Triple shot! One request from a friend of mine and two alien Pokemon:
#293 Whismur, #294 Loudred & #295 Exploud
Let's get this out of the way. There isn't a biological nor mythological inspiration for these Pokemon, which were arguably the first true Sound based Pokemon. They are based around sound and sound technology. Let's start with the first. Really, why wouldn't we?
Whismur's name in both English and Japanese comes from the words whisper and murmur. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, Constant Reader, and assume you know what a whisper is. Murmur is less known, essentially meaning the same thing. It also refers to abnormal sounds produced in the heart by blood flow through various means, but that is totally unintentional. I find it rather interesting, having been born with a heart murmur, though.
Name aside, Whismur potentially derives from a pair of headphones. I know this isn't an etymology often, if ever, applied to the little guy, but I'll back it up. Most obviously, the large ears resemble a pair of headphones, and even lay against its head like a pair. What most people don't see is its tail. It's tail has a hole on it that resembles a headphone jack. This probably explains the ability- Whismur is soundproofed by its ears and when startled, its constant screaming.
Loudred, conversely, is based on a boombox. Rather than based on an object of isolation, Loudred is based on an object of obnoxious loudness. Technically speaking, all a boombox is a radio with two loudspeakers, stereo capability, an amplifier and a cassette or cd deck. They became immensely popular in the mid-1980s to the midish-1990s, largely through the hip hop culture. For instance, in Spike Lee's classic film of racial tensions in 1980s New York,
Do the Right Thing, features a character who's defining characteristic is a huge boombox blaring Public Enemy's iconic song “Fight the Power.”
Boomboxes, for the most part, declined in popularity with the rise of the Walkman, small hand held stereos, and were all but eclipsed by the comparatively microscopic mp3 players of the 21st century. They are still around, though, in different form. They don't have the same cultural significance as a public object, though.
Notably, in the place of the jack tail that is on Whismur's back, it has a common symbol for sound waves and volume- three curves of diminishing size. This fits in with the radio aspect quite well.
The final evolution is seemingly based on a pipe organ, a massive keyboard instrument that creates sound by pushing air through the many pipes. Similar pipes decorate Exploud's head and across its back and knees. Pipe organs are massive instruments, sometimes dozens of feet tall and taking up huge amounts of space. They are used primarily in church music, although they have a decent standing in classical music as well. They are mostly relegated to churches these days, and are arguably more well known for being an archetypal instrument used by evildoers in popular culture. For instance, in the classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the villainous Ganondorf is seen playing a pipe organ on a few occasions. Perhaps this si the origin of Exploud's foul temper?
As fitting their musical origin, the Whismur family can learn many sound based moves, such as Uproar (mentioned in several Pokedex entries for the family), Howl, and their signature move Hyper Voice. They stand out as perhaps the signature “sound-type” Pokemon.
#301 Sableye
What we have here is a Pokemon based on another Cryptid! Unlike the Nessie Pokemon, or even the later yeti Pokemon, Sableye is based on a more obscure source. In this case, a possible extraterrestrial entity known as the Hopkinsville Goblin.
The Hopkinsville Goblin originates from an account of an encounter on August 21st, 1955 at a small farmhouse near the towns of Kelly and Hopkinsville in Kentucky. Billy Ray Taylor, the patriarch of a family visiting the Suttons, the owners of the farm house, went out to the water pump to get a drink of water, as the Suttons had no running water. Taylor allegedly saw a large disc shaped ship and ran back to the house to tell the family about the flying saucer, only to have it dismissed as a shooting star or something of that sort.
About an hour later, the family was alerted by strange noises from outside. Billy Ray and Lucky Sutton, the patriarch of the Sutton family, got their guns and went to investigate. What they saw has became one of the most well known close encounters of all time. A small creature, a little over three feet tall, with a huge head, elephant like ears, grapefruit sized eyes that glowed and long arms that ended in talons. The creature appeared to be wearing some sort of space suit, or was made of metal. The creature appeared to float across the ground, steering with its arms as its hips made some sort of odd swaying motion. The two shot at the creature, to no apparent avail. Ultimately, the two ran back to the house, only to (allegedly) be besieged by perhaps a dozen of the creatures before they left.
Interestingly, a state trooper near the house reported seeing a meteor-like object overhead with a sound like that of artillery. He apparently reported this prior to the Sutton family contacting police over the incident, leading to possible support that
something happened at a small farmhouse in Kentucky on August 21st, 1955.
