Robbie Rotten
Robert "Robbie" Rotten | |
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Glanni Glæpur | |
Absolute Dictator of the Empire of Lazytown | |
In office 11 September 1918 – 12 August 1966 | |
Preceded by | N/A |
Succeeded by | Revolutionary government council of Lazytown |
Personal details | |
Born |
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Died |
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Nationality | Icelandic |
Political party | United Lazytown Unitarian party |
Robert "Robbie" Rotten, known by his followers as "number one" was a Scandinavian political extremist and resident of the small yet densely populated city of "Lazytown", aptly named due to its citizens chronic, crippling depression, what the Danish settlers just thought was a small case of laziness, and not because they decided to live on the neigh-uninhabitable wasteland of Iceland. Robbie, seeing this absolute travesty of the handling of the Danish governing of Iceland, did what any sensible person would do, and started a violent fascist revolution, and set up an autocratic authoritarian regime, in his new Empire of Lazytown.
Early life
Birth and childhood
Very little is known about Rotten's early life, but from snippets from documents found after extensive couch digging and trash can investigating, it's assumed Robbie had a very troubled early life. Born in 1899 to a family of 2 to the power of 10, the squalor Robbie lived in was unimaginable, mostly because we have no idea what to imagine about it, because there's very few documents on Robbie's family and home life. From a young age he got into several domestic drugs, like Heroine (which under Icelandic jurisdiction was legalized for about an nth of a second, until the governor of Iceland realized the horrible mistake he made. However, nothing can stop the power of drug addicts.) It's assumed this drug use extended into large delusions of grandeur, and a very odd encounter with the law between Robbie and a star nosed mole. Official documents of the encounter detail it as a, quote, don't ask – don't tell situation.
Seeds of revolt
At around the start of the First World War, Denmark was praying to every higher power it could think of that the German Empire, like most of Europe, forgot it existed, and it actually did, except when the Danes (in an uncharacteristically smart move) started selling canned fish to both sides for a surprisingly healthy profit. This apparent move of cowardice and lack of strong Nordic power projection angered several extremist groups in Danish overseas colonies, and angered one specific man living in a shack with his ungodly amount of siblings, Robbie Rotten. Now a young man with a near crippling addiction to almost every drug known to man, was slightly displeased with the current socio-economic situation of his home island, and tired of catching arctic char for a living, Robbie wanted to do something about the squalor his country was in, and what better way to fix a poor, unstable ethnostate than a state sponsored violent autocratic regime? So Robbie went on down to his local Fascist recruitment center down the road from him, presumably found from the very large neon sign coloring and billboards, and quickly became a popular figurehead of the party, his popularity reaching a point to where he could become the mayor of Lazytown.
Life as a revolutionary
A long period in Robbie's life (read: four years) was dedicated to fighting the large Danish occupational garrison stationed in Iceland at the time. Robbie had mobilized all of Lazytown for the struggle, but due to the oppressive sense of dread in Lazytown at the time, coupled with the existential dread and crippling depression, only ten to twenty people actually showed up for the main battles of the revolution. In any other revolutionary epic, this would be a catastrophic failure, but because the Danish are, still in fact, Danish, most of the army had starved to death after not getting their daily ration of canned fish, after the hastily made supply line established by the Danish navy was bombed into not existing by a single passing English bomber. And I mean one, single, World war one bomber, had sunk a majority of the available Danish Navy by complete coincidence. So the militias of the revolution had wiped out the Danish garrison with relative ease, taking a little under a year to fight back against the Danish occupying forces. The latter three years was filled with intense thumb-twiddling and an occasional yet extremely exciting reserved cough to break the silence of the arctic environment, until eventually the Danish folded, and allowed Robbie Rotten to rule Iceland as dictator supreme of Iceland, then later renamed to the Empire of Lazytown.
The Robbie Regime of Lazytown
With Robbie establishing himself as supreme dictator for life, massive changes began in the social and economic landscape of the newly christianed empire of Lazytown. Mainly a ban on the international import of canned fish, a new statewide religion that painted Robbie as the messiah, coming down to free all the pure and holiest in peaceful communion, and a ten-step plan to invade all of Scandinavia and the Baltic states. And Mozambique. Robbie despised Mozambique. This also coincided with a large scale ban on most produce which made the lives of the citizen's of Lazytown marginally worse than before, coupled with the personality cult and lack of luxurious canned fish it really couldn't get worse for Lazytown.
