Beppi The Clown is a boss in Cuphead that is fought in the Carnival Kerfuffle level of Inkwell Isle Two.
Boss Theme
Description
Appearance
Beppi is a tall clown with a red and blue clown suit with a blue and a red diamond drawn on each side, as well as a collar that has blue and red triangles on the sides with the top and bottom of the collar being white. He also seems to have a red and white face as well as a small black top hat. He also has yellow eyes with black pupils, red and blue eyebrows, a long red nose, and short eyelashes.
His second form resembles his first form, but portrays him as made out of balloons. His head is a giant balloon.
His third form, which is faced during his fourth phase (His first form is used in phase 3 as well, except with a Charlie Horse instead of a car.), transforms him into a chair swing.
Personality
True to his nature a clown, Beppi is a fun-loving and joke-cracking character, as shown by his habit of making puns whenever the player(s) lose to him and constantly smiling and laughing throughout his battle. He is shown to use many carnival tools at his disposal, from bumper cars and balloon animals to carousel horses and roller coasters, which solidifies his fun-loving nature. Beppi also appears to have a dramatic side, as seen when he throws a fit upon his defeat in the third phase. In his fourth phase, Beppi is shown to be psychotic as evident by the maniacal laughter.
Battle
Intro
Before the battle, Beppi stares at Cuphead and Mugman excitedly before jumping into his bumper car, chuckling while doing so.
Phase 1
"Why'd the clown drive over the cup? He wanted to crack him up."
—Beppi The Clown, Phase 1 Death Screen
During his first phase, Beppi attacks by driving his bumper car toward the players, which prompt them to dash over him. His bumper cart will inch along the level, either towards or away from the center of the level, for an average of 3 seconds, before charging at full speed while he has a sinister grin and his bumper car has an angry expression. There are 2 instances that occur with 4 charges between them, in which the delay before the dash is exactly 1.5 seconds. In Expert Mode, Beppi has more random patterns before charging. It can be inching a lot further on the track or having just very few bumps before charging.
Above Beppi is a moving row of cardboard ducks with bulls-eye on them that can damage the players if they accidentally bump into them. Occasionally, there will be a duck holding a light bulb, which will drop the bulb when a player is below to create a fire and hurt them. If this duck is shot, it will drop the bulb on the ground prematurely. In order to neutralize them, players simply have to shoot the duck, which will make them spin around so the hitbox is disabled. One of the ducks will be parryable. In Simple Mode, there will be no ducks carrying light bulbs and there will be two parryable ducks.
After taking enough hits, Beppi will crash on the side of the screen and fall off of with his bumper car. Hitpoints = 360/263.5/314.5
Phase 2
"What'd the Balloon animals think of the cup? Quite the gob-let-down!"
—Beppi The Clown, Phase 2 Death Screen
After Beppi falls off the ground from the previous fight, he reappears on a makeshift platform with gas tanks by his sides that will inflate him with helium whilst his head becomes a balloon.
His primary attack in this phase is sending out Balloon Dogs which spawn one at a time from the tubes on both sides, three outlets on the left and three on the right. These are spawned to attack the players and home to where the players are. They can be popped by shooting at them. Occasionally, pink colored ones will appear for the players to parry. In Simple Mode, they spawn at a lower rate. In Expert Mode, there are two different modes of balloons spawning: either two can spawn simultaneously, after a while four spawns together; or always spawning three at the same time forever; rather than one at a time. Only one mode will be chosen for that specific fight. However, the rate of production is lowered. Hitpoints = 10/5.3/7
During this phase and onward, a roller coaster car will be passing by the battle every now and then, and it acts as an obstacle for the player(s). The roller coaster car will travel through the entire lower portion of the screen, which prompts players to jump onto it. The roller coaster car's head and rear have damaging spikes. It also has an additional obstacle by having two cars containing passengers, which player(s) has to jump over as they are damaging too. The roller coaster car can be seen in the background as it goes up the track. The nose of the roller coaster car is colored pink and can be parried. In Simple Mode, the roller coaster never appears. In Expert Mode, there are three cars of passengers to jump over.
After Beppi has taken enough hits, his eyes become Xes, his head flies off into the sky, and his makeshift platform sinks. Then battle moves on to the next phase. Hitpoints = 420/310/370
Phase 3
"Knock knock. Who's there? Charlie. Charlie who? Charlie horse!"
—Beppi The Clown, Phase 3 Death Screen
After Phase 2, Beppi returns in his normal form riding a Charlie Horse, which is modeled after a horse from a carousel.
Beppi has two primary attacks depending on what color the Charlie Horse is:
- Yellow: The yellow colored Charlie Horse shoots out a row of yellow colored horseshoe, which reappear later above the player(s) to drop on them. The horseshoes can be avoided by taking advantage of the opening of the row. But if the players are jumping over the roller coaster car while the horse is attacking, they may accidentally get damaged.
- Green: The green colored Charlie Horse shoots out several horseshoe magnets in 2 groups of 2 that travel in a wave motion to damage the player. One of the horseshoes may be pink and is able to be parried. In Simple Mode, it shoots in 3 groups of 1. In Expert Mode, it shoots in 2 groups of 3.
The roller coaster speed is now the speed of the player's walking. Since the roller coaster does not appear in Simple Mode, Beppi can lower his horse closer to the ground, so low that the yellow Charlie Horse initial shot can only be dodged by crouching down.
After taking enough hits, Beppi, along with his horse, are defeated. Beppi can be heard crying in the background. They disappear and then reappear in the middle of the screen with Beppi falling off again. In Simple Mode, Beppi simply stays on his horse, and the battle ends. Hitpoints = 420/279/333
Phase 4
"What do you call a cup that falls off a swing? A tumbler!"
