Cala Maria

**Cala Maria** is one of the bosses on Inkwell Isle Three on the boss level, "High Seas Hi-Jinx!" from the video game, *Cuphead*. She joined Whitney's Squad in December 2017.

## Appearance

Cala Maria has a physical appearance reminiscent of a typical humanoid female character.

She is a large, slender mermaid with fairly wide hips. She has pale lavender-pigmented skin, a small button-nose, and two scar-like markings her left upper arm (though how or why she got them is unknown).

On her head, she has a (seemingly) dead, purple octopus with pale lavender eyelids over x-crossed eyes, a lighter purple coloring and pale pink suckers under the tentacles. The octopus acts as her hair since the three tentacles in front of Cala's face are flipped back over her head, resembling curly hair-bangs in a pompadour, while the octopus's head vaugley resembles a hair bun.

Cala has big, pale turquoise eyes with sea-green eyeshadow and three short, black, triangular eye-lashes each. she also has thin, black eyebrows and light, rose-pink lips.

As a sign of her mermaid status, Cala wears a sky-blue sea-shell bra with no shoulder straps and her lower body is replaced with a sea-green, fish-like tail with a water-ripple-like pattern at the waist line. Because she is only seen down to the waist, it is unknown what the tail-fins look like.

However, In her second phase, Cala Maria gets bitten by two eels and ends up taking on a much more menacing appearance; a gorgon-mermaid hybrid, greatly resembling the famous mythology figure, Medusa.

Her once pale-lavender skin turns to a mint-green color. Her fingers become longer due to her fingernails becoming complete claws. Her lips become an emerald-green color, her tongue becomes fork-like (similar to most real-life reptiles), and her teeth turn into slim fangs, forming an eerie, cheshire cat-esque grin. The markings on her arm remain unchanged.

Her eyes become menacingly cat-like with yellow sclera and black, slit-shaped pupils, while losing the irises.

Her tail takes on a more forest-green hue and the scales become more triangular. Her once sky-blue sea-shell bra is now a green bikini top made from either seaweed, moss, or grass.

The most distinct part of her new form is the octopus on her head is now seemingly fused onto her head and has an ever so slightly different shade of purple on its body. The tentacles each become menacing-looking snakes with lavender, segmented underbellies, yellow, cat-like eyes, and small fangs in their mouths. Only the snakes acting as her bangs are active, while the rest are asleep.

## Personality

Cala Maria seems to be a flirty and vivacious being who seems to have some type of interest to cuphead and mugman as seen in her intro where she makes a sweet "yoo-hoo!" sound while fluttering her eyelashes and making a pose, and in the ending sequence in which she is staring at the brothers. (Although she could be doing it to catch them off-guard as well). Her first phase death message only helps prove this. However, she seems to become more cruel once she is forcefully transformed into a gorgon mermaid by her electric eels biting her hips.

Cala also seems to have a strong connection with fish and aquatic animals, for she can summon them at will to help her, and also use them as weapons without the fish caring much.

## Before moving to the Squad

After being defeated by Cuphead and Mugman (and burning her contract into the fire and being free from the Devil), She decided to move into Whitney's Squad in December 2017. Cala married Mugman on March 2018 at Organ Stop Pizza, One time, September 2018, She found a Strawberry Watermelon Gatorade, she drank it, she said "I feel strange!" and first getting her legs (Her outfit inspired from Miitomo). She is also expected a baby girl on January 2019. She had her baby on January 9, 2019, naming her Sea Tea.By The Way this is fake because the games storyline is in the 1930`s so clickbait.

