Foggle Friends

"Face your Fears, for here comes your demise." Beware! This article contains information that may be considered Spoilers to newcomers to the series. Please keep this in mind while reading.

Foggle Friends is the fictional children's TV puppet show created by Tim Denson as well as its cast severing as the main antagonists of the 123 Slaughter Me Street series. The cos-puppets (shortening of "costume-puppets") are seen and act as the main threat in the first Slaughter Me Street and it's retellings, however any other references to the show itself has yet to be seen outside of the poster. Most of the posters for the show features the Follower (Wollof), Greeter (Egret), and Hunter (Henry), despite the latter, never appearing in the games until 123 Slaughter Me Street Super Retro.

History

Classic Era

In the first game, the puppets consist of three characters: the Follower, the Greeter, and the Waiter. The characters first appear on the Foggle Friends poster as seen in a cutscene where the player falls through the roof of the apartment and shines the flashlight on the old poster. There is also a report at the beginning of the game, briefly describing the puppets themselves and giving some background. These reanimated puppets will try to attack the player as they make their way down the apartment complex, with only the light of the player's flashlight to keep them at bay. The trio are seen again at the ending where the apartment catches fire and the three puppets slowly walk out of the flaming corridors towards the player seemingly not effected by the flames despite presumably being made of flammable materials.

In the second game, the cos-puppets from the first game are in a lifeless state as they are largely replaced by much more intimidating demons: the Seeker, the Stalker, and a new character called the Screamer along with an additional, mysterious demon named the Nightmare, who is implied to have made a deal with Tim Denson for the show to be successful. The puppets from the first game appear in the workshop, implying that they were the ones used for the show. While not a threat, the Follower, Greeter, and Waiter are moved to different parts of the house in different levels, with the trio ending up on the couch on the final level. It is also implied that the demonic creatures faced in this game were the inspirations to a couple of the puppets used for the show with Seeker resembling the Follower and Stalker resembling the Greeter for example.

Modern Era

In Evolutions, A remake of the first game, The puppet antagonists are once again Wollof, Egret, and Walter (Follower, Greeter, and Waiter), with the addition of Henry and Gomez (The Hunter, and the Dropper). The designs for the characters now more closely resemble actual puppets with most of the characters appearing more like costumes puppeteers would wear (with some exceptions) strengthening the fact that these puppets are the characters used for the Foggle Friends show. In one of the Teasers a tape called "Wollof Show_Tape" not only establishes Foggle Friends Inc. but also gives a date that implies when the show might've been active, 1985. This game was also the first to give the puppet characters proper names.

In an early concept for the 3rd game, A lot of the cast would reappear again as demons Including a new character called "Mr. Pig" and the Nightmare would return as well (Who would have had a different appearance). The Follower, Greeter, Waiter, and Hunter would have gotten demonic counterparts, However the mockup models that were seen and used for them are out of date. Due to the status of SMS 3, a lot could be changed when it does eventually release including whether or not these demonic variants even make it in to the final game at all. It should be noted that their appearances from Odd Stories are non-canon as the show was not associated with IGS.

"Think I'm not even really here at all." Beware! This page contains content that is considered Non Canon to the main series. Please keep this in mind as you read the article.

Spin Offs

In the Retro titles the puppets appear once again as antagonists. This series introduced the character that would go on to become Gomez in 123 Slaughter Me Street Retro. This series is also the first included appearance of the Hunter as a direct threat to the player. The only direct mention of the show is the poster appearing in the opening cutscene for 123 Slaughter Me Street Super Retro. The poster was changed slightly to replace Henry with Walter.

Slaughter Me Street: 1999

In Slaughter Me Street 1999, The Poster for the show is now a Relic that the player needs to collect. Although none of the puppets were originally in the demo (Aside from Gomez who made a physical appearance in the April Fools build and subsequent updates afterwards). This is also the first poster to feature more than 3 characters, Now having both Walter and Henry together and adding Gomez. This is also the first time the current spelling of "Foggle" is actually used.

In the full release of the game, The rest of the puppets once again appear as antagonists for 3 of the normal mode levels and a couple of challenge levels. The designs of these characters are the same as in Evolutions and (save for the eyes and slight alterations for the low poly look) are confirmed to be the costumes and puppets used for the show itself. The Foggle Friends show plays a huge role in Tim's backstory and is the first time any real detail and depth is revealed about the show in any compacity. At the start of Tim's journal entries, it is consistently mentioned as Tim's project to try and get him and his Daughter to a better place, Hoping to pitch it in order to make it a show. Despite being rejected at first, it was eventually picked up and to be made by Happy Sun Studios. After a pilot for the show was shown, the show was a hit and ended up being greenlit for a 26 episode season. The Poster itself was later brought up when the Investigator asked about it relating to the case of Tim and his Daughter's disappearance where they learned about a specific incident. The production of the show was also implied to have several unusual issues ranging from issues with the sound equipment to lights flickering at strange intervals.

