Mix-and-Match Critters/Quotes

Katara: (reading a newspaper) The king's having a party tonight for his pet bear.
Aang: You mean platypus-bear?
Katara: No, it just says, "bear."
Sokka: Certainly you mean his pet skunk-bear?
Toph: Or his armadillo-bear?
Aang: Gopher-bear?
Katara: Just... "bear."
(beat)

Toph: This place is weird.

—Avatar: The Last Airbender, "City of Walls and Secrets"

Cat-Bug is a cat, but he's got bugness in his veins
Man-House lives within himself with thoughtful human brains
Neither one is equal
To the challenge of the freak we'll

Call the Bee of the Bird of the Moth.

—They Might Be Giants, "Bee of the Bird of the Moth"

"The Great Roe is a mythological beast with the head of a lion and the body of a lion, though not the same lion."

—Woody Allen

"It's this big, owlish, bearish thing. Big deal. I can play that game too. "'Watch out for the hawklion! Beware the vulturetiger! Don't worry too much about the sparrowspaniel!'"

—Lore Sjöberg, "D & D Monsters Part II"

"Why would anyone crossbreed a perfectly serviceable bear with an owl? ... A bear is already a dangerous predator; what benefit is there in breeding it with a smaller, weaker, less frightening creature? What should we expect next? The dreaded bunnywolf? The ferocious penguinlion? Perhaps the terrible ducksnake?"

—Vaarsuvius, The Order of the Stick, #322

"I'm merely improving upon God's flawed designs!" Nedroid replied, "I mean, what's better? A boring, ordinary cat? Or the mighty CATBLADE!?"

—The Cracked Conspiracy

All the creatures around here suck.
We need to make 'em cooler.
So the theme will be
-Tougher!
-Rougher!
-Badder!
We'll mix and match this and that to create
whole new things no one's ever seen before!
I dub it the 'Fascinating Chimera Project'.

Let's reconstruct and modify stuff slowly and steadily.

—A message from Porky Minch in a Pig Mask notebook, Mother 3

On a tiny little island
in the ocean called pacific
there's a mixed up group of creatures
who are really quite horrific
mixed together with whatever crap
was found or could be grabbed

re-invented in the bowels of a lab

—Spliced theme song

"I'm sorry, no. I won't take it. If we accept orc zombies, we open the gate to all kinds of crap. What's next? Centaur dragons? How about demon fairies? Maybe buffalo elves? Heck, why not whale vultures? I'm going to make a stand for plausible monsters everywhere. Who's with me?"

—Black Mage, Eight Bit Theater: ('And Badger Snakes')