Junkyard Jive!

Automaton shooting Cuphead.

**Junkyard Jive!** is a level in Inkwell Isle Three. It is represented on the map by a junkyard.

## Location

It is playable right after beating Honeycomb Herald. You can also access it by defeating Cala Maria, due to a shortcut that can bypass the barrier by going through the back of the junkyard. The place that you go to confront Dr. Kahl's Robot is a small house in the front of the junkyard. Beating the boss gets rid of the barrier poorly blocking you from accessing Sally Stageplay.

## Stage

The battle takes place in a junkyard, filled with mountains of scrap. There are also buildings and factories in the background, which suggest that the society there have thrown out too much and wrecked the environment. The sky is red, so it is probably sunrise or sunset, and there are multiple dark clouds in the background.

## Strategy

* Take out bottom vent, take out laser, then take out mid, and use your super on the heart and bombs. Next comes tricky part with the fences and gem shards. When blue comes and there are no walls, you can full size bullet shoot. But when walls come, focus on shrinking and dodging, and repeat the process for red but this time do not shoot.
* Defeat the middle part first, but in expert, defeat the laser first.
* Stay in the middle (top to bottom) to dodge the lightbulb bots.
* Defeat the laser (use peashooter EX many times to defeat it quickly).
* Defeat the bottom last (and go against the barrier to defeat the bomb instantly).
* For the arm attack, go small and backwards under a blue ball to a safe spot to dodge them.
	+ And also turn to go through the nuts and bolts and other things that might in the way.
* Use bomb and wait for head crash into you.
* Use mini bombs if the the head is bombs.
* Go on the top left to avoid the crystals easier while using the mini bombs.
* And go small to dodge a crystal and for going under a wall.

### Battle

* Phase 1
* Phase 2
* Phase 3

"OBJECTIVE COMPLETED. TARGET SCRAPPED."

—Automaton, Phase 1 Death Screen

Before the battle begins, Dr. Kahl can bee seen outside of his Automaton, waving his eyebrows up and down at Cuphead and Mugman. The reason he does this is probably because he is trying to impress Cuphead and Mugman, and to show them that they have no chance. Then Dr. Kahl goes inside Automaton. Automaton then blows a pink bubblegum and starts the fight.

In a way, Automaton seems to have two sub-phases in this phase.

The first sub-phase starts off with Automaton standing in place. Automaton has three weak spots in this sub-phase: his antenna, a little hole in his chest, and a big door at the bottom of his chest. Each of these weak spots have their own attacks and health.

* **Antenna:** Automaton's antenna is his first weak point. At the start, his antenna will do a laser attack, where there is a small yellow laser teasing for a big rainbow laser that Cuphead and Mugman cannot shoot through. It is recommended not to destroy this weak point first, since when you destroy it, Automaton will start shooting nuts and bolts out of head, which is harder to dodge than the laser.
* **Chest Hole:** Automaton's second weak point is the tiny hole in his chest. Occasionally this hole will send a parryable laser machine that will create a line where Cuphead and Mugman cannot pass through without getting hurt. The only way to pass through unhurt, is to deactivate it by parrying the machine. This is one of the only things that you can parry, so you should probably destroy it second for a higher grade. When this weak spot is destroyed, Automaton will get mad and instead use his hands to attack. He can do one of two things with his hands:
	+ The first thing he can do, is hold a magnet which will pull the player towards him. Do not worry too much though, since the magnet will not hurt you if you get sucked in too much. What you should worry about though are the other projectiles produced by the other weak spots. You must move away from the magnet so you do not get hit by other obstacles.
	+ The second thing that he can do is he can twist his arms in a horizontal line, then shoot three blue energy balls from them as he retreats his hands. You must be careful, because it kind of acts like a roof or floor for the player(s), so you must stay in that area until the arms go away.
* **Chest Door:** Automaton's third and final weak point is a door on his chest. This door will send out little ships that will go in an "S" shape pattern. In Regular Mode, groups of three will be sent. In Simple Mode, two will be sent. And in Expert Mode, four will be sent. When this weak point is destroyed, it will start sending homing bomb missiles. These bombs will explode upon contact with Cuphead, Mugman, Cuphead and Mugman's bullets, and other bombs. These bombs will home in on you until they are destroyed, and when they are destroyed, they explode into a blue and pink face (presumably Dr. Kahl's face) then disappear.

After successfully destroying each weak spot, the next sub-phase begins. A heart will pop out of Automaton's hole in his chest, and that's his new weak point.

Throughout this new sub-phase, each of the old weak pots will do their attacks after they are destroyed. Automaton's head will shoot out nuts and bolts, he will still use his hands to hurt the player(s), and he will be sending out homing bomb missiles.

After enough damage is dealt, Automaton's heart will be destroyed, then he will start to malfunction. His head will then eject from its body, commencing the next phase. The reason why Automaton malfunction could be because the heart that pops out could his real heart, or at least, the motherboard.

In Simple Mode, the fight ends there. Automaton will just malfunction, and his head will never pop off.

"MALFUNCTION. MALFUNCTION."

—Automaton, Phase 2 Death Screen

This phase is not fought in Simple Mode.

During this phase, Automaton's head will pop off, and fly around the map. It will go from one side to another, flying at the top before going to the right side of the screen, before flying at the bottom area and vice versa. This pattern will continue until you get into his next phase. It is very hard to hit Automaton's head, because it moves around so quick.

And while all this happens, the homing bomb missiles from the last phase will come on in from the sides of the screen that he recently appeared from.

It is recommended to use your plane peashooter when he coming from on top, then your mini-bombs when he is moving away at the bottom.

After enough damage is dealt, Automaton's head will go to the bottom right. He will then come back up with a surprised expression, and Dr. Kahl will come out with the same expression.

"I have the perfect equation to hinder yer evasion!"

—Dr. Kahl, Phase 3 Death Screen

This phase is not fought in Simple Mode.

In this phase, Dr. Kahl finally reveals himself. Dr. Kahl will be inside his Automaton's head, hovering around the battle area. Dr. Kahl and his robot have one attack, and that is to bring out a diamonds that will shoot projectiles in a bullet hell-like fashion. In patch 1.1.3, Studio MDHR added some parryable projectiles to this attack, so it is recommended to parry as much as you can, so you can fill up your super meter, get a higher grade and shorten the battle marginally. There are two types of diamonds: blue and red.

* **Blue Diamond:** The blue diamond will create a circle of projectiles around it, then shoot them out. There will be five projectiles each time. Each circle of projectiles rotates in a counter-clockwise spiral.
* **Red Diamond:** The red diamond will create a circle of projectiles around it, then shoot them out. There will be eight projectiles. Each circle of projectiles rotates in a clockwise spiral.

While all of this is happening, walls of electricity will come from the bottom and the top, and they will slowly go up/down depending on where they come from. These walls make it harder to avoid the projectiles that have to be dodged.

After enough damage is done, the fight will end. Dr. Kahl will look at his robot, very worried. Then, his robot will blow out a ton of smoke, blowing Dr. Kahl's clothes off and his robot will pant and will no longer fight the player(s).

## Soundtrack

 Original soundtrack
 Game over soundtrack

## Trivia

* The music for the battle was previously used as the music for the Tutorial.
* The Parry Laser 7000 has some similarities to Telly in Mega Man.
* Dr Kahl's Robot is one of the two bosses that loses two phases in simple mode, with the other being Bootlegger Boogie.