Littlest Pet Shop VIPs ("Virtual Interactive Pets"), here on referred to as LPSVIP, was an online virtual pet game that launched first in October 2007 for New York retailers, and then February 2, 2008 worldwide. It was shut down December 7, 2010. Similar to many other virtual pet games, users could buy plush toys with a code to activate a virtual counterpart of their pet and play exclusive games. As of writing, this game is entirely lost unlike its more advanced sister game, LPSO, which has a restoration project and page on the wiki.
The game is described on the official LPSVIP "Welcome Parents" page as follows:
Once your child has received a Littlest Pet Shop VIPs pet (each sold separately), then or she can visit LittlestPetShop.com to adopt and interact with an online version of their cuddly friend using the secret code hidden in the pet's collar.
The first time your child visits the site, they'll be asked to register by creating a made up username and password that they create. Then, your child will enter the pet’s secret code and name their pet. The more pets your child has at home, the more she can adopt online.
Each adopted pet gets a virtual home that your child can customize. As kids explore the online games, activities and shops in the Littlest Pet Shop VIPs World, they'll have the opportunity to earn points that they can use to "buy" virtual clothing and accessories for their pet and its home. Kids will learn about the responsibility it takes when caring for a pet to keep it happy and healthy.
After registration, gameplay involved things like dressing up your pet, decorating your house, gardening, and playing a variety of minigames. Each pet adopted gave them their own room in game, and it was encouraged to adopt multiple pets.
In mid 2010, LPSO became heavily promoted on LPSVIP pages, even offering a 10 day membership code for new LPSO players. Accounts were also restricted to 1 pet per account instead of multiple. At an unknown date LPSVIP was announced to shutdown.
Resources/Notes:
I've created a playlist compiling LPSVIP footage. Quite a bit of it is very low quality or reuploads of the same video but i'd like to list everything I find about it.
Atleast some files were hosted on "http://vip4.littlestpetshop.com/"
I will add more information soon after posting. I made this post on behalf of my friend who played this game as a kid and hope to garner interest from others.
Widely known by now, but to recap: HBO Max has pulled a long list of cartoons (including HBO Max originals) off their streaming service, but has very specifically has removed all evidence of OK K.O., Infinity Train, and Mao Mao. This includes tweets, official YouTube videos, streaming music (currently Spotify and Hulu are the last ones standing afaik, but I don't know for how long).
Ultimately made this thread for archival on any of this removed content (excluding cartoon episodes, which are all more likely than not on piracy sites).
Specifically looking for Infinity Train's soundtrack and OK K.O.'s music being backed up somewhere. Anything is good though. I hope this makes sense, thank you.
Further 2002 AMS reference: Idol Game was first shown at the 40th Amusement Machine Show (第40回アミューズメントマシンショー), held from September 19th to 21st, 2002. Also referred to as: 2002 Amusement Machine Show (2002アミューズメントマシンショー) AM Show 2002 (AMショー2002)
A few sources I want to add about the images in the article:
This is from Namco's magazine "Nours" (ノワーズ) Vol. 39, in Winter 2002 (exact release date November 21st, 2002), on a section called "Namco Gal's History" (ナムコギャルズヒストリー). The official archive for it can be found on Bandai Namco Entertainment's website.
This images source in particular is... peculiar. From what I could find, these are from a set of 5 images leaked onto 2ch in September 2005, 2 months after the arcade game released. The poster did not reveal their source or much more information on them. You can find all 5 images here from a blogger who mirrored them at the time of posting. (under ">これはマジか?釣りか??"). Machine translation tells me these describe plans for features to add in a "next-gen" console (PS3/Xbox 360).
Some more photos of Idol Game:
A screenshot featuring Haruka. From Nours, Vol. 40 in Spring 2003 (exact release date March 28th, 2003), on a section called "Power of Polygon 2003" (パワーオブポリゴン2003). The official archive for it can be found on Bandai Namco Entertainment's website. Haruka is specifically under a portion focused on cel shading.
Okay, I now have 100% confirmation that these plushes do exist. For anyone curious: This is from the June 1999 issue of Jugemu.
A few things to note: There's a Lammy plush in the bottom left corner, which leads credence to my theory that these were supposed to be in the same plush set as Lammy, Katy, and Ma-San.
Also worth noting is how different Chop Chop Master Onion looks here. I don't think he ever wore this outfit in the game...
Regardless, I'm extremely excited to see these plushes.
Woah!!!! This is really interesting. If you have any other scans of them (or full scans of these promotional photos in general) it would be much appreciated! I have... no idea personally where that outfit comes from either. Maybe concept art or writing? I don't know.....
everyone I have good news !!! im very sorry it took me so long to say anything. i was the one who originally made a twitter thread about this and i got busy in life and things happened, but im happy to announce that
1) I had part of the chinese version of the manga delivered to me awhile ago! I plan to scan and have my friends (native Chinese speakers and ones taking classes) to help out translating :-) the bad news to this is that I wasn’t able to grab all issues of the magazine (manga bar) that published the manga. i will keep an eye out for the missing issues, i believe i only need 3 or 4 to complete it (i’m also keeping an eye out if the japanese ver ever pops up,,)
And 2) after a lot of struggling to sign up for weibo and getting busy (again sorry) I was finally able to make a account and dig more. I found this post
with a picture of the animation and says it was played live. there IS an animation !!!! this is devastatingly good news to me. Multiple people told me I was wrong and there was no anime but something didn’t sit right with me, and I’m so glad I dug further. even if it might’ve not been complete, it exists somewhere out there. but the sad part to me is it may be impossible to find... the person this screenshots from has been active just a few weeks ago on their weibo. I will try to form a message with friends to ask further if they remember or have any info about this (or anyone here feel free to try to contact them if u know chinese, it may take me some time since I have to ask for help ...)
i hope I can comment again soon with more news. i don’t want to give up on rion. if someone can please make her a page in the wiki I will appreciate it. I think she qualifies , there is a missing manga and animation of her.
