Learning with Pibby: Apocalypse Explained

Learning with Pibby, also known as Come and Learn with Pibby! or Pibby: Apocalypse, was conceived as an action-horror metafictional animated short by Dodge Greenley. The trailer was released on Adult Swim's YouTube channel on October 30, 2021, captivating viewers with its intriguing premise. While the initial concept sparked significant interest and a dedicated fanbase, the series ultimately faced cancellation.

The Premise

Pibby is a preschool animated series character who is on the run from a mysterious dark stain of ink and glitches that is engulfing everything and destroying her home, while devouring her beloved friend. The short starts with the opening of a preschool cartoon show, Learning with Pibby (The parody of Sesame Street), which is rudely interrupted by a strange black, glitchy liquid consuming the area. The titular character, Pibby (The simply-designed girl with blue skin and pink hair) and her rabbit companion, Bun-Bun, retreat to their house where she promises that she will always keep him safe. However, the scene cuts to the darkness consuming Bun-Bun, with Pibby failing to rescue him. Pibby, a cute little girl who stars in her own educational cartoon for preschoolers (Learning with Pibby), learning about things like spelling and caring with all of her cuddly animal friends. However, this all comes to a screeching halt when a glitchy, eldritch blob suddenly invades her world, consuming and absorbing all of her friends. Just as she is about to be eaten herself, Pibby finds herself in the credits of her own show. Soon, she finds herself traveling to other worlds - that is, other cartoons (both real and fictional) - and discovering that they are also under threat of being assimilated into this nightmarish abomination. While her newfound allies doubt that they'll be able to deal with such an apocalyptic problem, Pibby holds out hope that there's a way of beating back the darkness - but before then, she'll need to learn a lot more than she ever hoped to. As she goes, she is forced to confront the apocalyptic horrors that have not only destroyed her world, but are spreading and annihilating the universes of Cartoon Network, Warner Bros.

The Trailer and its Impact

On October 30, 2021, a trailer announcing the potential series was uploaded by the Adult Swim YouTube Channel after being shown the show's premiere, viewers quickly became fans of it's interesting plot by forming a new community/fandom. The trailer/short/pilot (titled "Come and Learn with Pibby!") can be seen here. The trailer opens with Learning with Pibby's theme song, a cheerful and innocent tune suitable for a cartoon for small children. Near the end, well after the true tone of the series becomes evident, the Background Music changes to a version with slow, emotionless vocals and a progressively harsher mechanical beat. In particular, as Pibby witnesses the Eldritch Abomination assume the form of BunBun, the last line is layered to sound outright demonic.

The trailer immediately captivated audiences with its dark and subversive take on beloved cartoon characters. The premise involves a glitchy, eldritch darkness spreading across various cartoon universes, corrupting and assimilating characters into zombie-like monsters. This concept resonated with viewers, leading to widespread speculation and excitement for a potential series.

Characters

Pibby is the titular main protagonist of Learning with Pibby and Learning with Pibby: Apocalypse as the main character of a toddlers' edutainment show, she teaches lessons for children with her best friend Bun Bun, and likes hugs and having fun. although Pibby is depicted as sweet and innocent at the start of the series, not even knowing what blood is due to the sheltered world from which she originates, she is forced to become a hardened warrior over the course of the series, battling an unknown, dark entity that has corrupted the other cartoons. Pibby is a small, light-blue colored preteenager with lilac colored hair. Her appearance changes as the show progresses, with her hair being messier, then let down for the battle. At the start of the show, Pibby is a sweet and optimistic girl, hopeful and enthusiastic. Pibby sees the best in others and believes that they can become heroes, even if they weren't originally suited for it. Bun Bun is Pibby's best friend. When Pibby first encountered the Darkness, she showed fear toward it, later as seen in the Trailer, she slowly grows to become fearless and brave.

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Two of Pibby's allies are a young superhero named Alloy Boy, who parodies typical superhero sidekicks like Robin, and an anthropomorphic cat named Melira, who parodies classic Disney villains such as Cruella de Vil and Ursula. The dog characters who appear to be native to Melira's show, however, more resemble designs from Pound Puppies (1980s).

The Glitch

The trailer's main antagonist is a black, glitchy void that worms its way into various cartoons and infects the characters within, turning them into zombie-like monsters. In addition to the Darkness consuming several different characters and occasionally wearing their faces on its body, one scene near the end near the end of the trailer shows Pibby and company facing a horde of victims that are fighting on the abomination's side and share its Ominous Visual Glitch-laden aesthetic. If someone gets assimilated into it, they become a part of it - either their glitched face appears on its body or they become one of its malformed minions, sporting an eerie grin and glitch-marred facial features in both cases. Several shots depict it with a lower FPS than anything else in the scene to further indicate how alien it is.

