| “ | ” | |
—Opening text, Super Meat Boy | ||
For other uses, see Dr. Fetus (disambiguation).
Dr. Keith Fetus is the main antagonist of the Super Meat Boy series. He is a fetus in a jar wearing suit and tie. Nobody likes him, so he hates everyone in return. He especially hates Meat Boy most of all, often kidnapping his loved ones out of spite. He is also the creator of Brownie. He is well known for his immense malice, destruction of nature, and repeated use of the finger. He's not a real doctor.
Dr. Fetus appears in every game in the series, even being the titular character of Dr. Fetus' Mean Meat Machine. He always appears as the final boss, regardless of form.
General Information[]
Appearance[]
Dr. Fetus himself is a small fetus with fair skin. He has a nub in the place of his undeveloped legs and small, floating hands with at least one finger each. His eyebrows, however, are developed and somewhat curly, and he has a small mouth that is rarely seen.
Holding Dr. Fetus is a glass jar containing some kind of clear liquid. This jar has an emotive monocle attached and is on top of a (presumably robotic) body outfitted with a black top hat, black and white suit, black tie, and black and white sneakers. Dr. Fetus' body also comes with floating hands which are controlled by his own hands.
In Meat Boy and its map pack expansion, Dr. Fetus wears a bowler hat. In Super Meat Boy, he has arms and his sneakers are entirely white. Certain promotional art depicts him with a torn cape.
Personality[]
Dr. Fetus is an extremely conceited, hateful, and vicious character, to the point of kidnapping people's loved ones solely out of hatred. He seems to enjoy making others' lives miserable, as well as enjoying destruction of wildlife. He is completely unable to let go of grudges, with him hating Meat Boy significantly more than vice-versa. He's also a massive troll, being so on the internet and often taunting others (especially Meat Boy) particularly by giving them the finger. He's also not past attempting emotional manipulation, like trying to look innocent in front of Bandage Girl in the Dark World ending of Super Meat Boy.
Dr. Fetus, however, is technically very immature, being a fetus, and so he acts like a baby on occasion. This is epitomized by when he is literally pacified when Nugget offers him her pacifier in the ending of Super Meat Boy Forever, which calms him down from his godlike fury as Omega Alpha. This interaction is also proof that Dr. Fetus can be touched emotionally, and has some room for sincerity in his heart despite his atrocities.
Relationships[]
Dr. Fetus is infamous for burning bridges and making almost everyone his enemy due to his upbringing.
Powers and abilities[]
- Teleportation: Dr. Fetus has the ability to teleport in a puff of black smoke, often using this to escape from Meat Boy and co.
- Flight: Dr. Fetus can fly using his suit like wings.
- Acrobatics: Dr. Fetus can run fast, jump high and far, and wall-jump.
- Weaponry: Dr. Fetus has an array of weapons, including various explosives rocket launcher, a plasma rifle, a spike ball gun, as well as bigger, heavier methods of devastation such as Lil' Slugger and Big Slugger, and multiple nuclear warheads.
- Life creation: Dr. Fetus is able to give his feces life in Super Meat Boy. In Super Meat Boy Forever and Dr. Fetus' Mean Meat Machine, he creates and synthesizes clones of Meat Boy.
- Ionikinesis: Whether through magic or technology, Dr. Fetus has the ability to produce orbs of plasma with his hands; utilized in Burly Brawl.
Gameplay[]
Meat Boy (2008)[]
Dr. Fetus becomes playable once the player collects eight bandaids.
Super Meat Boy[]
Dr. Fetus serves as the final boss of Super Meat Boy, appearing in Dr. Fetus (Light World level) and its Dark World variant. Here, his movements are based on an input recording from Edmund McMillen. Every few seconds, Fetus will launch a missile at Meat Boy. He also will progress through the level as Meat Boy does, culminating in him falling from a bridge of switch blocks.
As a Playable Character[]
Dr. Fetus as a playable character exists in the files of the PC version of Super Meat Boy. He is not accessible in any official way, but can be played as through two methods:
- Devmode: Dr. Fetus can be played in developer mode.
- Glitch abuse: Dr. Fetus can be played in the normal game through the bandage duplication glitch.
Dr. Fetus has the same controls as Meat Boy. He is immune to all hazards and can shoot missiles by pressing the run button.
Super Meat Boy Forever[]
Dr. Fetus serves as the boss of The Lab, and the fourth boss overall.
Dr. Fetus also appears as the final boss, in the form of Omega Alpha.
Playable Character[]
In Super Meat Boy Forever, Dr. Fetus can officially be unlocked as a playable character. To unlock him, the player must collect 31 pacifiers after completing Burly Brawl, Dr. Fetus' boss level. As the player can only obtain 30 pacifiers before starting New Game+ (which requires beating the game), the second requirement is redundant.
Dr. Fetus plays identically to most other characters in the game.
A variant of Dr. Fetus, Classic Dr. Fetus, exists as a separate unlockable character.
Trivia[]
- The animations for Dr. Fetus kidnapping Bandage Girl at the end of every level are based on other games.
- Hitting the button to remove the floor to defeat Dr. Fetus resembles defeating Bowser in the original Super Mario Bros. game.
- If the player manages to make it past the buzz saw columns on the right of the level during the first phase of the boss fight, they will NOT kill you after making it into the final room where Dr. Fetus falls to his near-death. This is a tactic usually used by speedrunners because it's arguably easier to finish the first half. By doing this, Dr. Fetus is left behind with the buzz saw columns, thus also eliminating the threat of his missiles.
- Dr. Fetus is two items called Dr. Fetus and Epic Fetus in the game The Binding of Isaac, another game made by Edmund McMillen.
- Dr. Fetus is the only boss that has a Dark World variant.
- In some artworks of the game, his monocle is changed to his right.
- "The Doctor's Remote" is an item in The Binding of Isaac that creates a large explosion at the target location, likely a reference to the remote Dr. Fetus uses to drop the atomic bomb at the end of Chapter 4: Hell. He participates in sandcastle contests (using the information in the ultra-edition manual).
- In the trailer for Super Meat Boy Forever, the narrator states that Dr. Fetus is not a real doctor.
- The animations for Dr. Fetus kidnapping Nugget at the end of every level are based on other games.
- Between the events of Super Meat Boy and Super Meat Boy Forever nugget was created, possibly meaning that Dr fetus cannot age
- Tommy Refenes was meant to do the "input recording" for Dr. Fetus' boss fight in Super Meat Boy, but didn't as he was busy at the time.
Gallery[]
Extra Website[]
| Super Meat Boy characters | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All versions | ||||||
 Meat Boy |
 Bandage Girl |
 8-Bit Meat Boy |
 4-Bit Meat Boy |
 4-Color Meat Boy |
 Meat Ninja |
 Brownie* |
 Commander Video |
 Jill |
 Ogmo |
 Flywrench |
 The Kid |
 Alien Hominid |
 Tim** |
| Console exclusives | ||||||
 Gish |
 Spelunky |
 Pink Knight |
 The Ninja | |||
| PC exclusives | ||||||
 Headcrab |
 Josef |
 Naija |
 RunMan |
 Captain Viridian |
 Steve |
 Goo Ball* |
 Tofu Boy* | ||||||
| Other/Unselectable | ||||||
 Potato Boy |
 Dr. Fetus | |||||
| * = Requires code input ** = Requires code input on PC only | ||||||
