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Selects: Night Trap: The Video Game Failure that Changed the Industry · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's select,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I've chosen our twenty twenty one episode on night Trap
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the video game one of those overlook pieces of pop
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: culture history about one of those unfortunate pieces of technology
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: that emerged during a sea change, which made it utterly
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: out of date the moment it was born. It's a
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: great story about a not at all great video game,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: and I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to Stuff You
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w Chuck
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Bryan over there, there's Jerry over there being Sally, and
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: this is Stuff you should Know. Ye video Obscure Lost
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: video game episode. How did you hear about this? This
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: is a your request.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Trap is the game that we're talking about. And
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: I heard about this from watching the Netflix documentary series
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: High Score.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Did you netflix and chill while you were watching that? Jerk?
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: No, I Netflix by myself and chilled because Emily.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Wasn't watching this.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: That's a different thing.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a different thing.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: This was a documentary series on Netflix, I think six
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: parts that covered the history of video games, I can
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: recommend it in one way in that it was a
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: very light kind of fun watch, but it is by
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: no means comprehensive and a little goofy at times, and
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: how they handled some.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Stuff on Night Trips specifically or.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Like the whole series.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: But it was fine, and it's you know, if you're
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: in the from a certain generation and in the mood
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: for like five plus hours of a bit of a
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: nostalgia kick, you could do worse things.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: But it's not great.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Have you ever seen that documentary? I think it's King
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of Kong? Oh, sure, man, that is one of the
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: best time I've ever made. I haven't seen a year.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: They go to see it again.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: It's great.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: I think our old buddy Josh Bearman might have written
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: the original story that that was.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Oh I'm not surprised you had something.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: To do with that.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: But Night Trap I learned about because in episode five
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: they covered when video games started becoming violent, so Mortal
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Kombat obviously factored in heavily in that episode. And then
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: this game called Night Trap. There's another game I do
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: want to cover on a shorty by the way, one
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: of the first LGTBQ games ever that was really interesting.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: And had a cool story. What the heck is it called?
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: I can't remember now. I saw this a couple of
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: months ago, so it's been a while.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Oh what was it?
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: I can't remember, but it was.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: It's great and that'll make it for a good shorty okay,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: but a really cool story behind it. But this is
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: night Trap, which figured in as the game that kind
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: of brought about along with Mortal Kombat, but was really
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: central informing what ended up being the ratings board for
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: video games.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's like understating it. Like this one game, yeah,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: paired with Mortal Kombat, basically led directly to the creation
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: of that.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's really why it's notable. The other thing
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: that made it notable, and we'll get into all this,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: was that it was a a live action as in
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: they shot you know, a little movie, right, and that
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: you controlled, Yeah, that you sort of control, you.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Could conceivably theoretically pathetically control.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Because it wasn't a great game, but it lives in
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: infamy because of every because it's a really cool story.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I think in the end, it is a pretty cool story.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: And the whole thing starts actually with a play from
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the I think it was written in nineteen eighty one
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: by a playwright named John Oh. What's his last name?
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Krasank Okay, I want to say, son, I want to
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: krisanch Shit, you don't think so? I don't know. Maybe well, regardless,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: he wrote a few episodes of Due South. What was that?
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: It was like a show about a Canadian mountee.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: I think, oh, all right, yeah he wrote this and
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: it was if you've been to Sleep No More in
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: New York, you may have the play Tamara to think
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: because it is a lot like the concept of Sleep
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: No More.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: As far as I know, this was the one that
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: broke that ground.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: I think so in the ground they broke it.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: It's about the painter Tamara de Olympica, who have never
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: heard of.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: She was a Polish painter who lived in Italy in
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the roaring twenties, okay, when the fascists were starting to
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: take power, and she took no guff from them, no guff, hedonistic,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: amazing art deco painter, art deco portraitist, basically interesting. So
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: her work's really interesting. I didn't know anything about it.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: I'd never heard of her until this too, but I
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: looked her up. She seemed pretty cool.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: But This is a play about her where it is
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: set on a multi floor building. There are scenes taking
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: place at the same time in multiple rooms, and as
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: an audience member, you can move from one room to
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: the other, missing out on some stuff, seeing some stuff, interacting.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: I mean it's Sleep No More. Yeah, they I don't
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: know if they just totally ripped it off or if
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: they said, hey, it's been you know, thirty years. Who's
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: going to remember Tamera, right?
