Sometimes I wonder whether I’ve not been doing this for too long now. It’s gotten to the point where I write about an obscure Russian children’s television series and I can compare its qualities — or lack thereof — to another obscure Russian children’s television series I wrote about previously. And, frankly, the comparison is far from flattering for today’s subject. The backgrounds are far less detailed, the voice-over is more annoying, and the story doesn’t quite make up for that. But maybe redemption is possible! Maybe the chess is better.1
The story, should we decide to call it that, is about a cat called Pudding who is looking for a worthy chess opponent. His first opponent is some dimwit named Cupcake who only plays with her knight because that’s the prettiest piece. As you can expect from that description, things don’t go well for her. Here is the game: 1. Nc3 e5 2. Nb5 Bc5 3. Nc3 Qh4 4. Nd5 Qxf2#.
After this indignity, he find a black cat in the park who plays a little better. Not good, though. He finds his demise in the following position:2
The position doesn’t look too stupid – except for the small fact that the board is obviously set up wrongly. Not in the close-up of the same position that occurred right before this, however. So apparently, after the checkmate, they rotated the board, set up the pieces again, and then white started celebrating.
After this strange interlude, Pudding goes through a couple more opponents, none of whom are satisfactory. But his friends remember that their dad has a bunch of chess trophies on the shelves in his office. However, the dad falls for fool’s mate. Turns out it was their mom who won the trophies. This could have been a clever gotcha moment seventy years back.
So Pudding plays against their mom. He has white and they open 1.d4 d5 2. Nc3 Nc6. Unusual, but not stupid. We miss most of the game, but this time Pudding gets crushed:3
His queen jut got taken on g2 and if he had any future left, it would look bleak. Nevertheless, he is overjoyed. In fact, he celebrates this defeat much more than any of his victories. But perhaps that’s jut because this is a family of perverts. Just look at the chess cake the father baked.
Realism: 3/5 Both positions seem to come from needlessly protracted games, but they are more or less fine. Except for the stupid board rotation in the first case, that is.
Probable winner: First white and then black, like the moves in a game of chess.
1. [Maybe there’ll be no overexcited cats.] ↩
2. [Diagram mate.] ↩
3. [But, really, can a pudding get crushed?] ↩