UmJammer Lammy
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Umjammer_lammy_box.jpg
Plot synopsis
The plot is widely acknowledged to be even more bizarre than the plot to PaRappa.
Lammy is the lead guitarist in the band Milkcan, which also includes Katy Kat as the vocalist, band front-person and bass player, and Ma-san as the drummer. While Katy is strong and assertive, Lammy is insecure, disorganised and unpunctual. However, whenever Lammy plays her guitar, her personality changes and she easily overcomes her shortcomings.
The game opens with Lammy being late for a gig, running to the stage door and ending up on stage at the last second, only to find Chop Chop Master Onion, the sensei from Parappa, at the microphone. He then leads Lammy through a song whose lyrics foreshadow the events that unfold across the rest of the game. At the end of the song, Chop Chop asks Lammy what she is playing, she then realises her guitar is actually her vacuum cleaner. Lammy begins to panic, as she believes she is nothing without her guitar, but Chop Chop explains that she doesn't need her guitar to be cool — "I lost my dojo, but the dojo remains IN MY MIND. It even has a casino. Dojo, casino, it's all in the mind.". Thus, whenever Lammy sees or hears a reference to gambling, she recalls that "My guitar is in my mind!" and she adapts whatever task she must perform into invisibly playing the guitar, therefore becomes confident again.
Lammy then wakes up, the previous level having been a dream sequence. She realises she only has 15 minutes to get to a concert with her band, Milkcan, at the Chop Chop Master Arena. She runs out of her apartment (returning to collect her guitar), and runs downtown, only to find the pizza shop has caught fire, and fire marshals have sealed off the area. She tries to break through, but the Chief Puddle will only allow her passage if she helps put the fire out. Lammy begins to doubt, but she sees an advertisement for Joe Chin's casino and realises she can use a firehose like playing a guitar. If Lammy scores COOL on this level, she is thrown into the air by the fire-hose, and can see Joe Chin relaxing by the pool in his penthouse apartment.
After putting out the fire, Lammy and the firemen start to eat the well-cooked pizza. This makes Lammy fat. Lammy realises she has to hurry to her concert, but she can't run very fast. She runs into a baby parade, and the head nurse Cathy Pillar mistakes Lammy for a pregnant teenager. After taking Lammy into her maternity unit, she realises she wasn't pregnant, but insists she helps out by sending hundreds of baby rabbits to sleep. Lammy sees some babies playing a roulette wheel, and makes a connection between baby rabbits and guitars.
After putting all the babies to sleep, Lammy dashes out and slips on a skateboard. She goes flying through the air, and lands on a low-flying jumbo jet. She discovers the pilot, Captain Fussenpepper, has forgotton how to fly, and he alternately becomes dozy and angry as he is hit on the head by a loose ceiling panel in the cockpit. The in-flight announcement tells passengers in the onboard casino to fasten their seatbelts, and Lammy can fly an airplane like playing a guitar. If Lammy scores COOL on this level, the plane blasts into space and Lammy plays guitar with the Martians, in her space suit.
After landing the plane safely in a parking lot, Lammy dashes off. She then realises that she left her guitar on the plane and, unfortunately, the plane has taken off once more. She then sees a guitar shop and tries to buy a guitar, but there are none on display. The hillbilly shop owner then leads her out the back door to a wooded forest and hands her a chainsaw. Lammy and the hillbilly then use their chainsaws to make a guitar out of a tree. Lammy accomplishes this because she hears the tune "Casino in my hair" on the hillbilly's record player. If Lammy scores COOL on this level, a bear living at the top of the tree falls down and is shown to be wearing underpants.
With her new guitar in hand, Lammy dashes off, but she slips on a banana peel left by P.J. Berri (from PaRappa) and sadly dies. She then realises she is in Hell. She is mistaken for Rammy, her grunge-rock doppleganger, by the diva Teriyaki Yoko, and forced to perform lead guitar at a concert in Hell. Teriyaki then faxes Lammy back to the real world. In the US release of the game, Hell was removed and replaced with Lammy being catapulted to a happy island.
Finally, Lammy has made it to the concert. Milkcan gives their best performance ever. If Lammy scores COOL on this level, she crowdsurfs.
At the end of this level, both Rammy and PaRappa are shown in the audience. The player can now play all the levels again as PaRappa, rapping to hip-hop versions of Lammy's songs. There is no linking plot when playing as PaRappa, but some short comic sketches featuring PaRappa, Katy Kat and P.J. Berri are shown in between levels. Lammy can also play each level either cooperatively with, or competitively against Rammy.
External links
- Um Jammer Lammy resources from the Mozilla Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org/Games/Video_Games/Music_and_Dance/PaRappa_the_Rapper_Series/Um_Jammer_Lammy/)