Pico (franchise)

This page is about the franchise. If you were looking for the character, see Pico.

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Pico is an American franchise of Flash media created and owned by Tom Fulp, who is also the founder of Newgrounds. The IP began in early 1999 with the consecutive releases of Darnell's Pyro 101, Nene Interactive Suicide, and Pico's School, which were said to be "chapter 1" of the series. As of today, it currently consists of 10 games, one movie, and its own holiday in the name of "Pico Day", which is celebrated (almost) every April 30 on Newgrounds.

The series revolves around the eponymous Pico, a young ginger boy who is incredibly skilled with firearms and often dreams of being a DJ while living in the city of Philadelphia with his friends: Nene, a popular girl suffering from suicidal tendencies, and Darnell, a pyromaniac with a supergenius intellect. It delves into the misadventures of the trio, such as taking down a psychotic bear, facing off against genetically engineered Überkids, and much more.

After 2007, the franchise quietly came to a halt and did not receive any new content until 14 years later in the form of Pico's School: Love Conquers All, an alternate reality of Pico's School where everything ends peacefully. The game also features a cameo of Boyfriend from Friday Night Funkin', a viral indie rhythm game currently in development that features Pico as a main character. However, whether the Pico franchise itself will make a full return or not is still unknown.

History

The initial mockup and teaser of Pico's School.

The "About Pico" article featured in Pico's World's title screen.

The Pico franchise was announced on April Fools' Day of 1999 and unveiled with Pico's World on the same day. The hub introduced others to the then-brand-new characters and their games. Only two were available at the time: Darnell's Pyro 101 and Nene Interactive Suicide. But the main protagonist of the franchise, Pico (initially named Pogo), didn't have a scenario yet.

The series' main game, Pico's School, initially had a teaser page with a mockup of the original plot of the game; it was coprophilia-related. However, the original version of the game never made it past the concept art phase, as it "wasn't really going anywhere" for Tom Fulp. Consequently, once the Columbine High School massacre occurred, the game was reworked into a sort of commentary on the tragic event, as well as containing a life lesson about expressing yourself and warning people about the result of the mal-consumption of media, being a spoof on edutainment PC games at the time. The game was released worldwide on the Newgrounds website on Sunday, July 25, 1999. The game later became the center of controversy, so much so that Fulp was scheduled for a CCN interview.^{[citation needed]} Despite this, Pico's School was still a successful game, and the titular "Pico" became the very first mascot of Newgrounds.

People eventually started begging for a sequel. On August 22nd, Tom announced he was working on Pico 2. On September 26th, Samurai Asshole's sneak preview was released, and Pico 2 was nearing completion until Tom noticed he wasn't satisfied with the game and cancelled it, stating that he realized it didn't live up to his expectations. On October 29, 1999, a spin-off game, UFA, was released.

On December 30th, Bloodshed in the Big Blue House was released. It was a crossover between the Pico franchise and the Assassin games. The game's plot revolves around The Commissioner commissioning Pico to kill Bear, the owner of the Big Blue House and former children's star, until he went on a rampage and began abusing his friends. The game went under controversy and was shut down for a couple of days when The Jim Henson Company sued Tom because he used their intellectual property without their consent and in a hurtful, vulgar way. In response, the game was updated on February 28, 2000, with redesigned characters and the addition of new music. On July 6th, Pico vs. Überkids was released. This game introduced the titular Überkids, and functioned as a casino game with the theme of "Rock Paper Scissors Roulette".

The updated Pico logotype, designed by Tom Fulp with art by MindChamber dated in late 2001.

In 2001, Tom Fulp went back to work on Pico 2, and decided that Pico and friends needed a redesign. Many users on Newgrounds drew their own concepts and showed them to Tom, with Ryan Wooffindin, Zeebarf, and MindChamber being three of them. MindChamber's designs ended up being Tom's favorite, but he thought that the characters looked too "grown up". MindChamber then tried emulating Pico in a Calvin and Hobbes-esque style, and thus became the new artist behind Pico 2. Another build was made between October 2001 and January 2002, using Flash 5 to include keyboard support.

