First appearance: S5E6 — American Amphibian — King Man Frog Bofus v Richard Knottley · watch it on YouTube
King Man Frog Bofus is the self-proclaimed “King of the frog people, man people frogs”: a short, ripped, suspiciously oily British monarch in a deflating frog mask, with a tape-measure tongue and an army of tiny frogs living under his headgear. He fought at least three times in the Season of Fate, when the Arbiter ruled the Void as the Lord of Fate. His first bout ended with no winner. By his last he had been killed and rebuilt so many times that all he wanted was to die for good. He finally lost to Kyle Stoddard and the power of anime, which was almost certainly the worst way he could have gone.
Story
American Amphibian
Bofus arrived at The Dread Fortress through a portal Thea opened with a fart: pink dust flew out of her butt and left a purple, glittery portal. She had kidnapped him and his opponent, Richard Knottley, and kept them in the back locker room while the Lord of Fate brooded at a window over the protesters outside. Bofus introduced himself as “50% man, 50% frog, and 100%… something else.” He declined to say which half was which, nicknamed Richard “Mr. Tinfoil,” and, after Thea bent over and farted open a second portal big enough for a whale to swim through, proposed joining the rioters to overthrow the hosts. He also made it clear that, as a king, he did not pay taxes: “I receive them. Your taxes probably.”
The fight took place atop The Crimson Keep, a cheap rental venue where people kept dying. Richard opened by hurling a half-eaten Snickers, and Bofus’s retort (“But what if you suck both of these nuts?”) literally became a shield that deflected it. When Richard threw Thea at him like a javelin, Bofus caught her on his tongue, licked her, and set her down gently. His main tactic was to reach under the mask and fling fistfuls of tiny, Skittle-colored frogs, aimed at “the mouth, nostrils, any orifice.” The frogs got down Richard’s windpipe and into both of his ears. Bofus refused to rest (“That’s for coward”). Instead he pulled cheeseburgers from his boots and built a distracting cheeseburger fortress, and between blows he hit Richard with cheese facts and nut facts meant to wound his American pride.
His signature frog splash missed the first time, when Richard caught him one-handed in midair. It landed the second time, smothering Richard in a body that showed him what his own could look like “if only he committed himself.” Bofus won a dance-off by barely moving, caught a thrown Peloton bike, and dangled it out of reach with arms that hang below his knees. At The Box of Chaos he sacrificed a frog and received a screaming vial of black soul-liquid, which he kept and never used. Then he slicked the arena floor by rubbing his own oily body all over it, flopping like a seal.
The end came as both champions stood on the edge of exhaustion. Richard, who had been pedaling the whole time, channeled lightning off his Peloton and blasted them both, and Bofus could not get clear. “Electricity is my only weakness,” he admitted, and he submitted to the blast. Richard died of a coronary, and Bofus did not survive either, so the match had no winner.
Between Fights
Bofus was revived after his first death, and by his own account he fought and lost again. In that battle he lost his true love, Bone Daddy Daddy. He came to mourn Richard as his “best friend slash enemy,” and had a Peloton tattoo across his chest in Dick Twist’s memory.
Froggy Style
When Thea summoned him again to face Kyle Stoddard in The Duck Village, Bofus was a haggard wreck: “Again? You have brought me here again? Why?” The Lord of Fate explained that The Acolytes simply enjoyed watching him fight to the death, so they kept fixing his broken body. He now had an adamantium skeleton and some “special features” from the Goblins. When Thea offered any prize he wanted, he asked the price of permanent death. Kyle spent the introduction proselytizing for his beloved Princess Sakura-chan, while Bofus slammed his head into the paving stones.
Bofus opened with his new “tag team partner,” a 12 Gauge Shotgun he pulled from under his mask and loaded with his loyal frog citizens. Kyle shredded the oversized mask without touching the tiny head beneath, and carved through the O of the Peloton tattoo. The fight then descended into butts. Kyle poked Bofus in the butt in a “secret Naruto technique” until Thea duct-taped his butt cheeks together (“You weird little psychopath. Get out of my butthole.”), and Bofus answered with a cha-cha line of hundreds of frogs bound for Kyle’s butt: “Defend your own butthole.” He also projectile-vomited into Kyle’s face after a whiff of Axe body spray, dribbling acidic frog vomit onto Kyle’s collector’s shirt, and made out with a Princess Sakura body pillow. Low on hope, he begged for mercy (“You wouldn’t hit a frogman, would you? Who’s having a very bad day.”), and it worked.
