As the DVD Dungeon Rubber begins, we learn that times are tough for poor Boglin, the diminutive rubbery demon summoned and bound by a misguided gamesmaster to roleplay a paladin in Gamesmaster, Gamesmaster, What Have You Done?!.
He’s back in Hell now, and as it turns out, he’s pretty much at the bottom of the demonic totem pole. An infernal janitor, if you will. A sort of diabolical Dave Lister, for you Red Dwarf fans out there.
And as if the daily tedium of his back-raking (no typo) labors weren’t enough… now he’s had a taste of power and glory through the wonders of roleplaying, only to have had it stripped away from him with the death of his character – the paladin-turned-genocidal-overlord, Sucksface – and his own banishment back to Hell.
He must know that sense of unbridled power once again.
He first attempts to recruit his fellow bottom-rung demons to roleplay, with himself as GM. Unfortunately, his fellow bottom-rung demons are on the bottom rung for a reason: they’re idiots.
But proving once and for all that bad gaming is better than no gaming, their one fruitless session starts a roleplaying craze among the damned souls in Hell, making even endless hours dipped in fetid pools of crap more bearable. Which, of course, annoys the Hell out of Satan (Jon Washburn).
That’s right, folks: contrary to popular belief, Satan hates gaming. (When it interferes with torturing the damned, at any rate.)
Pretty soon, Boglin finds himself chased clear back to Earth, with Satan’s overseer – the silent, pro-wrestler-like Cageface (Nathan Meharg) – in hot pursuit.
But who cares about demonic pursuers when you’re back where the real roleplaying goes down? Seizing his chance to relive his dream – or nightmare, as the case may be – Boglin immediately sets out to find Dave (Dave Avallone), the gamesmaster who previously summoned him, so that Sucksface may be reborn!
That will take some doing, however, as Boglin must track down Dave by way of his former fellow players, Beck (Andrew Clark) the rules lawyer, Lance (Brian Pope) the immersion gamer, and Steve (Jennifer Long) the powergamer – each posing a challenge akin to the very labors of Hercules!
(Well, except for being a whole lot dumber.)
(And geekier.)
(And pretty much unlike the labors of Hercules in any meaningful way.)
Dungeon Rubber outshines its predecessor in just about every respect.
The humor manages to be both funnier and more consistent, from the Muppet-worthy interactions between Boglin and his fellow demons to the delightful irony of Boglin’s ultimate fate. (I found the back-story of Dave’s trials and tribulations while trying to form a gaming group particularly hilarious.)
The acting shows marked improvement across the board. Jon Washburn makes a great addition as a wonderfully suave Satan, and the original cast members all get more time to shine. (I still found Jennifer Long’s portrayal of Steve the powergamer to be a bit much, but she also gets the best literal one-liner as a Nazi on Dave’s aforementioned gaming group quest.)
We get a much better look at the confines of Hell, courtesy of sets that are at least worthy of Dr. Who. But the most startling improvement in the visuals comes in the form of animated flashbacks of Sucksface’s (voiced by Paul Alfonso) reign of terror. I say “startling” because while I’m not really up to speed on such things, the quality of the animation looks like the producers were working with a budget at least on par with many of Adult Swim’s offerings. Furthermore, gamers should be delighted to see hordes of monsters immediately recognizable from the original Monster Manual art.
In fact, about the only way Dungeon Rubber doesn’t quite match up to GGWHYD?! is in the area of gaming parody, but it more than makes up for that with a more interesting and amusing storyline.
So, with apologies for the cliché: if you liked GGWHYD?!, you’ll love Dungeon Rubber. This is the work of a comedy troupe improving by warp-jumps between features, and I eagerly await their next project.