Most if not all of the puppets were mentioned either by their real names or had a clear timeline of when they were made. Walter was made first in Tim's apartment before the show got pitched or picked up. Next Wollof and Egret were created after Tim had a dream where at the end a "Large blue goat-like entity" and a "Lanky pink bird monster" broke into his room, some time after using a Summoning Tome to make his dream of getting the show accepted come true. Gomez came sometime after moving to the House, and is described as a grumpy, annoying, insignificant hand puppet that was made specifically as a mockery over the Nightmare's torment of him in his dreams. While it was not stated when Henry was created, there was an incident surrounding the character that resulted in the death of both of his performers involving the Stage Switch System seemingly activating on it's own.

While exact details on how an episode of the show would've played out is not not known, a couple of inferences could be made based on the Studio map due to the stages and workshop present. Wollof appears to be the main character if not the figure head of the show, as a statue of him is seen and in one of the sets a framed photo of him is seen on the wall. The only known Episode outside of the Pilot would have been one that would have introduced Henry as a character, but said episode ended up cut due to the incident with the Stage Switch System. Only three possible sets were present in the Studio as well, the exterior and interior of a house, and a cave. In the workshops (both in the House and Studio) there are puppets with alternate colors (such as Gomex) and what could be presumably older versions of some of the puppets (like the Follower's model from the first game), Although these puppets are largely Easter eggs or based on community jokes. It should be noted that two of the sets includes a living mailbox and clock, implying that there are more characters outside of the usual cast that are part of the set dressing.

Gallery

A teaser for the first game that would make up the Foggle Friends poster, featuring (from left to right) the Greeter, Follower, and the scrapped Hunter.

The Poster in the first game. It notably has the portion that would contain the Hunter torn off.

The Foggle Friends poster seen in SMS 2, Note that the Hunter is seen despite not making an antagonistic appearance at this point

The Foggle Friends poster as seen in 123 Slaughter Me Street Super Retro.

A Teaser from Slaughter Me Street 1999 featuring the Poster

Trivia

• All puppets and the show are most likely based off of the real-world Jim Henson's productions like Sesame Street and The Muppet Show with some small stylistic details from The Labyrinth and Dark Crystal.
• The puppets are referred to by the Reporter as "cos-puppets", which are not only a combination of the word costume and puppet, but are also based off of full-bodied puppets that would function in largely the same way as the puppets would have.
  • Despite this, Only one of the puppets do not appear to have this feature, Gomez who's based on a hand puppet.
  • The Hunter is also based off of Snuffleupagus specifically.
    • While non canon to the series, in Odd Stories the Follower and Waiter appeared as live-hand puppets rather than full-bodied puppets. The Greeter meanwhile, was an animatronic puppet that used a similar mechanisms to another one of the characters of the show, Cirrhosis.
• The Hunter has had a history of being scrapped due to various reasons, and had a lot of speculation of when he would make his debut due to never appearing as a antagonist despite appearing on most of the posters. He did however, start making physical appearances starting in 123 Slaughter Me Street Super Retro.
  • The Hunter appearing on so many posters may have suggested that the character had a "prominent" role in the show despite rarely showing up in the games themselves. It was only in 123 SMS Super Retro where the Waiter would properly take Hunter's place on the poster, Which was ironically also the Hunter's debut in an official Slaughter Me Street game.
• The names for The Follower, Greeter, and Waiter were revealed in a "Favorite mainline SMS antagonist?" poll on the official SMS subreddit. The names are Wollof, Egret, and Walter respectively. Later on the name for the Hunter would be revealed to be Henry and Gomez would be introduced as it's own character.
  • On Twitch streams rigging characters for SMS: Evolutions The names for then unnamed puppet based on the Nightmare and Hunter were revealed as Gomez and Henry respectively.
  • Some of these names play off of their titles, Wollof is follow backwards, Egret is an anagram of "Greet" as well as being a species of bird and Walter simply replaces the "i" with an "l".
• On most of the posters the spelling is "Foggel", rather that "Foggle", however both spellings seem to be interchangeable.
• In the original trailer for SMS: Evolutions, The puppets are seen being burned by the fire rather than just being "immune" to it like in the first game. These "Burned" puppets were intended to quash the idea that there were people operating the suits during the events of the games.
• While most of the puppets have a respective demon that are the inspiration for their designs, Screamer is the only demon that does not appear to have a puppet directly based off it.
  • Likewise, both the Waiter and Hunter do not have a clear direct demonic inspiration the rest of the puppet cast has currently.
    • While Hunter did have a more demonic design planned for 123 Slaughter Me Street 2 referred to by fans as "The Strangler", but it ended up being scraped. It's possible that should the design make it into a game, It would give Hunter a demonic inspiration leaving Waiter as the only one without a direct inspiration.