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: I think it was like they broke that ground, and
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: once you break that ground, you're going to have people
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: following your wake.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: There's probably been other stuff that did this, but Sleep
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: No More I think just got so much attention in
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: New York for its run. It might still be going
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: or maybe coming back after the pandemic.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: I would like to see that. I would love to
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: see Tamra too, But this it was. It ran in
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: New York, but it started a Toronto Art festival I think,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: oh interesting, and then some producers set it up in
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: la and that's where it had its longest run. From
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: about the mid eighties to the nineties. They had this
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: just kept going and going and going. I was reading
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: an La Times article on it. But the reason that
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: it factors into this is because it's basically the basis
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: for this game Night Trap, where there are different things
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: going on in different rooms and you kind of cycle
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: toggle between the different rooms through security cameras in these
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: rooms right to see what's going on. And while you're
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: doing that, you're missing stuff that's happening in other rooms
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: in this game, and if you miss too much stuff,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: you lose. If you catch enough stuff and you do
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: everything right and press all the correct buttons, you win.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: But that's that's basically how it applies. It's like this
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: almost an homage to this play in video game form,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: but it's full motion video, meaning it's like a film
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: or TV show that you vaguely control or put better
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: you interact.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: With, Yeah, and the idea of the game, and we'll
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: get a little bit more into the development of it
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: in a minute, but it is basically like a party
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: happening at this house, young like co ed types like
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: sorority girls.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: Maybe ye.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: It's very sort of titillating, and that was one of
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: the big deals.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: A little bit. I think this for the time. Yeah,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: for the time, I wouldn't say, I mean you got
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: married with children was like ten times more titillating those
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: This is very tame. I think.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, obviously part of the controversy comes from
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: assaults on women in the game, understandably, but again we'll
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: get to that. It is even tame compared to a
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: lot of the stuff that was out at the time.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: But what's going on in the game is they are
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: these pseudo vampires called augurs that are the bad people
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: in this game. And Jim Riley, who conceived of this game,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: when he had the idea of I think he was
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: watching security camera a security camera screen with all these
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: different rooms and it hit him like what a great idea,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: And then he saw this play and he said, we
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: can actually do something like this, Like what if a
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: user and a game player could go into any of
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: these views that they want and if they're missing something,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: they're missing something it might be important, but they're in
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: control of the.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Game, right, And I mean that's the story rather right.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: But again, I think you really pointed out something important
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: that that was the concept in the actuality. They kind
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: of missed the mark a little bit. Yes, So with
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: the game the it was originally designed as part of
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: a platform called Control Vision. I think internally it was
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: called Nemo an Emo and it was being created by
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: a company called Axelon, And Axelon was actually a Nolan
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: like video game company name, but it was a Nolan
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Bushne old company. After Atari, he founded Axelon, among others,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I think he created five companies at the same time
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: in parallel. Using this incubator that he had created, and
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: the developers at axeln started creating a full motion video
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: VHS based we should point out, yes, I'm VHS and
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: to get from one place to another, rather than this
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: was the breakthrough thing. This is the thing that made
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: this work, and they did get it to work. But
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: using VHS tapes, you could toggle between stuff in virtually
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: real time without the VHS player having to rewind or
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: fast forward, which would have really just kind of put
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: the kibosh on the whole thing. But instead, because of
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: the interlacing that video uses, they could actually choose what
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: field to show at what time and basically switch between them.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Which was I mean, it looks archaic, but it's a
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: remarkable technology at the time to be able to do that.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it's still mind blowing. Like I'm like, I've
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: they vaguely understand how this actually works, but the fact
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: that they actually got this to work and had a
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: proof of concept going enough that Asro was like sold,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: that was a big deal.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and this was eighty five.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: One of their designers was the legendary Tom Crane who
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: designed Pitfall, one of my favorite all time games on
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: the Atari.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: That's a good one.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: But it was a good team and they went apparently
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: to these Tamera performances. They were also inspired by Dragon's Layer.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Do you remember that game?