—Beppi the Clown, Phase 4 Death Screen
After he falls off from the previous phase, Beppi will reappear as a chair swing ride, laughing maniacally, he will then open his new carousel roof and begin spawning swing platforms. His primary form of attack is him opening his mouth and three or four green Penguin Clowns roll out. Each of them will conjure up a baseball and shoot at where the players are. They can either be defeated, or be destroyed the next time the roller coaster drives across the screen. In Expert Mode, the penguins shoot at a faster rate. Hitpoints = 13/13
Combined with the roller coaster car, which is way faster and has more cars occupied by the passengers, it can be quite a hassle for players to avoid both the roller coaster car and penguins at the same time while they have to focus on shooting at Beppi's body.
After he has taken enough shots, Beppi is defeated, his defeat animation showing him broken apart and revealing that his mouth was the entire inside of the main pillar. Hitpoints = 697.5/832.5
Sound Effects
| Description | Audio |
| Overworld. | |
| Beppi's introduction. | |
| Beppi crashes his bumper car. | |
| Beppi crying and falling off his horse. | |
| Beppi reappearing as a chair swing. | |
| Beppi spitting out penguins. |
Gallery
Unused Content
In the unused code, the swings from Beppi's final phase will be able to drop players down. When players step on the swing, it will be in red hue as a warning for 0.5 seconds and will be completely black to drop the player as the platform collision completely disappear for 0.7 seconds. It later returns to normal and can repeat the process again.
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Walkthrough
| Regular Mode | Expert Mode |
|---|---|
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Trivia
- Although Beppi is a male, he has visible eyelashes, a design choice commonly used for female characters in cartoons. This could be hinting that he wears mascara or eyeliner.
- In an early build made for Conan O'Brien's Clueless Gamer, he was one of the playable bosses. Oddly, the fourth phase of the boss appeared as the second phase, and the cars seemed to go little slower than normal in this build of the game.
- His third phase's death quote is a pun on Charley horse, a muscle spasm that occurs commonly in legs. It might also refer to one of Shari Lewis' characters in terms of name. It could also be a reference to the horse shaped piece in Operation.
- When riding Charlie Horse during phase 3 on the left side of the screen, Beppi's colors will be on the opposite sides of his body. For example, his grey-white face paint is now on the left side of his face. On his third phase death screen, however, the colors are back to normal.
- The opposite applies to his first phase, where his colors are correct during the fight but swapped in the death screen.
- Oddly, Charlie Horse makes sounds similar to that of a donkey rather than a "neigh".
- In Beppi's Phase 1 death screen he is seen having a blue stripe on his hat, however, in battle, he has none. This seems to be an animation error.
- During the first three phases of his fight, Beppi's face is colored half red and half white. In his fourth phase, however, his face is colored half red and half blue.
- No matter what way he faces during the first three phases, Beppi's red face paint will always be in front.
- Beppi is the only boss in Cuphead with an asymmetrical design. This is due to his color scheme.
- Beppi has a glitch that if you dealt enough damage to completely skip the next phase during the transition to it, the check of next transition is also skipped, making the boss stuck at the next phase where potentially the hitbox is better and all the transition downtime is negated.
- This glitch is still barely possible in Patch 1.2. As most of the unintended way of increasing damage per second like double damage Lobber EX, weapon swap glitch and off screen hitboxes are removed, even the window of him able to receive damage shortened as the hitbox of him falling off is also removed. But with the optimal pattern it can still be done with Peashooter and Spread.
Inspirations and similarities
- Beppi is a homage to Fleischer's iconic character Koko the Clown of the Betty Boop cartoons and 1930s animation, and possibly Koko's cameo in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where Koko appears in his black and white form when coming in to work at Maroon Cartoons and again in color form near the end. His name originated from old horror and clown films from the 1930s. Visual exploration for the character mostly stemmed from the bizarre 1924 thriller He Who Gets Slapped.[1]
- Alternatively, Beppi's design could have been inspired by Art the clown from the Terrifier franchise. They both share a wide grin and a tiny top-hat
- The balloon dogs Beppi uses in his 2nd phase are a reference to another dog based enemy from Dynamite Düx.
- Beppi's name is a reference to Tito Beppi, a clown portrayed by Lon Chaney in the 1928 film Laugh, Clown, Laugh.
- Beppi's actions when he jumps into his car and tries to ram the player is similar to the actions done by Sweet Tooth from the Twisted Metal series.
- The horse Beppi is riding bears a slight resemblance to Horace Horsecollar, a character from the Mickey Mouse cartoons.
- Beppi's crying may be a reference to that of Fransowors (dubbed as Fatso in America), one of the bosses from the 1992 arcade game Undercover Cops.
- The Balloon Dogs that are summoned have a brownish yellow color with black ears much like Mickey's pet dog Pluto from the Mickey Mouse cartoons.
- The background for Beppi's fight resembles Pleasure Island from Disney's Pinocchio.
- The fight on the roller coaster may refer to the Popeye cartoon King of the Mardi Gras.
- Beppi's opening animation in his fourth phase could be a reference to the 1988 comedy-fantasy film Beetlejuice.
- The unused falling swings may be a reference to the Donut Blocks from the Super Mario franchise, acting in a similar way when stepped on they turn red and start falling after a while, and the platform shape is similar to the Donut blocks as well.
- The cardboard ducks resemble Donald Duck from his earlier appearances in the 1930s.
References
- ↑ The Art of Cuphead, Beppi the Clown, page 96