An Animated Dissection: Easter Eggs and References within Star vs the Forces of Evil
Why do you do this to me, Disney? Just when I had signed myself over to being a full-time fan of your new series, you go and leave me and thousands more hanging for a month!
And so, I’ve had no choice but to come up with odd postings and topics such as this one…then again, the series is so new, that this might be one of the first rundowns regarding some of these things. I may be on the ground floor of a new animation phenomenon (doot-doo-do-do-doo!).
*Warning: the following post contains spoilers and episodic story information from the series. If you are wanting to view the show without knowing some of what is coming up, you might want to turn back now.*
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When we first encounter Star Butterfly, we see that she has blush-marks on her cheeks, in the form of hearts. While I and many assumed they were some form of make-up, it seems they are moreso an emotional extension of her character. We’ve seen them turn into hourglasses when she gets bored, and in worrying over her wand dying, they fracture, and turn to skulls.
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When I first watched the show, I didn’t realize an interesting artistic touch regarding the dimensional portals: each one is themed around its destination! For example, The Bounce Lounge dimension’s portal, has a blobby light ring, very similar to the cloud-like atmosphere. Regarding the Quest Buy store’s light ring, it looks like a shield, which is similar to the shield-like logo on one of their shopping carts.
My favorite though, is the one that goes to The Amethyst Arcade, with its phasing, cube light ring.
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We seem to be living in an era where there are all sorts of hidden secrets in some of the shows we watch. 5 episodes into SvtFoE, I have grown curious regarding a certain, little blue creature. We first see him hovering near Star’s parents as they see how she “can’t handle” her wand responsibilities on Mewni.
The next time we see him is in Monster Arm, when he quickly appears from between some pages of the wand’s instruction manual.
Just who he is, I haven’t the faintest clue…but he also figures into the pause screen (below) for the DisneyXD app’s game, Star vs The Dungeon of Evil. However, even here, there’s no name or ID.
Is he Star’s guardian angel, a magically-transformed Grandfather, or maybe like Aladdin’s Genie is to his lamp, this guy is tied to the wand in some way? I did pose this question to Daron Nefcy on Twitter, and got the following response:
So as it stands, I’m hoping as the season gets further along, we’ll learn more.
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A fun-yet-crazy moment came in the segment titled Brittney’s Party. One girl at school is such a fan of Star, that she wallpapered her locker with pictures of her (including one of Star in her nightgown!).
It seems weird…until it’s revealed that Star has done the same for her fangirl (who happens to be voiced by Star’s creator, Daron Nefcy).
Take note of the little unicorn-monster doll in that locker. Does it look familiar? Well, it’s the same one we saw in Star’s flashback to her youth, in the School Spirit episode.
Though by the looks of it, the stuffed toy had some repair work after its neck was ‘snapped’ by this lug of a royal guard.
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It seems the Echo Creek area is most likely being plagued by a few more missing persons reports than they’ve had in awhile. So far, Star’s presence has caused the disappearance of one student at Echo Creek Academy, 3+ football players from Silver Hill Prep, and a car load of persons (number: unknown) getting sent to another dimension, courtesy of Ludo’s goons.
Where did they go? Was the one student horribly savaged by the butterfly-monster-thingy Star created? In truth…we may never know.
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Being an ‘old person’ (well, considering I was born in 1980, I’m considered ‘old’ by the target demographic of the show), I was somewhat surprised that not many people got the references when Star accidentally turned their teacher Ms Skullnick into a troll. Some questioned the wild hair, let alone the gem in her belly-button.
Unknown to some, this is a direct nod to one of the big marketing trends in the last 50 years: The Troll Doll! There was a time when these things were everywhere (even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ‘mutated’ into them in one iteration of their action-figure line!). Word is, Dreamworks is currently working on a film based around the toys. And if you think I’m old…some sleuthing around the internet, tells that the Troll Doll craze first started in 1959!
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Watching cartoons growing up, it was sometimes fun to see extra little things the animators or artists did to push character emotions. On the US Acres segment of the Garfield and Friends cartoon, Wade Duck wore an inner-tube, with a little duck-head on it. The funny thing was, the head’s eye expressions almost always copied Wade’s! One assumes this was a fun little gag added by the series creator, Jim Davis. Even the comic strip versions of Wade had this feature.
