Anti-Funk

The Anti-Funk
Alternate name	James
Species	Skull-like apparition Formerly Funkotronian
Gender	Male
Appearances	ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth
Family	Lamont (cousin)
English voice	Greg Johnson

"Do not attempt to 'funkify' my Earthling minions, or I shall become extremely annoyed, and I shall have crush you into paste. Hahahaha!"

— Anti-Funk

The Anti-Funk is the primary antagonist and final boss of ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth.

History

When the twelve Sacred Albums of Funk were stolen from Funkotron and taken to Earth, the Funkopotamous Lamont tasked ToeJam, Earl and Latisha, with retrieving them. Whilst undertaking their quest, it is revealed that it was the Anti-Funk that stole them, although the identity or motive of the Anti-Funk remains unknown.

Later, whilst communicating with Lamont remotely, Lamont voices his suspicions that the Anti-Funk may actually be a Funkotronian named James, the brother of his cousin Levell. James was unpopular and had 'a tendency to over-eat', and was deeply jealous when Lamont was selected as Funkopotamous. James had left the planet to go on vacation but never returned, and it was believed he had flown too close to a spatial phenomena shortly after making a pit stop near Earth and been sucked in. Lamont says that, according to James' momma, "if you slap him upside the head with enough funk, that should bring him back to senses."

The player/s must collect all the missing Sacred albums of Funk before confronting the Anti-Funk, since only then will your Funk Fu be strong enough to face him.

When confronted atop a hollow volcanic butte, the Anti-Funk appears as a ghostly apparition of a floating skull-like face and hands, proclaiming his mission to suck the 'funk' out the entire universe. He commands several waves of subjugated Earthlings to attack the player/s, but the Earthlings are made peaceful by being 'funkified'.

After being defeated, the Anti-Funk confirms his identity is of that of James, and concedes that he will return to Funkotron to face the consequences of his actions.

Development

Original AntiFunk design, from the August 6, 2002 Prototype

During development, the design of the Anti-Funk was as a disembodied head reminiscent of a Ku Klux Klan mask. This was unintentional on the part of the artist, but Greg Johnson opted to leave it as an "oblique reference" to anti-racism. Sega ultimately vetoed this, however, and the character was changed to a floating skull in the final version. No media was released officially of the original design and knowledge of it was only from interviews, however this was finally revealed when Hidden Palace released early prototypes of ToeJam & Earl III.