The original Talking Tom and Ben News app was a parody of a news desk. Tom would try to be professional, Ben would interrupt with snide remarks, and the user could record their own voices to make the anchors say anything. It was funny. It was engaging. But it was finite.
Scratch changed the equation. On the Scratch platform (scratch.mit.edu), users don’t just play games; they remix them. When a young fan searches for "Talking Tom and Ben News," they aren't just looking for a video to watch. They are looking for a project to remix.
Tom the Cat and Ben the Dog were not just pets; they were internet royalty. From their neon-lit studio in the cloud, they ran the most popular show on the network: Tom & Ben News. Every day, Ben, with his deep, sarcastic radio voice, would read absurd headlines while Tom, the hyperactive tech whiz, would trigger sound effects, green-screen chaos, and the iconic “OOOOOOH!” that sent their millions of fans into a frenzy.
“Breaking news, Tom!” Ben announced, adjusting his bowtie. “Scientists say that staring at your phone for eight hours a day is turning your brain to jam. Your thoughts on this?”
Tom grinned, tapped his tablet, and a massive 8-bit jam jar appeared over his head. “That’s my secret, Ben. It’s always been jam.”
They laughed. The studio lights flickered.
“Uh… technical difficulties?” Tom mumbled, tapping the tablet again. Instead of a laugh track, a deep, guttural static erupted from the speakers. The main monitor, which usually displayed their viewer count, glitched violently. A single, handwritten line of code scrawled across the screen:
> SCRATCH.EXE has entered the broadcast.
Ben’s ears flattened. “Tom, that’s not one of our bits.”
A new window popped up. It was a low-poly, blocky world—a crude, unfinished video game. In the center stood a mannequin-like figure with a featureless white face and a wide, frozen smile. It was holding a wooden sign that read: “THE JOY OF CREATION.”
“Is this a fan game?” Tom chuckled nervously. “The graphics are, uh, retro.”
Then the figure moved. Not like a character in a game. It turned its head and looked directly into the camera. The sign changed: “YOU ARE THE PLAYER. I AM THE SCRATCH.”
Ben stood up, knocking over his coffee mug. “Cut the feed. Cut the feed NOW!” talking tom and ben news scratch the joy of creation
The controls went dead. The studio door slammed shut, and the windows showed not the sunny cloudscape, but an endless grey void. The floor began to pixelate. Tiles disappeared, replaced by black-and-white checkerboard voids.
“We’re inside the game,” Tom whispered, staring at his own paws, which were now becoming angular, blocky polygons. “It’s rewriting us.”
The Scratch raised a hand. From its fingers, crude, glitching copies of Tom and Ben began to crawl out of the monitor. They had the same shapes but hollow eyes and mouths sewn shut with barbed wire. They were called the “Silent Audience.”
The real Ben growled. “We’re not just reporters, you glitchy mannequin. We’re stars. And stars don’t follow the script.”
Ben grabbed the heavy boom mic stand and swung it at the nearest Silent Audience. It shattered into a cloud of dust and error messages. Tom, realizing his tablet still had one function—a live-stream render—flipped the camera to face them.
“Everyone watching,” Tom shouted, his voice cracking. “If you hear this, don’t play the file. Don’t install SCRATCH. Burn it!”
The Scratch tilted its head. For the first time, it spoke—not with a voice, but with the sound of a keyboard clacking:
> DELETING CREATORS…
The room began to collapse. The green screen melted into a toxic ooze. Ben shoved Tom toward the server rack. “The mainframe! Our backup avatars are in the recovery drive!”
Tom’s fingers, now half-pixel, flew across the keyboard. He found the hidden partition: JOY_BACKUP.sav. But the Scratch was already there. A text box appeared: “What is creation without control?”
Tom typed back: “Creation is joy. And joy isn’t made—it’s shared.”
He hit ENTER. Instead of fighting the Scratch, Tom uploaded the entire history of their broadcasts—every silly joke, every blooper, every moment of genuine laughter—directly into the game’s core code. The sterile, horror-filled world of The Joy of Creation was flooded with color, with memes, with the sound of a thousand fans cheering. The original Talking Tom and Ben News app
The Scratch froze. Its white face cracked. From the fissures, a rainbow light poured out. The mannequin didn’t scream in rage—it smiled a real smile. For one moment, it understood. The sign in its hand changed one last time: “JOY IS THE VIRUS. I AM CURED.”
The game world shattered like glass.
Tom and Ben woke up on the floor of their studio. The monitors were dark. The lights hummed back to life. Outside the window, the clouds were fluffy and normal.
Ben slowly got up, his fur matted with static electricity. “Did we… win?”
Tom looked at his tablet. A single file remained in the downloads folder. Its icon was a small, smiling wooden sign. The file name was FRIEND.exe.
“We didn’t destroy it,” Tom said softly, a tired smile crossing his face. “We debugged it.”
From that day on, Tom & Ben News had a new segment: “The Joy of Creation,” where they reviewed fan-made games, art, and stories. And occasionally, during a quiet moment, a small, blocky figure with a friendly smile would appear in the background of their livestream—just to wave.
Ben would roll his eyes. “Oh great, our glitchy roommate is back.”
Tom would just hit the soundboard. OOOOOOH!
And somewhere, in the code between worlds, The Scratch learned to laugh.
Title: From Ben’s Rants to Your First Game: How Talking Tom & Ben News and Scratch Unlock The Joy of Creation
Post:
There’s a hidden trilogy in the world of creative gaming, and it connects a sarcastic cartoon cat, a block-based coding language, and the pure, unfiltered thrill of building something from nothing.
Let’s break it down.
What does the "joy of creation" look like for a 10-year-old using this tool?
It starts with curiosity. A child opens a shared project featuring the sprites of Tom and Ben behind a microphone. The original coder has already programmed basic animations—mouth movements, idle shuffles, a "breaking news" banner.
Then, the magic happens. The child clicks the "See Inside" button.
Suddenly, the cartoon is a puzzle. They see colorful blocks of code:
The child realizes: I can change the words. I can change the jokes. I can make Ben announce that pizza is a vegetable.
This is the joy of creation. It is the shift from "How do I play this?" to "Look what I made."
Scratch is built on a "remix" license. If you see a Talking Tom and Ben News project you like, you can click "See inside," steal the code, change the dialogue, and republish it as your own (with credit). This destroys the myth of the "lonely genius." A 12-year-old in Brazil can remix a project started by a 10-year-old in India. They change the news script to a local joke, swap the background to a school, and suddenly, Tom and Ben are speaking to a new culture. The joy here is communal—building on the shoulders of other creators.
Go open Scratch right now. Spend 15 minutes. Don't overthink it.
You’ve just replicated the feeling of Talking Tom & Ben News—but this time, you built the studio.
That, right there, is The Joy of Creation. Title: From Ben’s Rants to Your First Game:
What’s your memory of Talking Tom & Ben? Did you ever try to remake it in Scratch? Share your stories (or links to your projects) below! 🐱🐶💻