Miyazaki Film Title Generator

This code combines random components of words to produce silly Miyazaki-inspired film titles. Such classics as:

• Tolo Pippi’s Marvellous Leaf
• Being Onto
• Chibot Pom’s Jolly Bramble
• Poko Trollpi and Tombo Go’s Coat Pushing Whistle
• Tolo Pom and Asbo Go
• Chi Pop’s Flambuoyant Sponge Popping Service
• Kabee Go’s Wandering Jelly
• Tolopa Popyo’s Functional Castle Sniffing Service

Here’s the ruby code that generates 10 random titles:

# String componenets of forenames and surnames
$fore1 = %w{Baba Poko Tombo Bono Asbo Tolo Chi Ka}
$fore2 = %w{ton bee la ton ti yam bot pa}
$sur1 = %w{Kop Pip Pom Pop Go Troll}
$sur2 = %w{pop pi ko ton go yo}

# Generate name by concatenating random parts of forename and surname
def name
  fore = $fore1.sample
  fore += $fore2.sample if rand(2) == 0
  sur = $sur1.sample
  sur += $sur2.sample if rand(2) == 0
  "#{fore} #{sur}"
end

# Word arrays of various objects, jobs, adjectives used in generator functions
$adv = %w{Incredible Collossal Fantastic Wonderous Walking Marvellous Jolly Mystical Hypocrital Flambuoyant Functional Magical Wandering}
$obj = %w{Balloon Frogspawn Castle Sponge Cat Flower Bramble Buttock Moustache Jelly Train Plane Dragon Leaf Hat Coat Shoe}
$job = %w{Growing Shredding Elevating Immolating Rubbing Sniffing Waxing Pushing Wallopping Flogging Popping Floating Tossing Picking Wobbling Twisting}
$outlet = %w{Emporium Service Shop Nose Tap Whistle Foundry}
$elev = %w{Spirited Elevated Lifted Going Being Having}
$place = %w{Away There Forward Onto}

# Array of functions that combine names and words
$generators = [
  lambda { "#{name}'s #{$adv.sample} #{$obj.sample}" },
  lambda { "#{name}'s #{$adv.sample} #{$obj.sample} #{$job.sample} #{$outlet.sample}" },
  lambda { "#{name} and #{name}" },
  lambda { "#{name} and #{name}'s #{$obj.sample} #{$job.sample} #{$outlet.sample}" },
  lambda { "#{$elev.sample} #{$place.sample}" },
]

# Generate 10 random strings
10.times do
  puts $generators.sample.call
end

I wrote a lot of these generators in the past, for a giggle in the wee hours. The first was a movie generator based on a suggestion in a trashy 90s lad’s mag: given a list of adjectives and nouns, choose two at random and stitch together (also in my code I optionally suffix a Roman numeral). This generates titles like ‘Atomic Atom’ or ‘Massive Columbo II’.

Other generators were small village names, or fantasy novel generators. I’ll dig them up in future and share on the blog.