Mulberry

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Mulberry fears no authority.

Not everyone in a regal situation is an airheaded whiny stuck-up bimbo. No, some of us are intelligent. Some of us pose an actual THREAT to you. Get me? —Mulberry Sharona

Peter Paltridge, the host of Platypus Comix, created Mulberry in 2004. The title character, who has also become Platypus Comix's mascot, had previously appeared in the final strips of another comic, Marin Meadow. Mulberry features Mulberry Sharona, a 16-year old heiress from Seven Springs, California, who has managed to avoid becoming an Upperclass Twit thanks to Parental Abandonment. Accompanied by her friends Jack The One Guy and Tiff the Dumb Blonde housekeeper, this Non-Idle Rich girl makes adventures out of any scheme she comes up with.

Tropes used in Mulberry include:

• Accidental Innuendo: Mulberry accidentally lets Brad Pitt's and Angelina Jolie's children, left for her to babysit in "Heiress A Parent", overhear some invoked examples.
• All Just a Dream: The last three pages of "Just Another Manic Monday".
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Some of the readers felt surprised to learn that Ambush Makeover, which became spoofed in "Mulberry's 2004 Fall TV Preview," actually exists.
• Animated Actors: Mulberry even has an account at the forum of Platypus Comix's parent site, Toon Zone.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Mulberry's struggles in "Heiress A Parent" to find something appropriate for the kids to watch include bypassing TV shows with "sex, violence, violent sex, violence", and "Bob Saget".
• Art Shift:
  • "Mul/Kerry/Bush" shifts to brown-and-white sketches as Mulberry and her friends drop Dr. Badass out of the 2004 election.
  • "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mulberry" became more realistic-looking for Mulberry's three-page recap of the first season finale of Heroes.
  • "Mulberry's Epic Yarn" turns Deliberately Monochrome as Mulberry and Tiff decide to have some "PB&J" by singing the Peter, Bjorn, and John song "Young Folks."
• Attention Whores: The Seven Spring heiresses who grew up to become ditzier than Mulberry, such as her adversary, Spoiled Brat Mary Roach.
• Author Tract
• Berserk Button: Mulberry will make you pay if you call women overemotional.
• Bottle Episode: The majority of "Just Another Manic Monday" occurs in a nondescript room of Mulberry's mansion.
• Brick Joke:
  • Both of Mulberry's flashbacks of meeting Britney Spears in "Death by Captain and Tenille" involve her holding a hideous creature (first a stray kitten, then Kevin Federline) and asking, "Look! Isn't it pretty?" Thirteen pages later, a terrorist expresses disgust at America's "uncovered women," prompting a scene of Spears mooning paparazzi and repeating the question she asked Mulberry twice.
    • Mulberry meets Britney Spears again in the next issue, "Scary Berry." Spears shows off her shaved head and asks once again, "Look! Isn't it pretty?"
  • "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mulberry" began with Mulberry and her friends attending Veronica Mars' funeral following her show's cancellation. A fanboy suddenly entered and tried in vain to bring her back to life. Near the end of the comic, he encounters Kristen Bell, but she has taken on the form of Elle Bishop from Heroes.
• Cliff Hanger: "Scary Berry" ended with Mulberry in rehab. Readers didn't learn the resolution until "Prison Broke" came 5 1/2 months later.
• Continuity Cameo:
  • Joan of Arc, who had risen from the dead in a two-part comic titled "Raiders of the Lost Arc," makes appearances in "Franken-Berry."
  • Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson, as portrayed in Paltridge's "True Believers," form part of a crowd scene in "If Ya Don't Eat Your Mulberry, Ya Can't Have Any Pudding! How Can Ya Have Any Pudding If Ya Don't Eat Your Mulberry??"
  • TeBOING!ss, the Kesha caricature from the Scrambled Eggs comic "It's Square to Be Hip," smokes a bubble hookah in "Mulberry's Epic Yarn."
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: In "Artifacting," John Kricfalusi makes prisoners endure lectures about why all animation sucks compared to his and disagrees with anything they say. Eventually, Mulberry forces him to wear the Happy Hat and broaden his appreciations.
• Cool Loser: The other heiresses of Seven Springs may shun Mulberry for her refusal to do anything she considers embarrassingly stupid, such as getting high or drunk, but she's still smarter than any of them, and heiress to one of the world's most powerful monopolies, VGI.
• Couch Gag: Ever since 2005, issues have used old, unusual-looking comic book covers instead of covers that bear direct relevance to the story. Some of them have Mulberry photoshopped into the scenes, but issues from October 2008 onward depict the covers unaltered.
• Criminal Amnesiac: George W. Bush's daughter Barbara in "Year Six."
• Crossover: "Artifacting" has Mulberry race against Indiana Jones and Lara Croft in a quest for Ren and Stimpy's History Eraser Button.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Tiff defeats a zombie Orville Redenbacher in "Franken-berry".
• Cut and Paste Translation: Mulberry presents one of Naruto in "Mulberry's 2004 Fall TV Preview".