Small edit i added an actual photo of the screen shot and also i want to say, if anyone wants to ask about rion or what ive found or share anything about her (literally anything i will happily accept..) feel free to dm my twitter @ tradingfig, i don’t know hw often I’ll check this site but im very active there. ^^
sorry, i've been very busy finishing school and other interests but whoah!!! this is really cool!!!!!! if you find anymore stuff please post...!!!
Not totally arcade related, but an official Parappa music video was dug-up and has a 3D model of the arcade machine with in. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo21DzAkX9I
Also working on a complete doc of information on NOW!...
Searching terms in Japanese hasn't given me any related results so far, and neither has Konami's website web archive.
A few discrepancies from the links as well: - The GameFAQs link mentions "Youlide-Chui nu" as it's Japanese title, but IMBD states that's the title it's referred to in "Hong Kong (Cantonese)," but I cannot back this up as I don't speak it.... - The KLOV site having it titled as "ザ・パワーパフ・ガールズ," or "The Powerpuff Girls", doesn't line up to it's actual localized name, "パワーパフガール," which is simply "Powerpuff Girls."
Looking for any recordings of Adult Swim's April Fools special from 2008, more specifically the "rough cut" of The Venture Bros. season 3 episode "The Doctor Is Sin." As described by The Venture Bros. co-creator Jackson Publick on LiveJournal:
...you would have been witness to the first 11 minutes of episode #28 ("The Doctor Is Sin") in its rawest form: a low resolution, straight-from-Korea "first take" with no sound effects, no music, and a ton of mistakes.
Some SplashKittyArtist video info (she was a major influence on me as a kid as well....). Went through the linked playlist + web archive of her YouTube page and checked which weren't available anymore Deleted videos with reuploads: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjRvwR3d3ek Title: "I'm Happy" (?) Reupload:www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnrtebUPKro
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyBdAmYBhNo Title: "LEVELS (Warning- Flashy Colors)" Description: "Song = Levels by Avichii. I really wanted to animation to this song because it makes me want to dance....but I wasn't sure what dance to animate, so I drew everyone as...bo... [DESCRIPTION CUT OFF]"
will add on any more i find........ There's also "best of" Splash compilations from way back that might be of help. Most suffer from the screen recorder watermark and such as well though. example. www.youtube.com/watch?v=99jxPTERdK4
Oh hey, that's cool! Did you have anything from the original PaRappa the Rapper website (www.parappa-the-rapper.com) by any chance? From what I read, it was active for a limited time, from 2001 to 2002, before they pulled the plug on it.
I did a search on the Wayback Machine to see if there was anything interesting archived. I found one SWF flash file, but appears to of been broken up into individual SWF for each menu option, so the rest of it is missing.
I'm curious to know what PaRappa related websites you have saved!
At first I wrote on how it was mainly used for the anime, which aired around the same time, but it seems in 2001 specifically it was meant for Parappa 2. So it seems sometime between the 2001 and 2002 archive, info about the anime was added. I think it was likely pulled quickly due to both the anime and game not having great ratings overall (especially the anime). So archives are sparse, but the sonymusic (anime related) parts of the website are still up without need of web archive to this day! Heres a few in my bookmarks:
The swf on the 2001 archive indeed does not work, but moreso bc it was 'archived' in 2013, long after its death... doing research i haven't found anything but i'll keep looking.
I'll make a google doc of my bookmarks soon. I have to clean it up from likely duplicates and websites i visited back in 2017 that have now since died (see: japanese yahoo geocities)...
Yesterday, I was going to post about how since my original reply on this post, I've joined myfigurecollection.net and taken up a hobby of researching and adding merchandise to that website, including Parappa items- but i got distracted doing exactly that for several hours @_@.....
Looking back on the article, I want to make note that it states these names: "タマネギ先生とパドル隊長" -> Tamanegi Sensei to Padoru Taicho. (or "onion teacher and paddle captain" in google translate). These are the Japanese names of Chop Chop Master Onion and Chief Puddle, respectively.
The UmJammer Lammy plushes in the photo were manufactured by "Sony Creative Products" (ソニー・クリエイティブプロダクツ), so that probably goes for the rest of them as well. They seemed to be the main manufacturer of UmJammer Lammy merch back then.
Information gathered from Heartland, Chekila, and Rodneyfun on the event: "Rodney's Art In The Box" Held from May 15th (Sat) - May 23rd (Sun) 1999, 11:00 am - 7:00 pm Held in Osaka, Japan at the Shinsaibashi Sony Tower (心斎橋ソニータワー) 38 pieces were exhibited A lot of focus on Lammy, including a shop at Somid Hall (ソミドホール) with "Rodney goods." (literally. 'ロドニー・グッズ')