Cascão Porker

Cascão Porker (also mentioned as Cascão Porker e a Pedra Distracional, in English: Smudge Porker and the Distracting Stone) is a Brazilian comic book parodying the movie Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, made by Brazilian company Mauricio de Sousa Produções. It features the famous Monica's Gang characters as Harry Potter characters, making a mixture of these two. It was published by Panini Comics in August 2009, as number 15 of Monica's Gang special series Clássicos do Cinema (Classic movies).

Plot

Cascão Porker starts showing the wizards Magaligonagal (mixture of Maggy and Minerva McGonagall), Hagridão (mixture of Thunder and Rubeus Hagrid) and Dunimbusdore (mixture of Nimbus and Albus Dumbledore) leaving the orphan baby Cascão Porker (mixture of Smudge and Harry Potter) on the house of his uncles, the Dudursleis (a mixture of Junior and the Dursleys) in the Rua dos Trouxas (Street of Muggles, a parody of the Privet Drive). They were trying to give the child a home since his parents disappeared.

Years later, Cascão lives happily with his uncles and his cousin although he sleeps in an understairs cupboard, because his uncles and his cousin can not stand his stench. He continued living there until one fateful day, when Hagridão encounters him and tells him he is a wizard and needs to go to Hográtis School of Magic (a parody of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry). Initially Smudge does not believe that Hagridão does magic, but when Hagridão materializes a "flying donkey" balloon, he begins to believe. Then, Cascão and Hagridão go to the Beco Poligonal (Poligonal Alley, a parody to the Diagon Alley) to buy a magic wand. After Hagridão shows the way, Cascão buys a wand made with feather of vulture and discovers that a long time ago, "Aquele-Que-Não-Se-Deve-Mencionar-Nem-Em-Piada" (He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-Not-Even-In-a-Joke), bought an identic wand. Shortly after, when he leaves the wand shop, he finds Hagridão with a gift to him. Hagridão had bought three winged piglets (Pablo, Pierre and Sebastian, a mixture of the Leleala trio and Hedwig). Then they go to the Gringões Bank (a parody of Gringotts Bank), and Hagridão withdraws something there. Soon after, Cascão and Hagridão decide to take some juice. During the meal, Hagridão tells Cascão what really happened to his parents; he tells when the boy was a baby he always fled from his bath and one night the dark wizard Feiodemorte (a mixture of Captain Frey and Lord Voldemort) went to Cascão's home to give him a bath and then become the world's dirtiest wizard, but when he tried to do it using a tub, baby Cascão knocked him over the tub and made a drop of water pour on his own forehead, creating a scar on this location; after this Feiodemorte got angered and locked Cascão's parents into another dimension.

Cascão lately leaves Beco Poligonal and goes to platform Nove e Pouco (Plataform Nine and Something, a parody of Platform 9¾) to take the train to Hográtis School. Then he enters the train and meets Cebolony Uéslei (mixture of Jimmy Five and Ron Weasley) and Hermônica Granja (a mixture of Monica and Hermione Granger), two other future Hográtis students with whom he talked and socialized, creating friendship ties. After arriving Hográtis, the trio discovers that there are four houses in the school: Grifedória (Gryffindor), Sonseverina (Slytherin), Ufa-Ufa (Hufflepuff) and Discovinil (Ravenclaw). They also meet the Sonseverina student Xavecus Malboy (a mixture of Sunny and Draco Malfoy).

In the following parts of Cascão Porker there are presented several concepts of the original film mixed with typical Monica's Gang jokes. These concepts include the Chapéu Mágico (Magic Hat, a parody of the Sorting Hat), Professor Ex-Neipe (mixture of Nick Nope and Severus Snape). Afterwards, Cascão and his friends face the Rúfius de Três Cabeças (Three-Headed Rúfius, a parody of Fluffy). When the three arrive at the Common Room, they speak about trap door they saw under Rúfius and comment about the possible relationship between that trap door and Hagridão's mysterious package.

Following the plot, Cascão and his friends go in attempt to discover what Rúfius is guarding. Cascão convinces Hagridão to tell the secret about the package, after offering chocolate to him. Hagridão tells that the dog is guarding a secret which only he and Dunimbusdore know. The trio then decide to go to the ultra-forbidden sector of the library to find something about that secret at issue and they do it with the help of an invisibility cloak bought by Cascão in the Bruxanet (a Wizard's internet). After searching there, they discover that Rúfius the three-headed dog is a Canis Tres Caput Capitis, that does not stand music. Soon after this, they return to Rúfius' trap door. Hermônica, at this point, materializes a radio playing funk carioca (a Brazilian street music style) making they to successfully pass through Rúfius. After climbing down the trap door, they find a giant chessboard with giant, enchanted pieces (a parody of the Human Chess Game) with game ready to be played. Cebolony and Hermônica play the game while Cascão cross the board.

