Sidney Squirrel Silences DEATH BATTLE!

         

Sidney Squirrel, the Adventurous Toon

Silent Sillies was created by Anthony Hunter, it can be read on its own website, Facebook, DeviantArt, and Tapas (Its own site has a glitch where turning the page can send the reader to the latest update. So fair warning lol)

Welcome back to the blog! While I did cover a rubber hose inspired character in the past, this one come from a series that plays the concept completely straight. Silent Sillies is basically a silent cartoon in comic form. As expected, it's full of toonforce shenanigans. It was actually kinda difficult choosing which character from the webcomic to focus on. Tom Turtle has his nerdy quirks and magic powers, Sally Skunk has a fun a power range and fun piloting skills, and Wally Wolf likely has my favorite arsenal out of the cast and has some really cool usages of toonforce (though I'd rather not make a blog on someone who constantly chases and kidnaps women xD). In the end, I decided to go with the main mascot himself for the sheer variety of his powers.

Before I go on, I wanted to clarify what will be included and what won't be. Silent Sillies and Silent Sillies Thoughts are going to be the only series covered here. The Silent Sillies Speaks spinoff seems to be a separate canon, and doesn't really add much VS-wise. I'll only really refer to it to help describe Sidney's personality. The flash game based on the New Nimbus storyline also won't be considered because it clashes with the arc's canon.

Background

"The meaning of life is to bring joy to others, and as cartoons we do that through humor."

Back in the early 20th century, animation was taking the world by storm. There were a slew of silent features by Disney, Paramount, and Fleischer Studios that became cultural juggernauts of the time, and are still seen as influential icons today. While the rubber hose style these animations were known for were slowly falling out of practice, it had a major resurgence in the 2010's, with many series trying to emulate that style of animation or subvert tropes associated with it. But before the release of series like Bendy and the Ink Machine or Cuphead, there was a little webcomic called Silent Sillies.

While the world of Silent Sillies is lacking in sound or color, it greatly makes up for it in its charm and whimsy. Many entertaining faces can be found dwelling in its rubber hose setting. Today, I'd like to focus on the series' mascot, Sidney Squirrel.

Sidney is a fun-loving rodent who takes on many roles in series. He can be a soda jerk, a fearless explorer, a mechanic, a brave swordsman, an entertainer, or even a scarfed vigilante. Whatever the case, he always takes up a mantle where he can help people or put smiles on their faces.

He has a wild imagination that's become ingrained into his daily routine. Whatever he can think of he can will into being. While he can use them for his own selfish gain, he tends to use his imagination to give to others or take them on wild adventures.

When he isn't hunting for treasures or hoarding acorns for hibernation, he's typically seen hanging out with his best friend Tom Turtle or his lover Sally Skunk. He always tries to treat them with as much empathy and kindness as one should. But when rascals like Wally Wolf or Sam Spider try to cause trouble or make life harder for him and his friends, Sidney knows when to put his foot down and put an end to their nonsense.

While Sidney may be silent, his imagination and heart speak louder than words do.

Equipment

Toolkit

Mainly just mechanic junk.

Film Camera

Who knew movies could pack such a punch!

Pickaxe

We're playing Minecraft now.

TNT

Seems to be the only recurring explosive in this verse.

Fear-Responsive Sword

His sword is affected by his fear, causing it to become floppy when he’s nervous. However, he can use that to his advantage by unconventionally wielding the floppy blade.

Tail

His tail is a versatile feature of his body. He can morph it into things like springs, detach it to transform it into whatever tool he wants, or he can just keep his tail bushy as is to tickle people.

Golf Club

A toon with a golf club? Now where have I seen that before…?

Saw

His opponents never saw that coming…

Hammer

Either he can pull one from hammerspace, or turn his tail into one

Towel

An item gifted by the Butterfly Princess to combat storm clouds, he can use it as a whip or wear it like a cape to fly.

Time Machine

He's going back, back to the past.

Treasure Chest

Hidden punching gloves are a recurring gag.

Water Squirter

Useful for putting out small fires. Like… really small fires.

Pie

Nooooo, don't waste a perfectly good pie!

Abilities

Toonforce

Of course this series has toonforce, all of the important recurring characters have it! Some of these will be referenced later on, but I'll still break down how he uses toonforce:

• Whatever Sidney can imagine, he can pull from his speaking/thought bubble and physically use them.
• He can do the same to other peoples' bubbles.
• His dreams can affect real life (sometimes not even in his control)
• His clothes run away from him after he jumps out of them
• Casually defies gravity
• Can jump into paintings like they're portals to another world
• He can do things to a person's reflection that is felt by their real self
• He can jump into an audio drama's story by hopping into the speech bubble showing the narrative coming from the radio
• Can interact with the outside world while inside it
• He's able to feel intangible things like rainbows
• Can grab the dizzy stars flying around his head and throw them at people

Elasticity

A rubber hose character is stretchy like rubber, who woulda thunk?

Limb Detachment

Mainly in regards to his head and tail.

Hammerspace

Get it? GET IT?!?!?!

Life Bestowal

For a rubber hose-inspired series, there surprisingly aren't many examples of inanimate things coming to life, so I'll count this as Sidney making them come alive.

Wallrunning

Take that, gravity!

Immersion

He can enter paintings, travel through them, and appear out of completely different paintings.

Reflection Manipulation

Sidney can do things to people through their reflections, and they feel it outside of them.

Hole Creation

He's able to remove his tail and turn it into a gaping hole. It seems to have a small size limit. I would've claimed the hole was some kind of endless void if the boulder in the above image wasn't small enough to fit inside.