Interwar period
In between the first and second world wars was a very opportune time for Robbie and Lazytown, Robbie attempting to rapidly industrialize the island and grow an army in hopes of world domination and attempts to spread his weird christian cult or something. However, since Iceland is an island in the middle of the arctic sea with no natural resources, the first Icelandic factory opened during the Roaring Twenties was a fish cannery. This fish cannery was probably the only driving force in the Icelandic economy, to Robbie's extreme dismay, as it reminded him of his time of the revolution. And the fact that his great imperial industry was founded off of a fish packing plant was just embarrassing. Later he had an arms foundry built to give tanks and weapons to his soldiers, but since steel was a hard to come by commodity on Iceland, he was forced to open trade to the Swedish, which, considering the alternative was to arm his men with rotting fish, was preferable.
The crash of the 1930s
The great fish packing economic miracle was short lived however, after the great stock market crash of 1929 the price of canned Icelandic arctic char went plummeting down, from being valued one step above dirt to just being worth dirt. Robbie, seeing some opportunity in this time of crisis, decided it was time to get revenge on it's historic rival, Denmark. So he began planning an illegal naval invasion of the Danish states, with no intervention from the League of Nations, which was characteristically shoving a thumb up it's own ass and doing nothing to stop the clearly mad dictator who had plans for world domination.
The invasion of Denmark
In 1935, troops from Lazytown landed on the Danish shores, but with very little formal training among most, well, it's hard to explain in a more verbose way, but imagine a mongol raid on a very large city. Now keep that image in your head for a bit; now imagine all those Mongolians are a bunch of smelly, unwashed, heavily intoxicated Icelanders with bolt action rifles, more fire than an arsonist's family reunion, and a violent disregard for their own and other people's safety, and what you got from that image is essentially the Danish-Lazytown war. The few armies that did mobilize, had ample supplies of canned fish, and didn't just straight up desert, were, in a field marshal's own words, "a gaggle of pussies who retreated at the first sign of danger". By the end of the year, the Empire of Lazytown had annexed Denmark with little resistance from the local populous. I mean, what were they going to do? Revolt? It's the 1930s, the most they had to fight with was dirt and sticks. With Lazytown victorious, and the League of Nations looking in the other direction, Robbie considered this a huge success His empire had grown even larger, he had more resources to work with, and he felt untouchable.
With a foothold into Europe and Scandinavia, Robbie began to look north for further expansion. Now the center of the canned fish trade, Robbie's status had gone from a madman ruling over a nearly uninhabitable wasteland to the same madman with some more useful land. While he was still doing trade with Sweden, his patience with them was beginning to run thin, and also he was just tired of having to deal with the swedes, because they also began trade with Germany, which he now shared a border with. Seeing this dilemma, Robbie came down to two resolutions; forcibly invade Sweden in order to secure his steel supplies, something he probably valued more than crack at this point, while also running the risk of pissing off a certain man with a silly mustache and probably most of Europe at this point, or he could pursue friendlier diplomatic relations with Sweden in hopes to avoid an international incident and- oh for fucks sake-
The invasion of Sweden
"The war of Lazytown aggression against Sweden" or as it's known in Iceland "Operation: Steel mills 4 dayz" was a strategic assault on Sweden in order to secure vital steel fields in order to fund Lazytown's war industry, as mentioned previously because Lazytown had no natural resources to build a military with, now that it did have steel after several years of trade with Sweden, like the crackhead outside of the local Denny's Robbie decided to go straight to the source. Officially beginning in 1936, Lazytown armed forces crossed into Sweden through the Danish straits using canoes, because a large majority of the actual navy was used to blockade Sweden's ports. However, since Sweden had much less history of military incompetence than Denmark, Robbie would need to get resourceful with his invasion technique. And one night, while heavily intoxicated walking home from a bar an hour past closing time, it came to him. Using approximately 2000 barrels of arctic char per battalion, the revolutionary tactic of "Fishkrieg" is still studied to this day, and is widely regarded as the greatest modern military tactic of the 20th century. Dumbfounded, the Swedish armed forces couldn't comprehend the sheer quantity of fish they were forced to march through, made easy pickings by the opposing Lazytown troops. It even inspired Adolf Hitler's campaign through the Benelux, but that poser could've never perfectly replicated Fishkrieg even if he wanted to. And so, bathed in an indomitable scent of rotting fish, the men of Lazytown marched onto Stockholm, and besieged the city, ending the war a month later with a decisive Lazytown victory.
