When Oscar Wilde wrote, “Life imitates art much more than art imitates life,” I was not thinking South Park or Hello Kitty. But the quote resonates today, as recently an old meme from the animated show appears to be the basis of the new game’s name Hello Kitty Island Adventure.
In a 2006 episode by South ParkCartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny seek revenge on a World of Warcraft troll. To kill the troll, the four gather the support of children from their school and Cartman devises a plan for the group to band together, meet the malevolent player in the forests of Azeroth and defeat them.
The boys shout their cry for victory in unison, when Butters naively interjects: “I’m not playing World of Warcraft,” to which Cartman replies, “Butters, you said you’re on your computer all the time.” Butters then says, “Yeah, but I’m playing Hello Kitty Island Adventure.”
This game did not exist then. And according to the Moby Games database, no game has been released with the name. Instead, it served as a joke, presumably to make fun of Butters for playing a “girly” game instead of World of Warcraft.
The mock game inspired memes and even practical jokes from Sanrio. In 2008, a message from the official Sanrio blog shared an April 1 announcement for a new MMO Hello Kitty Online expansion pack called “Hello Kitty Island Adventure”. In the announcement, developers said the expansion pack would be “the first expansion pack in gaming history that will shrink rather than expand an existing game world”, and had a premise similar to the TV show Lost.
An audio clip of the conversation between Cartman and Butters has also served as the basis for a TikTok audio meme. Users have used the meme in a variety of ways, but a popular trend emerged where people would joke about dressing up in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or play the Sims.
Then on June 27, the meme became a real game. The video game studio Sunblink has teamed up with Sanrio to announce a new life sim and adventure game called Hello Kitty Island Adventure for iOS devices via Apple Arcade. Based on the short trailer, the game looks cute. It seems to combine exploration with classic life-sim elements such as character and house design along with exploring the island. The game breathes the cute charm of Sanrio characters and places them in cheerful island environments. It will launch on July 28.
It’s not clear why the developers would decide to recall the old joke now, nor has the team confirmed the connection between the new game and South Park. Polygon contacted Sunblink to ask about the title of the game and to confirm if the name was inspired by South Park and we’ll update this article if we hear back.