A similar series of “attire expressions” happens in Cheer Up, Star. Star wears one of her standard outfits, an aquamarine dress, with a little “squid ghost” on the front. However, instead of the neutral look on the squid’s face as always, the animators have some fun with it, mimicking Star’s reactions. When Oskar Greeson finally calls her, it reflects her happiness… 
…but, when Ludo’s Bearicorn minion interrupts her call, her anger comes out…and the little guy also gets a little cross.
These are some fun blink-or-you’ll miss them expressions, and a few more of them pop up during the episode.
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To someone who’s a little obsessed with California, some of the strange names in the show can be deciphered into their real-world meanings from The Golden State.
Take this sign. These are obviously nods to three known Boulevards around the more famous parts of Los Angeles: Cahooga is a reference to Caheunga (pronounced kah-wang-ah) Blvd, Holliwood to the famous Hollywood Blvd, and Setsun,to Sunset Blvd.
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Cities often put signs in certain areas for a reason. Star really should have read this one to the right.
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In the episode Cheer Up, Star, Marco attempts to do a crazy stunt to cheer her up…but largely just causes a giant mess…which included the sound of breaking glass, and a small waterfall of water pooling down around Star’s bed.
Some might find this a little strange, and maybe seem odd that water would be pouring down into the main floor of Star’s room…but it actually does make sense!
Here’s a screen-shot from part of the interior shot of Star’s 3-story room, from the first episode, Star Comes to Earth:
As we can see, she actually has a large aquarium! Which would explain the water…though what happened to the puffer-fish and other creatures?…I have no clue.
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In Match Maker, we get to see Star’s test-taking results…which shows that she doesn’t quite understand human mathematics. Her F- paper just largely consists of scribblings.
Along with a happy dragon, it looks like she attempted to try and solve two problems…though it looks like “Love+Hugs=Bandaids.”
This isn’t the last time we see this paper, as it shows up in Star’s room in the episode Cheer Up, Star (see screencap below).
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Speaking of test-taking, Match Maker also gives us another bit of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it information about Marco Diaz. When he shows Star his A+ (with a smiley-face) test paper, we get to see that he has a middle name: Ubaldo!
So his full name is Marco Ubaldo Diaz…or, M.U.D. if you want to talk acronyms.
One thing that’s noted is when Ms Skullnick hands back the tests, Marco’s is the only one in the front row to get a positive grade…so I assume he’s at the top of his class.
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In Cheer Up, Star, Marco Diaz recounted one of his worst days ever. When someone makes fun of his Karate-Con shirt (“You kissed a ninja!”), Marco angrily grabs a newspaper to cover himself with.
Thanks to the magic of frame-by-frame viewing, I was able to see a little more of what was on that paper. Most interesting, is the name of it: Las Cebollas Times, which translates into, “The Onion Times.” Which makes one wonder…is this a little inside-joke towards the humor newspaper, The Onion?
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More fun with words! Guess the “mew” in Mewni, is a lot like the use of the word “Smurf” in The Smurfs. Given her age, I guess it’s a no-brainer that Star would have a book like this.
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Unlike standard license plates, the one on Brittney Wong’s party bus just has an emoticon smiley face. I guess we can assume her rich parents paid enough to make the thing possible.
However, the license plate does change to actual words for a few seconds.
When Brittney gets the driver to pull over and kick Star and Marco off, one can see the words “WOOHOO!” on the front plate.
For the majority of the segment, the smiley face hangs on through thick-and-thin during the night…until the bus meets a crumpled end.
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When it comes to Ludo and his army of monsters, he seems to gain and lose them every other episode.
Case in point:
– Green pig guy: last seen picked up by a purple bull-thingy in Quest Buy.
– Lobster guy: last seen falling into a black hole, in Quest Buy.
– Two-headed red guy: last seen in the passenger seat of this elderly man’s convertible, in Brittney’s Party.