Mulberry: Through the magic of editing, 4Kids Productions has turned a ninja cartoon into a depiction of daily American school life! Naruto is now known here as Larry and His Socially Conscious Adventures, and it's being hailed by critics as "Doug for the 21st Century! Here's a peek!" (Three page preview plays) Mulberry: Some complain that things like this destroy the original artist's vision. I say, who cares? The man's all the way back in Japan; how's he gonna find out? Jack: And he probably doesn't have internet...

• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: At the end of the page where Mulberry introduces herself, Jack, and Tiff to new readers, she claims the site has infected one of the reader's folders, and opening that folder would render the computer incapable of visiting any website other than the one for Dora the Explorer.
• Darker and Edgier: One of Pitt's and Jolie's children becomes corrupted in "Heiress A Parent" after playing an M-rated version of Cooking Mama.
• A Day At the Bizarro: "Mulberry's Epic Yarn" starts out as a parody of Kirby's Epic Yarn, then becomes progressively stranger, until they reveal that Mulberry wrote the issue herself, apparently warping hers and Tiff's reality.

Mulberry: Wait, now I'm even more confused!

• Deadpan Snarker: Mulberry on occasion.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: In "Just Another Manic Monday," Jack overhears Mulberry speak some of her darkest secrets while sleeping.
• Dirty Old Man: Mulberry abuses one in "Mulberry Sharona, Slayer of WASPs". She then finds out lots of heiresses in her town desire him because of his high social status.
• Disney Death: Two in the recap at the beginning of "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mulberry".
• Disproportionate Retribution: "Mulberry: OFFENDED!" has Mulberry set out to kill a comedian who called women overemotional a year earlier.
• Does Not Like Men: Jezebel in "Jeboozled".
• Easy Amnesia: Barbara Pierce Bush loses her memory in "Year Six" during a terrorist attack, and regains it after Tiff pushes her out of Mulberry's helicopter right before she can stab them.
• Engineered Public Confession: In "Mulberry's 2009 Fall TV Preview", Mulberry tricks a writer for The CW into publicly broadcasting his beliefs that Viewers are Morons, but none of The CW's viewers feel offended because they really are morons.
• Fake-Out Opening: "Jack the Ripper" begins by showing a fire-launching, silhouetted person exploring a village, but it turns out the person is just a character Jack is playing in an online game.
• Faking the Dead: To protect themselves from terrorists and their father's haters, Jenna and Barbara Bush resort to this at the end of "Year Six." The girls' father refused their kidnappers' demands to pull troops out of Iraq, leaving them in danger of beheading, and the building where they were being held hostage exploded.
• Fish Out of Water: "Mulberry Sharona, Slayer of WASPs" lands Mulberry at a country club gathering of airheaded heiresses.
• Filler Strip: "Murphy's Lawn" was written to tide Platypus Comix readers over as Paltridge spent extra time completing a four-part Electric Wonderland comic.
• A Friend in Need: Mulberry often acknowledges the importance of her friendships with Jack and Tiff, whether she or one of them is the one in need.
• Follow the Leader:
  • "Mulberry vs. Wal-Mart" begins as Mulberry learns her companies are losing money to Wal-Mart. In response, she, Jack, and Tiff, then spend a few hours in one of their stores. At the end of the comic, Mulberry applies what she learned from the trip into opening her own store.
  • Mulberry finds herself resorting to this in "Mulberry's Lawn," while trying to turn Brittany Murphy's last movie (Asylum Pictures' UFO vs. Killer Unicorn) into a Hollywood blockbuster. Universal nearly rejects the film for not having enough blue people, but she manages to get around that by promising "4-D" special effects instead. Mulberry also broadens appeal by changing the title to The Feel Sandwich, in hopes of earning a Hurt Locker-level of critical acclaim, and turning Flava Flav's character from a little boy to a sparkly vampire.
• Foreshadowing: "Franken-Berry" contains a scene Mulberry asks Tiff if she remembers the time they searched for the History Eraser Button, but after Jack says he doesn't, Mulberry remembers that comic won't appear at Platypus Comix for another seven months.
• Global Ignorance: Mary attempts to attract tabloids in "Prison Broke" by landing herself in jail. However, things don't go as planned, so she asks Mulberry to come to Mexico and rescue her. It later turns out that Mary actually ended up in her family's California hotel.
• Go Seduce My Arch-Nemesis: Mary Roach tells Mulberry that she treated her more nicely than usual in "Mulberry Sharona, Slayer of WASPs" in hopes that Mulberry will seduce a policeman that wouldn't accept Mary's bribes.
• Grand Theft Me:
  • In "Obamadramarama," Mulberry's scheme to take control of Sarah Palin's body goes awry when she and her friends obtain the wrong hair sample, giving Hillary Clinton control over Mulberry's body.
  • At one point in "Mulberry's Epic Yarn," Mulberry and Tiff find a room full of View-Masters that allow users to see from the perspective of a celebrity, and also control what that person says and does. Incidentally, Mulberry briefly uses one to finally control Sarah Palin.
• Heroic BSOD: Mulberry's reaction in "Murphy's Lawn" to the news that Brittany Murphy died.