After climbing down a little, Cascão finds Professor Quinzel (a mixture of Quinzinho and Professor Quirrell), who was hiding Feiodemorte in his turban. Cascão also discovers that Hagridão was hiding a red stone called Pedra Distracional (Distracting Stone), which distracts anyone who sees it. Then they start to battle but shortly after Cascão's Piglets appear and throw water on Feiodemorte, causing him to lose the battle. After being defeated, Feiodemorte says he will be seen again in the future, because there are seven movies (a reference to the out-universe Harry Potter film series. In the last parts of the book Cascão, Cebolony and Hermônica reunite again and Grifedória gets 50 house points. The end joke Cascão is running away in fear after discovering about the water vacation activities.

Characters

• Cascão (Smudge) as Cascão Porker (Harry Potter)
• Cebolinha (Jimmy Five) as Cebolony Uéslei (Ron Weasley)
• Mônica (Monica) as Hermônica Granja (Hermione Granger)
• Nimbus as Dunimbusdore (Albus Dumbledore)
• Magali (Maggy) as Magaligonagal (Minerva McGonagall)
• Jotalhão (Thunder) as Hagridão (Rubeus Hagrid)
• Do Contra (Nick Nope) as Professor Ex-Neipe (Severus Snape)
• Leleala (Pablo, Pierre e Sebastian) as Cascão's winged piglets (Hedwig)
• Capitão Feio (Captain Frey) as Feidodemorte (Lord Voldemort)
• Xaveco as Xavecus Malboy (Draco Malfoy)
• Doutor Olimpo as Varolimpo (Garrick Ollivander)
• Quinzinho as Professor Quinzel (Quirinus Quirrell)
• Jeremias as Quadrinhobol speaker (Lee Jordan)
• Seu Antenor Araújo (Cascão's father) as Sr. Porker (James Potter)
• Dona Lurdinha (Cascão's mother) as Sra. Porker (Lily Potter)
• Rúfius as Rúfius de três cabeças (Fluffy)
• Dudu as Dudu Dudursley (Dudley Dursley)
• Dona Cecilia (Dudu's mother) as Sra. Dudursley (Petunia Dursley)
• Seu Durva (Dudu's father) as Sr. Dudusrsley (Vernon Dursley)
• Frank as Frank (Filch)
• Cranicola as Cranic Só A Cabeça (Cranic Only The Head, a parody of Nearly Headless Nick)
• Tia Nena as Food Troller Lady

Trivia

Problems with Monica's Gang and English readers

For those unfamiliar with Monica's Gang is a little hard to understand the concepts in Cascão Porker. We must consider several things:

• Cascão does not like to bathe. In the comics, he never washed his hands or had any direct contact with water. It is a frequent joke in the comics. In the English version, he is called Smudge.
• Monica's Gang is a children's series. So there is no death, injury, torture or any other inappropriate material. And always use the comic jokes and humour.
• Magali (Maggy in the English version) is greedy and loves eating.
• Cebolinha (Jimmy Five in the English version) has trouble speaking the letter R, always swapping it with L in the Portuguese version and with W in the English version and has only 5 strands of hair.
• Monica often hits Cebolinha with her stuffed blue rabbit in the comics because he likes to tease her.
• The word "Porker" is a mixture of "Potter" with "porco" (pig). In Portuguese, the word pig is used for dirty and ill-bred people. Cascão is often called "porco".
• "Quadrinhobol" is a mixture of "Quadribol" (Portuguese translation for Quidditch) and quadrinho (Portuguese for comics).
• In the Portuguese version of Harry Potter series, Ron is referred as Rony. That explains the name "Cebolony".

Major differences between the original and parody

• In the original, the Dursleys are rude and do not care about Harry. In this parody, the Dudursleys just seem to be averse to the Cascão's smell. And yet, they say goodbye when he leaves the house with Hagridão; different from the original version where Dursleys are forcibly ridiculed by Hagrid.
• In the original Harry's parents are murdered by Lord Voldemort. In this parody, Smudge's parents are locked in another dimension.
• The scene of the Forbidden Forest does not appear in the parody.
• There's no Devil's Snare in the parody. Cascão, Cebolony and Hermônica pass directly from the three-headed dog to the chessboard.

Easter eggs

• When Cascão and Hagridão enter in Beco Poligonal, you can see various characters related to magic. Among them Cosmo and Wanda de The Fairly Odd Parents, Panoramix from Asterix, the Masked Magician and many others.
• Even in Beco Poligonal, you can see several times a caricature of Mauricio de Sousa (Monica's Gang creator and designer) as a wizard walking in the alley, with Yen Sid.

External links

• Cascão Porker article in Turma da Mônica wiki (in Portuguese)
• Monica's Gang official page in English
• Cascão Porker download (comics in Portuguese to CDisplay)
• CDisplay download (required to load the file above)