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I do. I was never into it, but I remember
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: watching it and just it looked cool.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: I mean it was an animation game where it was
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: fully animated and used LaserDisc to project this animated footage.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: So it looked awesome, but it was just it wasn't
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: that great. The gameplay wasn't great.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: No, but it followed a story. There was a story. Yeah,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: that was happening, and then every once in a while
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: there's something you had to do to move the story
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: along right as part of the game, and if you
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: didn't do it right, the dragon like turned you into
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: to Ash or something like that.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, but you're not actually controlling the player, which
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: was the big difference in these games.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: For the regular game.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: You're you're creating a sequence like you're doing this and
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: then sitting back and then hopefully the thing you're hoping
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: to happen happens. Now, the thing that differentiates that from
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Night Trap is that there was no coherent story while
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: you were off doing something that you were supposed to
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: be doing to win the game. Yeah, the story kept
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: going on over here.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: So you can't follow a storyline that way, no, which.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Is a big deal, and that was a big differentiator
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: between it and Dragons Later.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: All right, well, let's take a little break here.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: That's a good setup, I think, and we'll come back
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: and get more into Night Trap right after this. All right,
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: so I mentioned the augurs, We need to explain a
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: little bit about this game and what it was supposed
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: to be and what it ended up being, because Netflix
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Dementary Jim Riley basically is like, well, the first thing
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: they created a demo called Scene of the Crime.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Yes, and it was a.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Detective game and Hasbro liked it, like I said, but
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: they had a big problem because the original idea that
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Jim had was to have ninjas, and he's like, it'd
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: be great.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: These ninjas come in.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: They got throwing stars, they got weapons and they're doing
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: all this stuff and you can control it and it's
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: super cool. And Hasbro is like, wait a minute, we
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: can't have what we call reproducible violence. So anything that
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: a kid like kids love throwing stars, and we can't
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: show ninjas throwing throwing stars into people because a kid
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: will go and do that. You can't have a knife
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: because the kid can go get a knife out of
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: a drawer. It's got to be something that a kid
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: cannot reproduce.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: So they said, okay, well, how about what if the
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: ninjas turn out to be and I'm sorry, I know
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: ninja is the plural of ninja, Sorry for sure. What
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: if they turn out to be vampires?
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: And Hasbro said, I kind of like where you're going
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: with this, But kids can still like bite people on
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the neck.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: I think it came the other way though. I think
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: that was a note from Hasbro.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Oh was it?
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure they were like, what if they were vampires?
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: And Jim Riley was like, Okay, I guess I can
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: do that, okay, biting people's necks, And then Hasbro was like,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: can't do that because the kids can bite next to.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: So what they found, and this is a great metaphor
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: for the night Trap overall. Yeah, what the ninja Originally,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: what they turned out to be in the end were
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: loping vampires who used what looked like a Ghostbuster's pro
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: tom pack with a collar of the kind that Arnold
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Schwarzeninger was wearing at the beginning of Running Man, like
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: a clamp sort of yes, yeah, on the end, and
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: that that is what they used to draw the blood
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: from the hapless teens who you were in charge of
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: protecting Night Trap.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what Hasbro did was they noted it to
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: death and neutered it to death because they said. He
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: even was like, all right, I can do vampires. They
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: can run around and hurt people. And they said, no, no, no,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: they can't even run around. It's too scary if they're fast. Yeah,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: So they came up with augurs who in the game
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: they are described as vampires who had been half bled
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: and left to die. So they are not quite vampires,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: but they aren't human either, and that makes them lopy
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: and lumbery instead of being able to move fast. And
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: if you see them, they look like they're wearing garbage bags.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: They're lumbering around they're drawing the blood using a trocar.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Is what the name of that thing was.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, it was okay because it was definitely its own thing.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: It was its own thing, and it's funny.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: In the documentary, Jim Riley was like, in the end,
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: he said, this trow car, which you know, it didn't
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: show it explicitly. It showed the clamp going around the
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: neck and this little drill and so out of a
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: shaft start and then sort of moving and then blood
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: being drawn. But it doesn't like going in the neck
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: or anything. No, but he said what they ended up with,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: he said to me, was something far creepier than a
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: vampire biting someone's neck. Sure, but they were like, it's
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: not reproducible though, so it's fine.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: And it's also it's weird that Hasbro was so fixated
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: on not including reproducible violence because apparently they saw night
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Trap as a way to interest adults, right, because they