Mulberry: NOOO-HO-HOOO! Every time I said, "Kill all celebrities," I would always whisper, "except one." Brittany Murphy was that one! Jack: I'm sorry...This is really hitting you hard, isn't it? Mulberry: This isn't like Michael Jackson or Patrick Swayze...I actually mean it this time!

• I Am Not Spock: In-universe, Nice Character, Mean Actor Hayden Panettiere doesn't react kindly to Jack calling her, "Claire" in "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mulberry".
• Insistent Terminology: Mulberry, Tiff, and Jezebel insist in "Jeboozled" that men always refer to females as "women" instead of, "girls", although women can call each other girls.
• Instant Awesome, Just Add Mecha: Mulberry's battle with Hayden Panettiere in "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mulberry" includes some robots.
• Intoxication Ensues: The contents of Paula Abdul's Coke glass have this affect on Mulberry in "Scary Berry."
• Invisible Parents: Apparently, Mulberry's parents have spent so little time with her, she has forgotten what they look like. (Once, she nearly fell for George W. Bush's attempt to pull a Luke, I Am Your Father on her) Jack and Tiff have admitted to having parents, but they do not live on the Sharona estate.
• It's Been Done: Mulberry tries to find legendary objects in "Artifacting," released the same month as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but explorers from all areas of fiction beat her to each object she tries to find during the first nine pages.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Early on in "Obamadramarama," Mulberry explains that whoever she will switch brains with later will not remember anything she did while in Mulberry's body, and instead assume she went unconscious for the duration of the switch.
• Last-Second Word Swap: After Mulberry fails in "Heiress A Parent" to convince the President of Television to lessen the amount of programs children can't watch, she exclaims, "Go to...a field of daisies!" after noticing one of her wards standing near her.
• Let's Get Dangerous: As a result of her interactions with Mulberry in "Year Six," Jenna Bush becomes more defiant and beats up terrorists who try to kill her sister.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Mulberry realizes she's one in "Mulberry's Surrogate Family," as Jack and Tiff prepare to visit their families for Christmas, and she confesses to them that her parents are never around.
• Made of Iron: "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mulberry" reveals Hayden Panettiere to have as much invincibility as her Heroes character, Claire Bennet.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Fed up with all the Product Placement she must endure while watching Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in "If Ya Don't Eat Your Mulberry, Ya Can't Have Any Pudding! How Can Ya Have Any Pudding If Ya Don't Eat Your Mulberry??", Mulberry decides to unleash balloons of popular, completely random characters. The characters end up having an epic battle, until Santa Claus blows them up and makes candy rain down.
• Medium Blending: "Let's Scare Mary Roach to Death" combines character drawings with photographic backgrounds as Mulberry forces Mary to spend a night in the abandoned, decaying Dixie Square Mall.
• Missing Episode: Several, but the absence of "Suddenly Mulberry" sticks out the most. After its removal, "Mulberry's 2004 Fall TV Preview" became the oldest comic in the Mulberry archive. A few obvious signs exist that something came before it: the cover reads, "the second one", and Mulberry acknowledges the comic's interrupting her actual first arc.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • By the end of "Artifacting," Mulberry has obtained the History Eraser Button before Indy and Lara, and even turned John Kricfalusi into less of an egomaniac. Unfortunately, she accidentally sits on the History Eraser Button, seemingly erasing history in the process.
  • At the end of "Heiress A Parent", Mulberry decides to directly remind Pitt's and Jolie's children that TV doesn't always accurately teach right from wrong, especially when sex and/or violence become involved. However, after the children assure Mulberry that they won't follow Barney's pornographic-sounding suggestion for a Google image search, Mulberry tells them, "Remember, this is the same TV that keeps telling you Santa Claus is real!" The children don't seem to react kindly to this.
• Non Standard Character Design:
  • John Kricfalusi, in "Artifacting," is drawn in the style of his cartoons as opposed to Paltridge's comics.
  • In "Murphy's Lawn," Brittany Murphy resembles Luanne Platter. Paltridge once had plans to draw her like this more often.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Mulberry tries to prevent Jack from hearing any more of her secrets in "Just Another Manic Monday" by asking him to check all of the mansion's smoke detectors, lest she make him face Smokey Bear "again".
  • When Mulberry asks Jack in "Prison Broke" why she didn't try to restrain her after Intoxication Ensued, Jack explains that he felt scared that she would shoot him. She asks him to remember how many times she nearly shot him, so he reminds her that it happened five times.
  • When Mulberry meets Brittany Murphy's angel in "Murphy's Lawn", Mulberry exclaims that she's not crazy. Murphy then corrects her by saying Mulberry really was crazy the last seven times she saw her angel.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Everything Mulberry did to ruin HillaryClinton's life in "Obamadramarama".
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Mulberry wears eight in "Let's Scare Mary Roach to Death", including one of "some bum person". Mary doesn't see through any of them until the end, when Mystery, Inc. explains everything to her.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Tiff has rarely done any housecleaning onscreen. Possibly justified if Mulberry's adventures leave her with not enough time to do her work.
• Punny Name: In "Mul/Kerry/Bush," Tiff remarks that if Mulberry were George W. Bush's daughter, her name would be "Mulberry Bush." After combining Bush with John Kerry,Mulberry decides to name her creation "Mulkerrybush" as a variation on the name.
• Refusal of the Call: Having raised the possibility on the third page of "Franken-Berry" that some zombies want to revisit their loved ones instead of eat brains, Mulberry initially refuses the opportunity to fight zombies at a TV commercial studio. She caves in two panels later.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money: Non-Idle Rich girl Mulberry manages to pull off such schemes as messing with Presidential elections and staging a fight between Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons.
• Shaggy Dog Story: Mulberry and her friends investigate Mexico and Russia while searching for Mary Roach in "Prison Broke", only to find that she and her kidnappers never left Seven Springs.
• Shocking Swerve: Mulberry has to come up with one in-universe during "Murphy's Lawn," since Brittany Murphy's final movie originally had No Ending. When the movie comes out with her ending attached, all the viewers seem amazed and satisfied with the twist.
• Shout-Out: Some scenes in "Murphy's Lawn" parallel "Wings of the Dope" (which Paltridge has listed as one of his favorite King of the Hill episodes), such as Murphy showing Mulberry her new name tag ("Brittany Murphy's Angel") and Mulberry and Murphy bouncing on a mattress as "Life in a Northern Town" plays.
• Skintone Sclerae
• Something Completely Different:
  • "Mulberry's 2004 Fall TV Preview" consists of Mulberry and Jack promoting mostly non-existent shows and commercials to the readers.
  • "Faces and Places" has Mulberry inexplicably hosting her own talk show and interviewing an animation veteran.
• Spoof Aesop: Mulberry gives one in "Mulberry Sharona, Slayer of WASPs".