Lazytown domination
With dominance established in the region of Scandinavia, Robbie was elated with his tactical and political successes. He continued his mission on establishing himself as a Messianic figure among his citizens, where all political dissent against Robbie was considered anathema to the Robbie Rotten holy see, and would be lashed to a Robbi-fixTM after a show trial that really stretches the definition of "in the name of the Lord". A sizable portion of the Lazytown budget was dedicated to building a giant dam in between the strait of Sweden and Denmark, mostly because Robbie got fed up with using canoes to cross the strait. He also created and stared in a children's live action television show mixed with puppetry and computer generated animation and effects with himself as the main villain, not because he wanted to paint himself as an evil man to his citizens, but he was bored, and being a dictator of an autocratic state where you hold all power does get rather dull some days.
The Second World War
- See also: World War 2
By the start of the German invasion of Poland in the spring of 1939, Robbie was hesitant to join on the side of the Axis powers. So far in his expansion into Europe was unhindered due to the chains of economic downturn, fear of another world war, and just sheer laziness (oh the irony,) but this conflict was already shaping up to be on a much wider scale than the first world war, and if Robbie didn't play his cards right, his dreams of a great empire of Lazytown may be shattered. And so, on one of his nightly routines of taking extremely powerful psychedelic drugs, he decided to join with the United Kingdom and France on the side of the allies, at least, that what we think he wanted, it was pretty hard to tell from the intoxicated rambling, but we're pretty sure it's in there somewhere. While a massive Fishkrieg offensive was planned and the Lazytown armed forces were stationed in upper Schleswig, the Wehrmacht divisions on the Danish border far outmatched even the drunkest Lazytown marine. They also had tanks, which could lead to the disaster to the Lazytown battalions, not very well known for their resistance to high velocity high explosive tank shells or machine gun fire. So in response he asked the British for some extremely out of date Mark V landship tanks that hadn't been broken down for scrap metal yet. When asked why he responded with, "I have a plan that sounds crazy, stupid, and a gross waste of military personnel and resources, but may just work out." Knowing the Mark V tanks were essentially huge, unreliable tractors with enough firepower to level a village, Robbie decided to add a bit of Lazytown innovation to the moving fortresses. And by innovation, I mean he tied a bunch of layered plywood and arctic char to the tanks as additional armor. He also made minor modifications to the engines of the tank to hopefully to make them less terrible at everything they do. It's unknown what went through the minds of the Wehrmacht soldiers who first witnessed the horrors of the fish tank, but their suffering was short lived. Unfortunately, since the primary tank design was out of date world war one tanks with rotting fish and wood tied to them, most Lazytown pushes were minor yet Pyrrhic victories. It's estimated that more than a hundred thousand arctic char gave their lives in the name of Lazytown, and their sacrifices are commemorated on a plaque in Lazytown's center square.
Postwar period
Post-1945 was a time of recuperation and rebuilding in Lazytown. The war had taken a toll on the hard working citizens who were disheartened because of the lack of arctic char they had given to the government to help in the war effort. In Robbie's personal life, however, after living through two world wars, experiencing so much war and conquest in his 46 years of living, making a children's television show that received critical and consumer acclaim for not only its educational value but also its snappy self-aware and subtle humor, Robbie decided it was time to write his memoirs. And so, five years later in 1950, Robbie published his own autobiography, titled "A char for the Knowing Ones", detailing his own personal life struggles before, during, and after his rise to power in Lazytown and how he hopes the legacy he had built will survive for generations to come. It became a worldwide best seller, with critics (outside of Lazytown of course) calling it "sheer comedic genius" and "a must-read for so-bad-it's-good connoisseurs". These critics were later found mysteriously dead in a ditch a month after their articles were published. This was also the beginning of the construction of a thousand-foot-tall statue of Robbie Rotten towering over all of Iceland, with a very terrified-looking star-nosed mole cradled in his arms. No interviewer ever inquired about the mole, and for probably a very good reason.
Death and legacy
On a dreary Monday morning in the cripplingly depressive city of Lazytown, Robert "Robbie" Rotten was found dead in his dictatorial office. Around him was about thirty pounds of substances, all of varying legality internationally, a blood-soaked ice pick, and a note that read, "COMMIES SUX0R, C14 RULEZ XD." Robbie's official cause of death was a very tragic, untreatable case of the sniffles. After his very lavish and heart wrenching state funeral, almost all external dominions of the Lazytown empire revolted, the official casus belli being, "Ain't no party like a democratic uprising after the death of an autocratic head of state party." This proceeded into a fifteen-year-long civil war, with the resolution being the dismantlement of the Lazytown Empire, and the release of all states that previously made it up. While Robbie's legacy is still survived today, with his tactical genius on display during the Danish and Swedish invasions still trying to be replicated to this day, the Great Dane-Swedish dam, and the statue in Iceland, it appears that no matter how many drugs he took, no matter how many fish related escapades he made into foreign countries, his dreams of a great, Lazytown Empire, had died with him.