The two-headed red guy has been a major part of Ludo’s gang since the start of the show, so it does make one wonder, if after the Brittney’s Party episode, he made it back to Ludo’s castle or not.
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And that’s all I have for now. Maybe in a few months (when the show starts giving us more episodes), I’ll have some more things to point out…and maybe, some of the questions posed in this post will be answered.
In the meantime, kudos to the staff and persons who have worked on this series. Word is that Season 2 is currently in production, and we can hope that the continued adventures of Star Butterfly and Marco Diaz, will yield further weird and wacky fun (both up-front, and hidden within).
Episode Review: Star vs The Forces of Evil (Season 1, Episode 3 ) – Monster Arm / The Other Exchange Student
The second episode of Star vs the Forces of Evil, attempted to focus on the microcosm of Star Butterfly’s life amid the students of Echo Creek Academy. With Episode 3, we get some more character insight, along with plenty of magical shenanigans.
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– Monster Arm –
Marco’s karate dojo has an upcoming tournament, in which Marco will face off with a rich combatant named Jeremy Birnbaum. However, Marco gets carried away while training, and breaks his right hand.
Marco convinces Star to use her magic wand to heal his hand, but her spell-casting goes horribly wrong, and leaves Marco with a tentacle instead of his right arm!
Monster Arm differs from the earlier episodes, in that it moreso focuses on Marco, with Star taking on more of a supporting role. It’s nice to see Marco react to the situations he has found himself in, but we also get to see him almost become a different person when he realizes this new appendage can give him an advantage (and even impresses the students at school when it beats back a bully!).
We even get some additional lore regarding Star’s family wand, given that it comes with a tome of an instruction manual. The episode also provides examples of how specific one’s verbiage has to be while using the wand. Apparently, being off in your pronunciation by a smidgen, can be both a good and a bad thing (but most of the time, a bad thing!).
Voice actor Corey Burton also provides a fun, deep-voiced role that is a nice little surprise. I can’t help but think that this segment will be the first introduction of the word “bowels” to many young people, given his character’s role.
It doesn’t get as dramatic as I prefer, but Monster Arm is probably one of the most fun segments I’ve seen so far, which pushes it above the normal B-territory most of these segments have fallen into. Also notable, is that the episode ends with an intriguing-yet-unsettling coda, that one wonders if we’ll see resolved in future episodes.
Final Segment Grade: A-
Best Star Butterfly line from segment: “Then I gotta come here, and watch him, Kah-RAH-Tey!”
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– The Other Exchange Student –
Ever since Star arrived on Earth, Marco’s family has celebrated each and every day that she has been with them. Prior to Star’s arrival, the Diaz family has been taking in exchange students for quite some time, and everyone is surprised when a former Scandinavian exchange student named Gustav, shows up on the Diaz’s doorstep with souvenirs, and plans to stay with them for a few weeks.
Needless to say, Star is a little jealous about being bumped to ‘exchange student #2’ status in the Diaz household, but soon, she begins to wonder if there’s more to Gustav than he’s letting on…
Probably not since the first episode, have we gotten this much time with Marco Diaz’s parents. However, there isn’t really that much to them, except being very happy-go-lucky in their demeanor. Even Marco seems to adopt this attitude for much of the episode.
Those who have seen cartoons, can probably see the “something’s not right” angle towards Gustav and his ways, which is a given in some cartoon plots when a new character arrives on someone’s doorstep. The writers do manage to tweak the formula a bit, but it’s a little predictable regarding the outcome of the episode. Though just łike Monster Arm, there are some things that are not resolved by the end.
In the role of Gustav, voice actor Rob Paulsen manages to have some fun with his accented role, pitching around his voice for the various situations.
Star for the most part, spends most of the episode not being as happy as she normally is. It’s a little fun at times to see characters have to deal with unwelcome situations, allowing us to see how they handle something uncomfortable. It’s very similar to how I felt with Pinkie Pie in the My Little Pony episode, “Party of One,” where the character had to shut down from being a little scatter-brained, and became analytical.