Mulberry: What's the problem, boys? Boy: Our ball just went over that fence! And it's our only ball! Mulberry: Then I hope you've learned your lesson! This is what you get when you choose to play outside instead of sitting indoors playing video games! Boys: We're sorry. It won't happen again!

• Start My Own: "Death By Captain and Tenille" (sic) has Mulberry try to skip over the tedious process of airport security by buying her own airplane.
• Sympathetic Criminals: Mulberry learns that Mary's kidnappers in "Prison Broke" only want better treatment while they work at the Roach Hotel. She decides to help them fulfill this desire.
• Title Drop:
  • "Year Six" is explained as referring to the sixth year of George W. Bush's presidency, the time Mulberry has predicted will mark the Democrats' largest effort to get him impeached.
  • In "Death By Captain and Tenille," Mulberry exclaims the issue's title after an airport security guard explains that he cannot allow vinyl records on the plane because someone could behead others with them.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Mary refuses to thank Mulberry for saving her at the end of "Prison Broke", because Mulberry decided to fulfill the kidnappers' desires first.
• Very Special Episode: "Murphy's Lawn" was promoted as one.
• We Could Have Avoided All This: Eventually during "Jack the Ripper," Mulberry informs Jack that he could have avoided getting pursued by the government if instead of downloading an illegal patch for Planet of Warcraft, he just asked her for $64.95 to buy an upgraded version.
• Wolverine Publicity: Peter Paltridge has announced that once his books reach the point where he created Mulberry Sharona, each volume will contain her name in the title.