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You see there used to be this thing called common sense back in the day ;) We tried to do a song parody version of The Elements, but using only Pokemon names.

You see there used to be this thing called common sense back in the day ;) We tried to do a song parody version of The Elements, but using only Pokemon names. It was enormous fun, until you realize nothing rhymes with Pickachu, or Charmander, or Bulbasaur, or any of them for that matter. That lead to a discussion of how to write a Python script to test for like word endings on combinations of 888 pairs, etc. These songs have an almost mystical power to open minds. And observe there is this property to the universe known as "intelligence"

michaelt 6y ago
> nothing rhymes with Pickachu, or Charmander, or Bulbasaur Were you only rhyming pokemon names with other pokemon names, or could you use other words? If you can use other words, the trick to rhyming made-up words is to find any word that ends with the same sound, and look that word up in a rhyming dictionary. Pickachu -> You -> zoo, IQ, caribou, misconstrue etc Charmander -> Salamander -> gander, candour, meander, highlander etc Bulbasaur -> Dinosaur -> door, floor, centaur, guarantor, heretofore etc
- jfengel 6y ago
  The song he's trying to parody consists almost exclusively of the actual names of the elements. There are a few filler words added to make the meter work out ("There's strontium and silicon and silver and samarium"), and a couplet in English at the end, but otherwise it's just the elements. The rhyme is trivial, since every line ends with "ium". To do it with anything else you'd need to work a lot harder.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    But isn't the elements song itself a parody of "Modern Major-General" which has plenty of non-rhyming words (although of course with a lot of rhyming words too)?
    - jfengel 6y ago
      Sure. It's just that if what you want is to do a Pokemon-based version of this song, your ideal would be to cram it as full as possible with Pokemon names. You could step back and do a Pokemon-based G&S parody, rather than a parody-of-a-parody, but it doesn't have quite the same panache.
  - skykooler 6y ago
    It's not quite that trivial, since rhymes are based on the last stressed syllable in a word (e.g. he rhymes "samarium" with "barium", but not "lithium").
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    As noted by a sibling comment, he's not rhyming the -iums, he's rhyming the antepenultimate syllable (selenium/rhenium, germanium/uranium, vanadium/radium, gallium/thallium, rubidium/iridium, samarium/barium). But the other thing he leans heavily into is alliteration. The third verse is chock full of this: Holmium, helium, hafnium, erbium (all h, save the rhyme) Phosphorous, francium, fluorine, terbium (all f, save rhyme) Manganese, mercury, molybdenum, magnesium (all m) Dysprosium, scandium, cerium, cesium (all s sounds, save the first) Lead, praseodymium, platinum, plutonium (most p sounds) Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium (continue p sounds) Tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium (t sounds now) Cadmium, calcium, chromium, curium (k sounds now) There's also the point to make that most element names are 3-4 syllables long, so the verses are structured with 4 elements per line. The extra-long praseodymium and neodymium are paired with the very short lead and nickel respectively, for example. In fact, prior to the last verse, the 4 elements per line is violated just once (last line before the intermezzo crams in "bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, barium"). The last verse goes a regular 4 elements, then 3, and then launches into this: * argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc, rhodium * chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin, sodium The first of these lines rhymes all the -ons at the end, and the second goes for alliteration instead. Of course, there are a few failures to align all the elements by alliteration or rhyme. The ones in the last verse align instead by other means (first you have californium, fermium, berkelium--all named after the same place; then you have mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium--all named after scientists). Now that's clever!
    - buckleyc 6y ago
      >"Lead, praseodymium, platinum, plutonium (most p sounds)" The mildly subtle humor herein since "Lead" has the symbol "Pb", as it comes from the Latin 'plumbum'. Thank you, Mr Lehrer.
    - jfengel 6y ago
      That is an excellent close reading. Very astute. Thank you.
    - webmaven 6y ago
      TIL a new word: antepenultimate. Quite lovely. ... and now Google has introduced me to preantepenultimate and propreantepenultimate. Wow.
dragontamer 6y ago
> until you realize nothing rhymes with Pickachu Note: "Satoshi", which is Ash's name in the original Japanese, rhymes with "Pika-Pi", which is why Pikachu says "Pika-Pi" so much. Each time "Pika-Pi" pops out in the anime, its Pikachu calling out Satoshi / Ash's name. (Sa-To-Shi). --------- Some things are lost in translation. Calling Satoshi "Ash" in the American version, but keeping Pikachu's original dub, prevents the American Audience from seeing the level of thought put into this. ------- I think you can similarly force rhymes and/or common syllables and/or intonations between Pokemon. There's over 900 of them now, surely there's a song to make some rhymes out of. (IE: Pokerap style)
- dllthomas 6y ago
  > seeing the level of thought put into this. ... about the same level as "ruh-roh, Rhaggy!"?
bityard 6y ago
It's not set to the Gilbert & Sullivan tune but Weird Al did a Pokemon Polka: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsSFlLYnwtc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsSFlLYnwtc

