Travis Touchdown - Concept and Creation

Concept and Creation

Travis Touchdown first appeared in the Wii video game No More Heroes. He was created by Goichi Suda and voiced by Robin Atkin Downes. He was illustrated by Yūsuke Kozaki, and his clothing was designed by Takeshi Uechi. He was based on Jackass star Johnny Knoxville. His beam sword's charging method was based on the "Schwartz" lightsabers from the parody film Spaceballs. Travis' name, like other characters' names in No More Heroes, comes from its sound rather than its meaning. He stated that it is a name that sounds cool to Japanese people, but not as much to Western people. Suda comments that he sees some of himself in Travis, and wishes that he could react to things like Travis does. Travis' luchador fandom comes from Suda's fandom for the sport.

Suda was disappointed with the quality of Travis' wrestling techniques, and performed some of them on the animators to demonstrate. Certain other details of Travis are based on Suda, including the sound of a key ring jingling in his pocket and his love of cats. A Ubisoft contest was held to allow one winner's design to be used in Desperate Struggle for one of Travis' t-shirts. In an interview with Nintendo Power, Suda stated that he wanted Travis to become a huge star, stating that this was one of the reasons he wanted to make Desperate Struggle as interesting as possible. Nintendo Power editors told Joystiq that Suda considers Travis his favorite character. Suda states that No More Heroes 2 will be Travis' last appearance in the series, as his story will be completely finished. The Californian setting of No More Heroes is partially based on Travis, who Suda stated had a variety of frustrations and emotions that helped him fit in with that setting.