghost’s Ain’t Real,” just to name a few.
We love Cuphead and Mugman, and they make great protagonists.
Their contrasting personalities also seem to both land them and get them out of trouble, and it’s
enjoyable to see what wacky hijinks that they’re up to each episode, usually thanks to Cuphead.
We love the show's humor, which is a blend of slapstick, and wordplay. It’s a great show to
watch when you’re looking for a good laugh. One of the things that we laugh at is all the
characters' facial expressions. They’re just so over the top and ridiculous, which we love.
The Devil as an antagonist is just as great! He is the right blend of being charming,
funny, and terrifying at the same time. While obviously we don’t want him to succeed in
collecting Cuphead’s soul, we enjoy watching him try, especially when things don’t go his way.
Even though Cuphead and Mugman are the main characters, we love how the show
focuses on other characters as well. We got an entire episode dedicated to Elder Kettle, Ms.
Chalice and King Dice, we get to see what goes on with the Devil in the Underworld
and Porkrind’s black market. It’s great how so much thought is put to the other characters.
The Easter Eggs from the game are a joy to find! Cuphead pulls up his pants before he
plays skee ball, like his pre-battle animation in the game. The close-up
of the Devil’s eye in the intro is like the animation the Devil does before his
boss fight. Clip Joint Calamity being played in the Ribby and Croaks episode.
Even some of the mini bosses from the King Dice battle like Mangosteen and Pip and Dot in the
background or on posters, and the Blind Specter from the Phantom Express in a group of ghosts.
We also love how the show adds more to the Cuphead characters
than that was already in the game. Things like how the Cup brothers love ice-cream, cookies,
and have a sweet tooth in general. Mugman has stage fright so bad that he literally freezes
like a statue. Elder Kettle being an army veteran and former athlete. King Dice having a game show.
And the fact that it’s confirmed that Elder Kettle raised the Cup brothers when they were babies.
We absolutely love the intro! It perfectly sets the tone of the show and the dynamic between
the cup brothers; Cuphead gets himself and Mugman into all sorts of trouble,
and it’s usually up to Mugman to get them out of it. Not to mention,
the song is catchy too. We can’t stop singing it. Also, a quick mention of the animation of Mugman
flying his plane (also a reference to the games) around a giant Cuphead head in
space. Not only does it resemble older movie studio logos, but it’s also just adorable.
We also love how while of course, the show is appropriate for kids,
like many other cartoons, they sneak in some jokes for the adults, and even have some dark
moments. There’s something for everybody! We think the characters are written
amazingly. They could’ve easily been written as one-dimensional; Cuphead is confident, Mugman is
cautious, Elder Kettle is old, the Devil is evil, and so on, but that isn’t the case. We see that
Cuphead has his limits and his “I ain’t worried about it” attitude is just a façade. Mugman can
be brave when he needs to be, especially when he has to save his brother. Elder Kettle has a pep
in his step, and still has the energy he had during his glory days. And the Devil is evil,
yes, but he feels other emotions too, and even is able to get along with Cuphead, although it was
for a short amount of time. Because of this, the characters feel real, and we can relate to them.
We loved Ms. Chalice and her episode “In Charms Way.” She’s such a charmer;
hence the name of the episode, and such a talented singer and dancer. Also, the mystery behind her
character has us so intrigued, and we can’t wait to see more of her in the second drop.
The brotherly relationship between Cuphead and Mugman is portrayed perfectly. They clearly get
on each other’s nerves, just like any other siblings, but at the same time,
they’re the best of friends and are always there for each other.
The characters' voices are also something we enjoy; the voices fit the characters so much, and
we couldn’t imagine the characters with any other voices. And based on what we’ve seen in behind the
scenes and the table read from geeked week, the actors get into character so well, and just seem
to have a great time. We applaud all the fun and wacky voices for the fun and wacky characters.
The change from Ribby and Croaks being just boxers,
to retired boxers running a fancy restaurant we believed worked really well. Also, the fact that
they keep on fighting each other is a funny gag. We thoroughly enjoyed the music in the show,
both the background music and the songs. Like we mentioned earlier, some of the compositions from
the game are used in the show, but the original compositions are just as great, and fit the time
era of the 1930’s perfectly. Same with the songs! We love how quotable the show is;
there are so many moments and lines that at a given notice, we can easily recite them.
While of course we enjoy seeing faces we knew from the game, the show’s original characters,
like Stickler, Sherman and Doris, Baby Bottle, and Doris, to name a few, were also fun to watch,
even if they are just for a one-time gag. King Dice’s episode “Roll the Dice,” was such a
joy to watch! We love how charismatic King Dice is, and how he was slowly losing his cool
with Cuphead ruining his show was fun to watch! We loved the continuity in the show. The two-part
sweater episodes were a fun continuation of the Devil trying to steal Cuphead’s
soul storyline. There’s going to be an episode continuing where the last episode, “In Charms
Way” ended. And that’s just two examples. We also loved the personalities and slight
design changes given to the Root Pack. The fact that they’re just
basically party goers that invade/take over places to hold shindigs was clever.
Finally, the last thing we want to say basically sums up what we’ve already said.
So much care and effort were put into making this show, and each episode shows that. We can’t even
pick a favorite episode because we love them all, but we don’t have enough time to talk about all of
them and every little detail we enjoyed. We just want to thank the Cuphead Show
crew for creating such a great, fun show. But let us know in the comment section what you
loved the most about The Cuphead Show! And tell us what we should cover next. Remember to hit the
notification bell and watch all of our Cuphead Show videos. But most importantly, stay wicked.