Pico became the character featured in the voting section of the Newgrounds Flash Portal, and on May 23, 2002, Pico vs. Überkids was featured on FHM in their "100 Greatest Online Games" list. This publicity soon drew the attention of Celador's copyright lawyers, who requested that Tom remove a very short sample of music used in their hit game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Tom complied, but included the statement: "At least we now know what magazine this guy jerks off to while he's on the toilet."

Tom exercised the option of featuring Pico in the site's logotype. Meanwhile, Pico 2 wasn't getting any news or progress updates. Tom Fulp then said he came back to work on the sequel in 2003. The year came and went with no game release, and in reality, the game was cancelled because it was too ambitious for a Flash game at the time.

Pico Day 2006 section logo drawn by MindChamber.

On January 23, 2006, Galloglasses proposed the idea of a "Pico Day" since they noticed Pico was becoming irrelevant. Mogly then suggested that the date be April 30, coinciding with Tom Fulp's birthday. Tom loved the idea, and he announced on February 21st that he was making it official, and from that point onward, the holiday would be celebrated every year on Newgrounds. For the first annual Pico Day, Tom and MindChamber released Resident Pico on April 30; the plot was that Pico needed to defend himself from zombies. This was the first public Pico game which featured MindChamber as an artist.

In 2007, Tom Fulp revisited the idea of an online version of Pico vs. Überkids and worked with PsychoGoldfish on bringing the concept to life, thus creating Pico Roulette, which was released on the second annual Pico Day: April 30, 2007. Pico and Nene also appeared in the unofficial Newgrounds Rumble, a Super Smash Bros.-styled fighting game. Unfortunately, that same year, the franchise began to truly wane; the character fell into the Newgrounds public domain, so he was only used in animations by fans or the staff, although Tom still personally owns the Pico IP. On April 27, 2013, Pico Roulette shut down its servers. In 2018, Pico was replaced in the Newgrounds voting section by Steve, a character from the TANKMEN series, and the Newgrounds staff even considered changing the name of Pico Day. But even after all of that, Pico's School received an update in 2016, adding new original music by ThatJohnnyGuy (also known as RealFactionTV) to avoid copyright infringement.

Pico's animated poses in Friday Night Funkin'.

On November 1, 2020, Friday Night Funkin' was released on Newgrounds after an unsuccessful demo appeared on the last day of the 47th Ludum Dare on itch.io. The Newgrounds release, however, was a greater success. Tom was grateful that it brought new life into the website, so he asked the team if they could add Pico to the game. They did, and Pico's Week (Week 3) was released on December 11. This saved Pico from obscurity, as he quickly became one of the most popular characters within the game's community.

April 1, 2021, would mark the return of the official Pico franchise in 14 years with Pico's School: Love Conquers All, an alternative retelling of Pico's School in which Pico shows Cassandra and the other Goth Punks the power of friendship. Currently, Pico and his friends return in the level "Due Debts" (WeekEnd 1) in Friday Night Funkin', released on April 30, 2024, and Nene and Cassandra have been teased to come back in a future Week of the game.

Content (listed by release date)

Movies

• Darnell Plays With Fire

Games

• Nene Interactive Suicide
• Pico's School
• Samurai Asshole (spin-off)
• UFA (spin-off)
• Pico vs Bear
• Pico vs. Überkids
• Pico 2 (unreleased)
• Resident Pico
• Pico Roulette
• Pico's School: Love Conquers All

Hubworlds

• Pico's World
• Newgrounds' Pico Collection

Trivia

• The Pico characters' white eyes were directly inspired by the Little Orphan Annie comics.
• Inspirations for the Pico franchise include South Park and a desire to make parodies of edutainment games.
• Tom Fulp's art style for the Pico series was inspired by illustrations for Children's Tylenol Cold in the 1990s. An illustration on one of the boxes displays a child that directly resembles Pico, hairstyle and all.