#whac-a-mole

[weirdmarioenemies]

Happy Groundhog Day! I think it is so wonderful that there is an entire holiday dedicated to a specific burrowing rodent. Americans love this thing! And who wouldn't? Their burrows aerate soil, and provide homes for many other critters!

A lot of people wouldn't love the groundhog, actually. In 1883, the New Hampshire Legislative Woodchuck Committee put out a statement calling groundhogs "wayward sinners" whose grooming habits suggest good manners, but who in reality have "not made any material progress in social science". You think the Discourse is bad today? They used to form committees to complain about a squirrel's moral character!

However, this is not the extent of the disrespect toward groundhogs. It happens to this day, and we all take it for granted, and most don't even bother to realize it has to do with a marmot in the first place! Let's talk about...

Name: "Mole"

Debut: Whac-A-Mole

Sorry this picture is not very good. There are just not many pictures available that show that weird old "mole" figure that I have in mind specifically! Here's a green one.

Anyone familiar with the "Mole" series of animals will know that this is very much Not A Mole! The distinct head, the visible ears, the blunt nose, the buckteeth... this, my friend, is 100% Ground Squirrel! And this game is FAR from the only instance of moles and burrowing rodents being mixed up.

It actually makes sense that this mistake would happen, though! Moles are synonymous with burrowing, to the point unrelated burrowing animals are named after moles (including Mole Cricket, perhaps the ORIGINAL mole). But moles spend ALL their time burrowing, rarely if ever coming to the surface, so even though we all know moles, we are rarely blessed with SEEING moles. I have never seen a mole in person... yet! I would love to! Ground squirrels, such as groundhogs and prairie dogs, are also little burrowing critters, but these ones are commonly seen on the surface, ever alert. I think it's reasonable to mistake them for "moles"!

Alas, the popularity of Whac-A-Mole has cemented Ground Squirrel as essentially the "canon" Mole design for this context. And what a context that is! A classic, even GENRE-DEFINING game, all about whacking critters as they emerge from their burrows. So rude! They're not posing any danger, and the player isn't hunting them to eat, either. This is simply a game of spite. How DARE that rodent try to see the sun! This is just like Undertale.

Whac-A-Mole is one of the most straightforward types of game for any device with a touch screen or anything similar. Just gotta tap a thing! Very easy. This has led to such variations such as Whack-a-Monty from New Super Mario Bros., where the player bonks Monty Moles (more like Monty Gopher am I right) while sparing the many, many Luigis. Obviously, the Luigis must surface in order to initiate courtship, ensuring future generations of Luigis.

Now that I think of it, Mario is one of the only times I've seen the ethics of Whac-A-Mole called out, through the endangered Whacka from Paper Mario! I'm surprised the genre is not deconstructed more often (I love that this sentence is about Whac-A-Mole).

I think this is where I will end the post, because this silly game has so permeated human culture that I could go on and on and on! So strange that an entire animal now has a reputation of "pops out and gets bonked on the head". Conceptually, I certainly prefer the "parasitic aliens emerging from an astronaut's body orifices" aesthetic for this kind of game, but obviously kids aren't going out and bludgeoning real rodents because of this game, so whatever.

But still, what if instead of moles, the whacked entities were something humans have no problem attacking with a second thought...?

Get ready for an action-packed new game set in the Bowling universe!

[the-oaken-muse]

I had a silly idea

[mar-sibilina]

Foreman: What are you writing? House: Nothing. Chase: If you know the diagnosis, why don't you...? House: How are you gonna learn to swim unless I take off your floaties and throw you into shark-infested waters?

[tu-tu-lu]

SixTONES

[considermadness]

I just want to appreciate how chill Nobara was during this episode. 

Nobara: (gets grabbed and sucked in) Huh?  Megumi: (visibly panics) Kugisaki! Nobara: I'm good. Keep playing whac-a-mole.

[marcosvargas97]

Mi versión de Plushtrap disfruta jugar el juego de Golpea el Topo.

[sangerillustration]

2020 鼠兆豐年

Year of the Rat  

Whac-A-Mole/打地鼠

[johnschneiderblog]

It’s time to whack “Whac-a-Mole”

Speaking of overused phrases in radio and TV  (as I do occasionally), in the past week or so I’ve  heard this one at least three times: “Whac-a-Mole,” 

As in, “As soon as the White House staff walks back one inappropriate Tweet, two more pop up. It’s like Whac-a-Mole.”

Or, “For every security breach the authorities stop, another one surfaces. It’s like Whac-a Mole.”

In the actual game, plastic moles pop up randomly and the player tries to hit them with a mallet before they slide back back out of sight. The more moles you hit, the more points you get.

It’s really not a a bad simile to describe a piecemeal attempt to solve a problem, but it’s quickly becoming a tiresome cliche.