The Hopkinsville Goblin design, immortalized in sketches created by the witnesses, has achieved a sort of fame in Japan, alongside other alleged aliens, such as the Flatwoods Monster or Mothman. So it's not surprising that this particular design was eventually used in a Pokemon game. Aside from the physical similarities, Sableye shares a few characteristics with the Goblin. Most notably is its ghost typing. This makes non-special attacks not hurt it at all, similar to how the Goblins shrugged off gunshots.
I will rarely cite the Stadium games in these articles, but this is an exception. In the 3d games, Sableye is depicted as moving with an odd hip swaying motion- just like Goblin on which it is based. Surely, somebody was doing their homework! Lastly, Sableye appears to have a ruby and sapphire embedded in its chest. These obviously refer to the games in which it debuted. This is carried to an interesting extreme with its shiny coloration, which has an emerald and a topaz embedded in it. Looks like they were thinking ahead of time...
I'll leave you with a link to a picture of the Goblin, courtesy of Bogleech.com#605 Riguree & #606 Oobemu
So, we've had two alien based Pokemon before these guys. One was based on a very specific encounter from the 50s, the other is based on DNA and maybe an anime. It took us all the way to Generation V to get a Pokemon family based on more common cultural depictions of extraterrestrials.
First off, Riguree's name comes from the word “grey”, a common term for perhaps the most common depiction of aliens today: That of a tall, thin humanoid with thin limbs, a huge head and large oval eyes. While there are some vague resemblance to aliens before the 1960s, the aliens really came into their own with the (alleged) 1965 abduction of Betty and Barney Hill by aliens.
The Hills, a middle aged couple living in Maine, were driving home late one night when they were confronted by a flying saucer. Hours later, they arrived home. Their memories were fragmented, and they were unable to create a straight forward chronology of the events that night. The couple were haunted by nightmares of the creatures from the saucer- the now famous to the point of cliché greys.
The couple became famous for their story when it was made public. In 1966, it was made into a fairly successful movie,
The Interrupted Journey. These aliens, with their sterile experiments and uncanny valley appearance soon replaced the monstrous aliens that had been popular since the dawn of the pulp science fiction genre forty years prior.
In addition to the name, both of Oobemu's Pokedex entries make mention of it using its psychic ability to rewrite a person's memory. This likely refers back to the way that alleged abductees are unable to recall the events of their abduction. Furthermore, Barney Hill described the greys as having telepathic abilities, further solidifying the aliens' psychic typing.
While we are on the subject of Pokedex entries, Riguree's bizarre entry for White likely refers to the infamous Roswell incident. Long story short, an unidentified flying object crashed on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. The Air Force was dispatched to retrieve it, and took it back to the Roswell Army Air Field. On July 8th, 1947, the army officially released a statement that the object had been an alien vessel, but retracted it the following day. The official stance remains that the object was a weather balloon, a rather laughable claim with plenty of holes in it. Not that I think it was an alien- an experimental air craft is more likely.
The story goes that the aliens inside the craft were taken to Area 51, a secret air force base that specializes in experimental air craft. Of course, this is all just legend....
Oobemu's name refers to an very old term in the sci-fi community: BEM, or bug eyed monster. BEMs are the archetypal sort of alien popular in early 20th century science fiction: Monstrous creatures intent on conquest of both earth and its women. The earliest usage of the term can be dated back to pulp magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories, wherein a reader wrote in with a joking letter about forming the SFTPOBEMOTCOFP, or the Society For The Prevention Of Bug Eyed Monsters On The Covers Of Science-Fiction Publicatins. This letter was printed all the way back in 1939! Perhaps the best depiction of the creatures was in the 1962 trading card set Mars Attacks, later made into a tongue in cheek film by Tim Burton.
The term gained popularity in Japan with the release on an anime entitled Yokai Ningen Bemu in 1968. The term still occurs in Japanese culture. There is even a Digimon named BEMmon!
Lastly, the strange colored lights on the aliens may be in reference to the 1953 adaptation of HG Wells novel
War of the Worlds. Rather than the octopus-esque aliens from the novel, the aliens in George Pal's adaptation are
monstrous creatures with three eyes colored green, red and blue. They look remarkably like the old electronic game Simon Says. The eyes even glow, just as Oobemu's Black Pokedex entry says they do. I'd be willing to write this off as unlikely if it wasn't for Japan's fascination with the novel on which the film is based. You know those octopus-esque aliens that popular? The ones that the Mars People from SNK's Metal Slug series are based on? Yeah. Those are from are apparently based on War of the Worlds.
Bogleech has more on this. Overall, I wouldn't say its a likely connection, just a possibility.
Don't want people to overlook it if they don't know its there....