## Trivia

* Cala Maria was first teased at the E3 2015 trailer. Since then, no gameplay of the boss battle was shown, it is just a .gif where we can see the creation process of her idle animation.
* Before her name was revealed, fans nicknamed her "Surf Mama".
* In the E3 2015 demo, the music for Botanic Panic was the same as Cala Maria's battle music in the final version.
* Cala Maria and Captain Brineybeard are the only nautical bosses in the game.
* Her name is a pun on "calamari", a type of cooked squid, as well as "calamaria," a genus of dwarf burrowing snakes.
	+ The reference to snakes foreshadows her transformation into a Gorgon (a serpent-haired monster) for the second and third phases of the battle.
* Her first death screen mentions "catch and release". This is referred to how fishermen don't keep the fish they catch when they're in a competition or having fun.
* Her second phase death screen mentions the words "stone boots". This is a reference to cement shoes, a method of execution in which criminals, such as the mafia, killed their victims by weighing them down with cement and throwing them into a large body of water, thereby drowning them. It also doubles as a reference to the common saying "Sleeping with the fishes".
* In the good ending, her size is roughly equal to that of Cuphead and Mugman, which is quite odd, as she appears to be gigantic during her boss fight. This could imply that she has the ability to change her size at will, or it could be a simple oversight.
* When transforming into her third phase, her body turns to stone and her arms fall off, making her resemble the famous statue, Venus de Milo.
* When she summons a sea creature to help her, the eyes on Cala Maria's octopus wig will be open instead of having eyes with X’s in them, possibly meaning that the octopus is undead or pretending to be dead.
* During her first phase, when the ghosts are released, Cala Maria will make a sound very reminiscent of a fog horn.
	+ The animation she uses to fire the ghosts appears to be from her old, unused intro animation.
* In her 3rd phase, her death screen seems to depict her with a neck, even though that was a part of her body which turned to stone and crumbled. This may be an animation error.
* The phrase on her third death screen is a double entendre: "Holy mackerel" is a slang phrase meaning "Holy cow", and a mackerel is a type of fish.
	+ This phrase is most likely presented as a nod to Cala Maria’s aquatic nature.
* Cala Maria, along with Captain Brineybeard and Ribby and Croaks, are the only bosses to have a custom death animation on Simple mode.
* When defeating her in Regular mode, her snake hair can be seen connected to her body, stating that the octopus is physically connected to her as hair, which goes against some artists believing that the octopus is a wig.
	+ However, it is possible that the octopus is initially not attached to her, but becomes part of her body when she changes forms.
* Her 1st phase death screen depicts her making the "Off with the head" gesture, which could mean that she was merely trying to seduce Cuphead and Mugman so she could catch them off-guard and kill them, which is a subtle reference to the deceptive nature of Merpeople in ancient mythology.
	+ This also foreshadows her being decapitated in the third phase.
	+ It also references how some mermaids (such as sirens and merrow) would draw sailors to them with their beauty, then leave them to perish at sea.
* "Yoo-hoo!" is a commonly used cliche in old cartoons in which an attractive woman uses that phrase to flirtingly call out to a man who is interested in her. This line was also made famous by Minnie Mouse.
* The idea of a seashell bra or any other lewd apparel was normally not allowed in the sort of cartoons that the *Cuphead* game was modeled after.
	+ Taking the setting into consideration, however, it is possible that the game is set before the Hays Code was enforced.
* In her death screen during second and third phase, she has lavender skin from the first phase as opposed to green in-game. This could be an animation error.
* There is code for an unused blue fish that would have shot a spinner at the player, which would start off with a bubble and the tails appear shortly after. They will start spinning around and travel mainly on a straight line with the ability to slightly shift its path. The most likely reason it got removed was the difficulty of dodging it in addition to the other attacks she uses.
	+ The script for the blue fish appears to be finished, meaning it was scrapped later in development. this attack can be seen here.
* As soon as the electric eels bite Cala Maria’s hips to electrocute her before going to the second phase, there is a coloring error, as Cala Maria's pink lips briefly turn red before turning green when she becomes a Gorgon-like monster.
* The name of the level she appears in might be a reference to a level in Crash Bandicoot: Twinsanity by the name High Sea Hi-Jinks.

## Inspirations

* Although it may not look like it, Cala Maria is based on Betty Boop from the Fleischer Studio cartoons, as seen in one of the beta sketches for her design (the Betty Boop cartoon in the beta sketch is specifically her first appearance *Dizzy Dishes)*. In a Betty Boop Opening, Betty Boop says "Yoo-Hoo!" while winking. In Cala Maria's intro, she happens to call out "Yoo-Hoo!" While flipping her octopus wig out of her face. Another example of Cala Maria being based from Betty Boop is in the cartoon *Where's Freddy* aka *Betty Boop's Lifeguard* (1934) where Betty Boop turns into a mermaid.
	+ She also has a similar personality to Betty, being happy and somewhat vivacious. And seems to be the "adorable and attractive" type.
	+ Cala Maria's eyes in the first phase seem to be based from a cartoon female moth from the Silly Symphony cartoon *Moth and the Flame* as evidenced in the same beta sketch as the Betty Boop scene in *Dizzy Dishes*.
* Her first phase form is based after Eliza, the second boss from *Gokujou Parodius*. In her early design sketches, Cala Maria wore a ship on her head much like Eliza. However, this was scrapped due to being difficult to animate.
* Her first phase form is likely a reference to Sea Maiden Ruri, a character from *Battle Cats*.
* Cala Maria's second form in terms of video games is based on the version of Medusa from *Sexy Parodius* of the *Gradius* series.
* Her floating head form in the final phase is a reference to Medusa being decapitated by Perseus in Greek mythology, which has also been referenced in other video games featuring Medusa, such as the Medusa Head, a recurring enemy and boss in the *Castlevania* series as well as Lar, the final boss from *Chariot: Three Wonders*.
* The fact that this is an air battle against her in her final phase might be a reference to the battle with Medusa in chapter 9 of *Kid Icarus: Uprising*.
* The setting of her fight is similar to the Silly Symphony, *King Neptune*. In the short, a mermaid is held hostage by pirates and the sea creatures, along with Neptune himself and the other mermaids, try and save her. In her fight, she’s a mermaid who is trying to defend her contract and soul from Cuphead and Mugman. Sea creatures come to help her out, and while there are no other mermaids in the fight, the eels fighting for her in Phase 2 can be seen as stand-ins.
* The turtle enemy Cala summons bears a striking resemblance to the character Toby Tortoise from two of Disney's Silly Symphonies cartoons *The Tortoise and the Hare* and *Toby Tortoise Returns*.
* She has a similar name and color pallet to Celia Mae from *Monsters Inc.*, another gorgon-based character who even has tentacles for limbs.
* Cala Maria's "Yoo-hoo!" line, as well as her other laughs and grunts are voiced by little-known actress Denise Hatton.