Flight

He's capable of it with the cape

Speech Bubble Manifestation and Interaction

In the world of Silent Sillies, everyones' thoughts, dreams, and imaginations appear in speech and thought bubbles. It seems every character is able to see each others' speech bubbles, and are thus able to pull from them. The content of his speech bubbles can interact with people on their own too, sometimes having a mind of their own or following his command.

Time Travel

Time, huh…? That's pretty neat.

Summons

He can conjure his alter egos Silver Squirrel and Super-Squirrel to help defend him

Techniques

N/A

Feats

Overall

• He winded up his car fast enough that its engine popped out
• He’s rescued his girlfriend Sally from being kidnapped on numerous occasions
• Somehow managed to tumble out of his chair all the way into his bed while asleep
• He saved Barabara Bunny when her runaway trolley was moving towards a gap
• Rescued a turkey Wally chased
• Found Sally’s missing fish
• Using his floppy sword, he took Wally’s sword from him during a sword fight
• When exploring a cave, he activated a trap with his torch, not realizing the torch would block an incoming pie thrown at him
• He stopped himself from falling to the bottom of a cave by turning his tail into a spring
• He punched Willy while he was sliding down a banister, then kissed Sally while stepping on Willy (the chad flex)
• He, Sally, and Tom traveled to Egypt to explore a pyramid and find treasure. They defeated mummies and Sam Spider along the way
• He helped Sally and Tom break out of the mining colony in New Nimbus enforced by Dante Dragon and living storm clouds, and eventually bested Dante in battle
• He knows how to fly a plane

Strength

• He knocked over chairs and tables with his mallet and cracked a window (street)
• His tail is strong enough to lift a trolley car (likely class 5 lifting strength)
• His tail can carry a heavy box and anvil
• Caused a small wall-level explosion with TNT
• Quickly mined a tunnel through a mountain. It's unknown how deep he went into it based off of the scans.
• He somehow cut down an entire tree but its branch when he was trying to only cut the branch
• His tail can cut through branches
• Blew up an entire car
• Scales to Wally Wolf, who blew up the space around a brick house
• Scales to Sally Skunk, who quickly melted the block of ice Sidney was trapped in
• Scales to Tom Turtle, who blew down a house made of hay with his sneezes and summoned a pyramid with a sneeze

Speed

• Ducked under a slingshot projectile
• Outran a rolling boulder
• Scales to Wally, who can spin his legs so fast that they become a blur, and consistently dodges lightning (MHS+)
• Scales to Tom Turtle, who can move in tandem with a speeding plane (transonic)

Durability

• Was pricked by Cassie Cow's horns
• Slid into a fire hydrant
• He slid into a tree, then a bunch of acorns fell on him
• Survived an anvil falling on him
• He endured a star falling on him from the sky (this feat is an outlier, as the series never consistently features any feats like this besides this one panel)
• Was punched by a soda pop dispenser
• Survived this small explosion after his minecart turned on explosive tripwire
• He broke Chester’s fall after he was thrown out a window
• He was pounded by Wally’s hammer
• A whole tree fell on top of him
• Endured Tom Turtle sneezing so hard that it blew his clothes off (wall level)
• Completely fine after a stick of dynamite blew up, disintegrating a mummy, a single stick of dynamite is as strong as one megajoule
• Survived being caught in a tornado while on a plane (tornadoes can range from large building to city block level)
• Was frozen by a living storm cloud
• Survived to being burnt to a crisp
• Scales to Wally, who was struck by lightning
• Scales to Sam Spider, who was rammed by a minecart

Weaknesses

• He isn’t resistant to the toonforce antics of the other characters, like when Sally Skunk pulled him into her house through the ear of a phone while calling each other
• He can be careless at times

Matchup Potential

Sidney Squirrel vs Cuphead (Cuphead)

When it comes to 2010's examples of rubber hose inspired indie series played completely straight, despite not originating from cartoons, Cuphead and Silent Sillies are the first two I can think of.

When I say "played straight," I mean it in the sense that the 2010's were full of horror or evil subversions inspired by rubber hose. Bendy, Skitzo, Cartoon Cat, Spinel, and many others all contributed to the oversaturation of that trend. Yet during all that, Cuphead and Silent Sillies aimed to make their series resonate with the sort of whimsy, humor, and tone the sources of their inspiration.

While Sidney isn't nearly as mischievous or immature as Cuphead, he greatly shares his adventurous spirit and has his own selfish streaks from time to time. With the contrast in their demeanors, it could make for some fun character interactions, even if Sidney would be silent throughout the fight. A particular interaction I think could be fun is Cuphead trying to hide and talks to himself trying to brainstorm what kind of cool weapon he'd need to put Sidney down… and then Sidney pulls the weapon he's imagining out of Cuphead's thought bubble and uses it against him after Cuphead says a defeated one-liner.

Because Sidney's fighting style leans more into toonforce than Cuphead does, the fight could lead to a lot of creative situations with Cuphead overcoming each one with his various types of bullets and catching Sidney off guard with his troublesome antics. The fight could even take to the skies with Cuphead in his plane and Sidney wearing his cape.

Cuphead clearly wins. Even if you don't buy the moon feat as standard, Cuphead still has other feats that far outclasses Sidney's despite arguably having better hax. For a toonforce character, Sidney is surprisingly really, really, REALLY weak. At least their speed is equal, so Cuphead likely won't be able to evade his toonforce. I'm unsure how Cuphead should kill Sidney, but it'd be funny if he pulls up a written sign Wile E. Coyote style before meeting his end.

While this isn't my favorite for Cuphead (shoutout to Cuphead vs Dynamite Headdy), this one comes quite close.

NEXT TIME ON WCAB… whenever I feel like it