Not to be confused with Big Mouth.
Mouth monsters are enemies that appear in the Hot Air series. They are the biggest enemies encountered in the series, capable of taking up close to almost the entire screen. They appear in Hot Air Jr, and as with a few enemies in the Hot Air series, receive an extreme makeover.
Appearance[]
Hot Air 1/2[]
Mouth monsters take up the entire screen, except for a middle part which the player can move around in. There are three types of mouth monsters: a baby mouth monster, a male mouth monster, and a female mouth monster.
The general appearance on a mouth monster is a light bluish grey and dark light bluish grey striped body. In the middle is the mouth of the enemy are the yellowish teeth, above the mouth being the creature's eyes, beside its eyes being its purple cheeks.
All mouth monsters have this general appearance. The differences between the three variations is that the baby mouth monster has a single tooth located on the middle of the top jaw, as well as a curl of hair at the top of his head. The male mouth monster has six teeth, a tooth either above or below another tooth. The female mouth monster has eyelashes, as well as it teeth arranged irregularly. It also has a golden tooth.
Hot Air Jr[]
Mouth monsters receive a drastic makeover. They appear as a skull instead of a platform, and also do not take up as much space as they did in Hot Air 1 & 2. They have a semi-curved skull like head with a few spots placed throughout. With two brown vertical lines for eyes, they also have seemingly invisible eyebrows which only cast a shadow at the top of their eyes.
There nose appears almost exactly like that of a carat (^), this brown arrow-resembling structure found between the two eyes. Below their face is a shiny horizontal, rectangular block that is smaller than the above block; this small shiny object serving as the gums of the mouth, and holding the creature's teeth.
The bottom jaw of the monster has the shiny horizontal beam that serves as the gums, and two oval shaped pieces below it. The mouth monster is different from its previous appearance in that it is not striped (like the platforms it is a part of), and doesn't even bear any resemblance to any platform in the level.
The mouth monster's most recognizable difference from its past depictions is its severely decreased size, taking up around one sixth of the screen, instead of nine tenths of the screen its previous forms took up.
Game information[]
Mouth monsters appear on level five of Hot Air 1, on level twenty-eight: Dental Practice of Hot Air 2, and level nine of Hot Air Jr.
General behaviour[]
In each level they appear in, mouth monsters are completely stationary (as they take up close to the entire screen, except in Hot Air Jr. where they are smaller). They attack by lifting the jaws of the mouth and pulling them back.
Hot Air 1[]
In Hot Air 1, the player starts the level on the far left side of the male mouth monster's mouth, and has to maneuver to the far right side, where the red pad is.
Hot Air 2[]
In Hot Air 2, on level twenty-eight: Dental Practice, the player has to go through two new mouth monsters. The player starts at the far left of the baby mouth monster's mouth, on a green pad held up by a rod.
Traversing this mouth is very easy, as the entire bottom jaw is toothless. The player exits the baby mouth monster's mouth from the right side of its mouth, where they also enter the female mouth monster.
This mouth monster is so far the most difficult, as the teeth are set up in a irregular pattern, with two teeth across and one tooth down, and one tooth down and two teeth across. The teeth in this mouth take up more space than the previous mouths. On the far left of this mouth monster is the red pad.
Hot Air Jr[]
Mouth monsters are made more dangerous in this level, despite losing their flagship size and appearance. Mouth monsters will lower their jaw then bring it back up quickly. It does this faster than what its oversized companions did in the previous game, and along with this do not provide space in their mouth for the player to reside, as to make going through this behemoth easier.
Traversal involves the player having to zip through each mouth monster by bringing the fan to the head of Hot Air Jr and blowing. This level has two mouth monsters, the first two acting and appearing exactly the same as each other, the third being much different.
The third mouth monster resides in the second of three rooms in the level. This mouth monster is the same size as the previous mouth monster, except seven of its eight teeth are breakable, and its lower jaw moves faster. The faster movement forces the player to destroy the teeth with the nearby floating mines provided by the floating mine spawner.
To destroy a tooth, one has to blow a floating mine into a cracked tooth, the explosion consuming the mine and destroying the tooth. An easy way to destroy multiple teeth with one bomb is to blow a bomb into the gap made when the jaw goes down. If the bomb is blown so that it is underneath two teeth, when the jaw comes up it will detonate the bomb and likely destroy four teeth (assuming no teeth are golden).
One of the eight teeth is made of gold, this gild tooth being indestructible. Placed at the bottom of the third row of teeth, this tooth is the only hazard to the player once seven teeth have been shattered. Its positioning can be a problem, as moving at the wrong time can cause the player to be killed by the moving jaw, or by the tooth.
For one that want to unlock all levels of Hot Air Jr., thankfully, no stars are placed in the mouth section of any of the mouth monsters, nor any temporarily hidden by teeth.
Variations[]
There are five variations of the mouth monster, one in Hot Air (male mouth monster), the two new ones introduced in Hot Air 2 (female mouth monster and baby mouth monster), and the two redesigned ones from Hot Air Jr (redesigned mouth monster and golden tooth redesigned mouth monster).