Art Style and Tone

The short juxtaposes bloody violence and frightening imagery with a cutesy and cartoony art direction. As part of its Subverted Kids' Show nature, the short juxtaposes bloody violence and frightening imagery with a cutesy and cartoony art direction. The many cartoon styles featured in the trailer are all generally child-friendly, not at all suited for an action horror series centering on an Eldritch Abomination devouring entire worlds. The crossover aspect is hammered home by the many disparate art styles used for each dimension in the trailer. Pibby has a brightly-colored and simple design (befitting the protagonist of a show for preschoolers), the superhero characters are all more detailed and live in a world with painted backgrounds, Melira and her universe have a more fluid Disneyesque style, and one scene depicts the main trio in a black-and-white setting with noticeable film grain. This also goes for all previously-existing characters, who are drawn and animated in the styles of their original shows - Fred Flintstone, for instance, looks exactly out of The Flintstones proper, complete with a false shadow underneath him that mimics old cel animation.

Adult Swim's April Fools' Day Stunt

As part of an April Fools' Day 2022 stunt, Adult Swim had Pibby, BunBun, and the glitch blob invade multiple shows, leading to renewed interest in the characters and speculation for a potential television show. In 2022, Pibby and BunBun (and the glitching) became the stars of Adult Swim's annual joke, making appearances throughout the night's reruns. Adult Swim's 2022 April Fool's Day event has Pibby and BunBun going through various Adult Swim programs and being both confused and horrified at shows such as Rick and Morty and The Eric Andre Show.

Cancellation

During 2023, a video of an alleged storyboard, featuring Pibby's voice actress, from what would've been the first episode leaked on the internet, which sparked many rumours about the show being announced soon.[1] However, on October 3, 2023, series creator Dodge Greenley revealed via Instagram that Pibby had not been greenlit yet and would likely not be greenlit.[2] On June 27, 2024, Greenley confirmed that the series was dead.[3] On November 6, 2024, it was further explained that the series was scrapped due to the merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery as Warner Bros. Discovery in 2022.[4]

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Themes and Tropes

The short appears to be a Deconstruction of various children's cartoon tropes. The series' main plot is that a virus is spreading through a TV channel (specifically Cartoon Network) and turning all of its beloved characters into heavily-pixelated murderous zombies. Part of the series' horror is meant to appeal to the discomfort/fear some viewers would feel at seeing some of their favorite childhood characters turned into monsters.

Anyone Can Die: From the trailer, it looks like anyone, no matter what franchise or show they're from, can and will get assimilated into the Darkness. Even if the character normally gets by due to Toon Physics or any powers they have that can possibly stop it, they're still doomed. As the April Fools' Day 2022 Adult Swim broadcast shows, even live-action programming like The Eric Andre Show isn't immune to the corruption.
Art-Style Clash: The crossover aspect is hammered home by the many disparate art styles used for each dimension in the trailer.
Body Horror: Anyone that have been claimed by the Darkness are depicted as being stretched and warped in unnatural ways, most prominently involving their jaws elongating widely.
Break the Cutie: Pibby begins as the sweet, innocent protagonist of a cartoon for small children, only for an Eldritch Abomination to invade, ruin her world, and force her to mature quickly as she grapples with the horror of the scenario. The trailer strings together several scenes to show her progression: she goes from innocently wondering what "red water" is after receiving an eye injury that causes her to bleed to leading an army of cartoon characters against the antagonist, sword in hand, with a following scene showing her wiping blood from her mouth without a second thought.
Cosmic Horror Story: The premise of the short is that various otherwise cheery and optimistic cartoon worlds, including many beloved classics (or expies of said classics) are being corrupted and devoured one by one by a horrific, nigh-unstoppable Glitch Entity that no one knows the origin of.
Crisis Crossover: The premise of the series, as shown in the trailer, is that an Eldritch Abomination is destroying several different cartoon shows (fictional and real, the latter all owned by Warner Bros.) and killing their casts. Pibby is forced to dimension-hop into these shows and meet with other characters in the hopes of stopping it.
Crossover-Exclusive Villain: The Eldritch Abomination seen in the trailer invades several different worlds, absorbing and taking control of their citizens.
Eye Scream: One of the key moments of Pibby losing her innocence is losing her left eye in a bloody manner, which she subsequently covers up with a bandage and later an Eyepatch of Power.
Genre Refugee: A protagonist from a preschool edutainment series, a dopey superhero sidekick, and a classic cartoon villainess are thrust into a multiverse-spanning Cosmic Horror Story against an Eldritch Abomination.
Harmful to Minors: Even disregarding The Darkness not being picky with who or what it assimilates, Pibby also ends up losing an eye.

"Pibby: Apocalypse" as a Mod

Pibby: Apocalypse (previously known as Glitch Breakdown) is a mod created and currently directed by Baudas70. The mod centers around the Adult Swim trailer for Learning With Pibby.

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