Kyle nearly converted him to the Simperi with a chibi figurine and promises of dental coverage. The pitch fell apart at the fedoras: “I have a crown. I cannot replace it with a fedora. This would be sacrilege.” At the Box of Chaos he traded away the figurine (“take this tiny piece of shit”) for the Lord of Fate’s ring. With it on, he unleashed tidal waves of frogs while the spirits of Richard and Bone Daddy Daddy patted his shoulder: “good job, kid.” Later he traded the body pillow (the shadow in the box put on a lab coat and began extracting the DNA) for the bow of the Grandmaster, which he turned into a second shotgun, and dual-wielded the pair, “one slightly shinier than the other,” like Billy the Kid.
Kyle, transformed into a full Princess Sakura cosplay, became maddeningly hard to hit, and Bofus asked whether he could “elect to have a stroke and just fucking die.” The Lord of Fate couldn’t stand it either and handed him back his shotgun for one last shot. Bofus aimed it at Kyle’s head: “be at peace, son.” It misfired. His rebuilt body, no longer able to hold itself together, clutched the gun wrong with a finger jammed in the barrel, and the blast went back into his tiny head and blew it clean off into the distance, where it splattered into a greenish-pink mural. Kyle then wore the head, with a fedora on it, as an accessory. Bofus’s last thought was “At least I didn’t die a nerd.”
Personality and Abilities
Bofus is a small king with enormous dignity, most of it unearned. He is a “respectable five foot two” with arms that reach below his knees and a body that is mostly a man’s: human hands, ripped muscles and an oily sheen that may be sweat or a frog gland (“Stuff can be two things”). He also, he insists, has a cloaca. On top sits a green frog mask with hand-drawn cartoon eyes and a “crown” of yellow fabric sewn to it. By his fight against Kyle the mask was tattered, with bags stitched beneath it, and it hid a tiny real frog head. He wears lycra wrestler pants, keeps cheeseburgers in his boots, and loves a Snickers, particularly a half-eaten one.
He fights like a wrestler who ran out of ideas and kept throwing frogs anyway, and somehow it works. His arsenal includes the frog splash, a whip-like tongue, frog-loaded shotguns, tidal waves of frogs, and vomit when the smell of Axe body spray gets too much. He is British and leans on it, needling Americans about Kraft Singles and peanut butter. Beneath the bluster runs a streak of weary self-awareness: “I rule a frog nation. I’ve used it to climb up a butt and punch a pillow today. This is really who I am.”
Relationships
- Richard Knottley: his first opponent. Both died in their match, and Bofus later mourned him as Dick Twist, his “best friend slash enemy,” with a memorial Peloton tattoo.
- Bone Daddy Daddy: the true love Bofus lost in an earlier battle. Bone Daddy Daddy’s spirit appeared beside him in his final fight.
- Kyle Stoddard: the anime devotee who nearly converted him, defeated him, and then wore his head as an accessory.
- Thea: the imp who kidnapped him for his first fight and summoned him again for Froggy Style. He caught her on his tongue in his first fight and told her to read her emails in Froggy Style.
- The Arbiter: as the Lord of Fate, he kept having Bofus rebuilt for the crowd’s amusement, though he once asked Bofus to hit Richard in the face for him.
- Frogs: his loyal subjects, used as ammunition, earplugs, waves and occasionally sacrifices.
Memorable Quotes
- “I’m a king, you see. King of the frog people, man people frogs. 50% man, 50% frog, and 100%… something else.” (American Amphibian)
- “Electricity is my only weakness.” (American Amphibian)
- “How much is death? Permanent death? Let me die!” (Froggy Style)
- “You wouldn’t hit a frogman, would you? Who’s having a very bad day.” (Froggy Style)
- “Not the fedora. I have a crown. I cannot replace it with a fedora. This would be sacrilege.” (Froggy Style)
- “At least I didn’t die a nerd.” (Froggy Style)