michaelt 6y ago

> nothing rhymes with Pickachu, or Charmander, or Bulbasaur Were you only rhyming pokemon names with other pokemon names, or could you use other words? If you can use other words, the trick to rhyming made-up words is to find any word that ends with the same sound, and look that word up in a rhyming dictionary. Pickachu -> You -> zoo, IQ, caribou, misconstrue etc Charmander -> Salamander -> gander, candour, meander, highlander etc Bulbasaur -> Dinosaur -> door, floor, centaur, guarantor, heretofore etc

jfengel 6y ago
The song he's trying to parody consists almost exclusively of the actual names of the elements. There are a few filler words added to make the meter work out ("There's strontium and silicon and silver and samarium"), and a couplet in English at the end, but otherwise it's just the elements. The rhyme is trivial, since every line ends with "ium". To do it with anything else you'd need to work a lot harder.
- michaelt 6y ago
  But isn't the elements song itself a parody of "Modern Major-General" which has plenty of non-rhyming words (although of course with a lot of rhyming words too)?
  - jfengel 6y ago
    Sure. It's just that if what you want is to do a Pokemon-based version of this song, your ideal would be to cram it as full as possible with Pokemon names. You could step back and do a Pokemon-based G&S parody, rather than a parody-of-a-parody, but it doesn't have quite the same panache.
- skykooler 6y ago
  It's not quite that trivial, since rhymes are based on the last stressed syllable in a word (e.g. he rhymes "samarium" with "barium", but not "lithium").
- jcranmer 6y ago
  As noted by a sibling comment, he's not rhyming the -iums, he's rhyming the antepenultimate syllable (selenium/rhenium, germanium/uranium, vanadium/radium, gallium/thallium, rubidium/iridium, samarium/barium). But the other thing he leans heavily into is alliteration. The third verse is chock full of this: Holmium, helium, hafnium, erbium (all h, save the rhyme) Phosphorous, francium, fluorine, terbium (all f, save rhyme) Manganese, mercury, molybdenum, magnesium (all m) Dysprosium, scandium, cerium, cesium (all s sounds, save the first) Lead, praseodymium, platinum, plutonium (most p sounds) Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium (continue p sounds) Tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium (t sounds now) Cadmium, calcium, chromium, curium (k sounds now) There's also the point to make that most element names are 3-4 syllables long, so the verses are structured with 4 elements per line. The extra-long praseodymium and neodymium are paired with the very short lead and nickel respectively, for example. In fact, prior to the last verse, the 4 elements per line is violated just once (last line before the intermezzo crams in "bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, barium"). The last verse goes a regular 4 elements, then 3, and then launches into this: * argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc, rhodium * chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin, sodium The first of these lines rhymes all the -ons at the end, and the second goes for alliteration instead. Of course, there are a few failures to align all the elements by alliteration or rhyme. The ones in the last verse align instead by other means (first you have californium, fermium, berkelium--all named after the same place; then you have mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium--all named after scientists). Now that's clever!
  - buckleyc 6y ago
    >"Lead, praseodymium, platinum, plutonium (most p sounds)" The mildly subtle humor herein since "Lead" has the symbol "Pb", as it comes from the Latin 'plumbum'. Thank you, Mr Lehrer.
  - jfengel 6y ago
    That is an excellent close reading. Very astute. Thank you.
  - webmaven 6y ago
    TIL a new word: antepenultimate. Quite lovely. ... and now Google has introduced me to preantepenultimate and propreantepenultimate. Wow.

dragontamer 6y ago

> until you realize nothing rhymes with Pickachu Note: "Satoshi", which is Ash's name in the original Japanese, rhymes with "Pika-Pi", which is why Pikachu says "Pika-Pi" so much. Each time "Pika-Pi" pops out in the anime, its Pikachu calling out Satoshi / Ash's name. (Sa-To-Shi). --------- Some things are lost in translation. Calling Satoshi "Ash" in the American version, but keeping Pikachu's original dub, prevents the American Audience from seeing the level of thought put into this. ------- I think you can similarly force rhymes and/or common syllables and/or intonations between Pokemon. There's over 900 of them now, surely there's a song to make some rhymes out of. (IE: Pokerap style)

dllthomas 6y ago
> seeing the level of thought put into this. ... about the same level as "ruh-roh, Rhaggy!"?

bityard 6y ago

It's not set to the Gilbert & Sullivan tune but Weird Al did a Pokemon Polka: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsSFlLYnwtc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsSFlLYnwtc