Herp Haven [RICO]
Herp Haven is a luxury spa depicted in The Magic School Bus episode “Cold Feet”. Owned by Harry Herpst, it is “the place to be” for all reptiles big and small.
As a fan of the original 1990s Magic School Bus cartoon (if you couldn’t tell by my current profile picture of Phoebe from the show), I was quite disappointed by the lack of assets from Walkerville (the name of the town the series is set in, and though I’ve yet to read them, presumably the original books too) on the workshop currently. I thought it was time to fix this and decided to give you the opportunity to add this rather cool place to your cities! If you’ve got the RICO mod enabled, this place will act as a Level 2 Commercial Low Density building, providing 18 jobs on a 7×11 lot.
If you’re wondering why I opted to pick Herp Haven as the workshop’s first Magic School Bus asset, I can answer that for you right here. I always found the premise of the episode it’s featured in to be rather funny. The students of Ms. Frizzle’s class think Liz (the class’ pet lizard) is in danger after being sent off to this place (the real reason is because the Friz needed repairs done to Liz’s habitat). Not long after arriving at Herp Haven, the class witness a posh woman arriving in a limo with a tortoise, who states to Harry that she “wants him toasted and stuffed”, leaving the students to believe that Liz could become “someone’s meal”. Some of the ensuring madness to save Liz from this include, Ms Frizzle using the bus as a “Trojan Alligator” to get into the premises after the class is denied initial entry due to them not meeting “certain requirements”, the bus-a-gator getting stuck due to it being too cold, and Ms Frizzle and most of her class (except Arnold, Dorothy Ann, and Phoebe) turning into “their favorite reptiles” in order to find Liz. Needless to say, being cold blooded causes them to fall into hibernation just after finding Liz in “The Quiet Room”, where they would have been in big trouble had Phoebe not been able to locate them in time and get them and Liz back to the bus-a-gator (where Arnold and Dorothy Ann remained to look after it). To top it all off, Phoebe encounters actual alligators as she and the bus-a-gator escape out the back entrance of the building. The students only learn of the real reason Liz is here once Harry comes running out the back entrance with Liz’s habitat as the class is about to leave Herp Haven, where Ms Frizzle finally explains the whole situation surrounding their class pet and why she was here. 🙂
If you’ve seen the actual episode, you’ll notice that the asset isn’t quite 100% accurate to the original depiction of Herp Haven. Most noticeably, the moat surrounding the building on the outside and the bridge that crosses it is missing, which I do apologize for its absence. However, I did include the ”Alligator Crossing” sign seen within the premise in this asset. Because it’s a separate prop, you can freely place it anywhere you want on the map. Despite the lack of a moat, this asset still faithfully recreates Herp Haven as it was depicted on the show (screenshots from the episode itself are included above as a comparison, plus four bonus pictures of Ms Frizzle and most of her class when they were reptiles too).
This asset was a commission done by Checo Mx. I mainly added in the final detailing (trees and plantation, plus the car park located outside the premises). Special thanks goes out to him for accepting my commission and working on this asset! 😀
The Magic School Bus is a registered trademark of Scholastic Inc. I am not trying to claim any sort of ownership or copyright over The Magic School Bus books or cartoon series by publishing this asset or including screenshots from the episode above (which I’ll remove if requested to do so). I figured this would be a cool asset to have in Cities: Skylines. After all, as the producer at the end of the episode would state, there’s no such thing as a luxury spa for reptiles in real life, so why not let it be a reality in C:S? 😉
Feel free to leave a like as well as any feedback in the comments below.