In Monster Arm, we saw Star exasperated from lack of sleep as she attempted to help Marco. Here, we get a little more of that, along with a rather obsessive angle to her going on a fact-finding mission. I will admit, hearing Eden Sher voice Star as she unravels, is a fun little treat. It does seem a double-edged sword regarding how Star acts: on one hand, she seems jealous over the attention that Gustav is receiving, but on the other hand, she is also concerned for the well-being of Marco and his family.
The episode also serves as a nice little respite from Ludo and his minions (though one makes a brief cameo), by showing that even suburbia can house its own problems for Star Butterfly. Though intriguing at times, it never deviates far enough from the formulaic ‘stranger at the front door’ storyline, to really make me love it more.
Final Segment Grade: B-
Best Star Butterfly line from segment: “YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!”
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In conclusion, Episode 3 is probably the best full episode so far. I like how both segments focus mainly on Star and Marco on earth, with no dimensional villains like Ludo. Here, we get to see Star and Marco deal with problems in their own way in Monster Arm, and then get to see Star handle a human “outsider,” in The Other Exchange Student.
Of all the segments, Monster Arm is the one I’ve probably seen a few dozen times. The story and animated emotions just seem so entertaining to me. I personally feel that if you’re looking to get someone hooked on this series, it’s a must-show segment.
*Coming up in Episode 4, Marco works on cheering up Star when something doesn’t go as she would like. Following that, the two end up in a dimensional store, questing for a specific item for Star’s magic wand. What wonders/craziness will unfold? We’ll find out soon enough.*
An Animated Dissection: Thoughts on Star Vs The Forces of Evil
Let’s face it, a lot of animation that comes out of Japan has permeated into our culture, and caused many of us to look beyond the notable mainstays of our own native lands of North America, and what its animation landscape is (which in retrospect, is rather limited when it comes to certain realms of imagination).
One of the more popular tropes of Japanese Anime, has been the one dubbed “Magical Girl.” Oftentimes, this trope involves an otherworldly girl, who comes to Earth with magic powers or weapons, and a slew of strange and otherworldly instances or creatures, that seem intent on destroying her, or the Magical Girl’s new homeworld. This trope has been seen in the past, in such series as Sailor Moon, Urusei Yatsura, and Ah! My Goddess.
These series have often been thought of fondly by many, and have inspired many of today’s artists. If you saw or enjoyed these shows, you might find yourself surprised by the new DisneyXD series, Star Vs The Forces of Evil.
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In the dimensional Kingdom of Mewni, teenage princess Star Butterfly, is finally of age to obtain her royal family’s prized wand…however, it doesn’t take long before her over-excited and bubbly nature, causes plenty of chaos (it doesn’t help that she also likes to fight monsters). Rather than do something productive and talk to their daughter, her parents decide to send her to Earth so she can “train,” but most likely an excuse to keep her out of their hair.
After enrolling her in a local school in Echo Creek (which I’m assuming is in California), Star is placed with the Diaz Family, whose son Marco is given the task of showing her around, and getting her acclimated to her new home(world).
Character-wise, I expected the worst from Star Butterfly, but the writers have actually managed to balance her out pretty well. While she can get over-excited at times, she doesn’t mean to be a bubbly force of destruction (most of the time). She has her little moments of quiet, as well as understanding if something doesn’t quite work out properly. Eden Sher’s vocals are definitely a little different than what I expected from the pictures of Star. Instead of being typically high, Eden’s voice hits at a mid-level, which took me a little while to warm up to. However, she definitely nails a lot of the little ‘manic’ and expressive moments for Star so well, that the voice started to grow on me.
The show writers also have fun regarding the different ways that Star calls up her attacks. They’re often randomly combined words that seem to unleash powers and abilities one wouldn’t consider (like “Syrup Tsunami Shockwave”). Of course, some she doesn’t pronounce properly, or understand their meanings…which can lead to funny scenarios with a little chaos thrown in. And just like a person from another country, there’s plenty of opportunities for verbal misunderstandings, that can lead to intriguing stories.
Marco Diaz serves as a fun counterpoint to Star. Though considered “the safe kid,” Marco is mainly a guy who likes order at times, but also seems to thirst for a little adventure…which he seems to have gotten in spades. I do like what Adam McArthur brings to Marco voice-wise. He really nails both the highs and lows of the character’s emotional moments.
Some of what has happened so far, reminds me of why I loved the anime/manga series, Urusei Yatsura. That series also had a magical girl (a green-haired, bikini-wearing alien princess named Lum), but one who, like Star, would often dabble in things that seemed a combination of magic, and Science Fiction. That’s definitely the case in a few scenarios I’ve seen so far. A great example are ‘dimensional scissors,’ which allows one to snip open a hole into other dimensions.
And much like Urusei, Star’s presence seems to definitely invite the weird and the strange to come forth, and change around Marco’s average little life…which definitely helps, as he seems more than ready to jump into some of the adventures Star drags him into.
Watching the show, the art style feels like a fan-crazed mashup of several different series, such as Sailor Moon, Ren & Stimpy, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, and The Powerpuff Girls (to name a few). Plus, what I thought would be cheaply-done animation, isn’t the case here. There’s some wonderful little bits of animation follow-through in some actions within the show, and some amazingly subtle little touches here and there. Those with an eye for such things I feel, will appreciate the little touches.
The show gets some high marks from me, on also not trying to push Star and Marco into ‘immediate couples territory.’ Both characters have other characters they have an interest in, and it is refreshing to see the two playing off each other in certain scenarios, as just being “friends.” As well, both are able to handle things pretty well on their own, with each fighting their own battles if need be (Marco knows karate). That ability for both Marco and Star to be on a level playing field, is also a great concept, and at times, reminded me a little of the adventures of Kim Possible, and Ron Stoppable.
The dynamic of the blonde-haired/blue-eyed girl being the “foreign particle” in the Diaz family is also a fun way of shaking up social norms. Luckily (so far), we haven’t had some crazy ex-government guy who wants to expose Star as some alien girl and take away her wand. My one hope is that the majority of future stories will continue to largely be accepting of Star, as if a girl with a magic-spewing wand is just an everyday thing. After all, that was often the norm in most anime series.
In regards to “The Forces of Evil” as mentioned in the show’s title, the series wastes no time in giving us the evilly diminutive bird-creature named Ludo, and his strange army of thuggish monsters. Maybe one day we’ll know just how Ludo set his sights on trying to take down Star, but for now, we’re just in-the-know that he mainly wants her family wand for his own nefarious purposes.
Of course, what would an adventuresome romp through dimensions and monster fights be, without some catchy music? Composer Brian H Kim is the main music man on the series, and he infuses the episodes with the kind of action-packed, yet emotional music that is sure to hit just the right spot for anime-soundtrack lovers. Brian has even posted musical cues from the show on his Tumblr site, which allows one to really hear how he tends to give each episode its own unique flavor.
As of the writing of this blog posting, only 4 episodes have been release for Star Vs The Forces of Evil. However, the storylines and structure have me eager to see just where they can take the series.
As well, most shows these days either run a full 22 minutes, or are split up into two 11-minute segments. Star is a show that has gone the 11-minute route, and manages to handle fitting its stories into these time allotments quite well. Some shows feel severely truncated when placed in these time restrictions, but this show manages to get in and get out with plenty of time to spare regarding some of the story plots. One has to wonder if in the future, maybe some stories will get bigger, and require a full 22-minutes.
With word that a second season has already been approved, I may find myself reviewing Season 1 overall when the dust has settled. Given how the series has been received so far, it’s possible it could be a huge hit for Disney, on the same level as Gravity Falls.
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Final Grade: B+
Final Thoughts: Star Vs The Forces of Evil is just wild and weird enough to be a new series that can play by its own rules, though not quite as much of an open playing field as Adventure Time.The main characters are definitely likable, and play off of each other quite well, with stories that can take place with Star and Marco working together, or on differing storylines. As well, the worlds and concepts provide plenty of opportunities for visiting new worlds, or for having some of Star’s interplanetary friends drop by. As outlined in the paragraphs above, I also feel it hits that sweet spot for those who love anime and manga.
The Entertainment Nut 