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: had apparently found out during focus group testing of Seen
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: in the Crime. I believe that the parents who were
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: in the room or were part of the focus group
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: were saying, like, I really kind of liked this. It's
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: like a TV show, but I get.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: To contry it because it looked like something that they understood.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, and so Hasbro was like, oh, okay, this
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: has been like a kid's thing up to this point.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Maybe we can finally crack into the adult market with
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: this stuff. So it's weird that they that they kidified
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: it to death if they were trying to use it
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: to capture adults, but maybe they were like, it has
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: to go both ways in case adults don't like it.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Well, I think in the documentary they make the point
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: that Hasbro was I think the adults were looming out
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: there as a possibility, but they were like.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Adults will never play video games.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: So what they really wanted until they grow up and
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: then continue to.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Play video games.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Well, they really were after was a teenage market, which
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: didn't fully exist at this point. Gotcha like an old
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: like sixteen and seventeen year old boys, which is why
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: they put sorority girls in. Like a nighty at a
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: slumber party was an all in an effort to sort
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: of titillate, you know, people.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Like me, right, and it worked like a charm.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: I had never heard of it back then, because you just.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: You would play night trap in Netflix and chill by yourself.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: So they actually had to shoot this like a movie,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: you know. They shot it in Culver City on a
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: sound stage. And what they would do back then for
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: and there were more full motion games of the time,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: and you would try and cast one recognizable face among
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: this cast just sort of they called it the anchor
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: to like, all right, well this has got so and
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: so in it.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: And who did they cast for Night Trap?
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Dana Plato from from Different Strokes. Kimberly. Yeah, Kimberly who
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: passed away very tragically. Man, I was reading about her life.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: She had a hard, sad life.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: Man, very tragic story.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. It's very sad. And they actually went
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: back and ruled their death of suicide later. Did you
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: know that. I don't know if I knew that. Yeah,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: she died by suicide ultimately because she overdosed the like
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: drugs or yeah, soma, I believe, which is like a
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: generic lore tab interesting, which I think you really have
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: to try. Like, I don't think that's an accidental thing,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: which is probably why they did that. But it was
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: at a family reunion in Oklahoma, Wow, which I'm like, God, man,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: that's that's just a sad ending. And her son actually
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: died by suicide.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: Later, No, I think I knew that, like not super
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: long ago, right.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Like yeah, in the twenty tens, yeah, oh.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Man, very sad, but yeah. Dana Plato was cast as
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: that anchor. She played Kelly, who was a secret agent
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: who had infiltrated the house.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: She was undercover.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she's undercover.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: And she would talk right to camera and say things
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: like you've got to get to the other room because
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: the augurs are after whoever mayor helper, Yeah, go help her.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we should say also, so the group of
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: crime fighters that she was a part of was called SCAT. Yeah,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: the Special Control Attack Team SCAT. And then I don't
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: know if we also said so the people who own
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the house had invited this group of teens that included
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: undercover Dana Plato Kelly, who which I saw admittedly on Wikipedia.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: This is a great example of night trap being night
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: trap in the In the credits at the end, Kelly's
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: name is spelled with a y on the end. In
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the players the user's hand guide and deny tonight. Yeah,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: that's night trap for you right there. But the family
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: that invited the kids, these teenage girls out for a
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: weekend at their house are actually themselves vampires with teeth everything,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: not augurs.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: They're actually they don't attack people.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: No, they brought them there for the augurs.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Right right right to source their blood. I guess there
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: is a pretty funny scene in it. When did you
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: watch any of it?
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: I watched the whole thing. I watched. I think Crumpy
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Gamers did like a playthrough.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they have a full I watched.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: There's stuff too, and yeah, I've watched a lot of
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: night Trap stuff.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: The best part is when they're explaining in the game
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: what the augurs are and the woman says, you know,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: it's a vampire who's been blah blah blah, and one
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: of the scat guys is in the background and he goes.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: You've got to be jiving me.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I'd like see that.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: Oh it was great.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: It was like, was this game made in nineteen eighty
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: nine or nineteen seventy three?
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: It was really confusing. Yeah, like what era it was?
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: So you said it was shot on a sound stage
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: in Culver City and it took like thirty days almost.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: But he is shooed a ton of stuff.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Yes, because it was like a two hundred and fifty
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: page script which is incredibly long. Wow ed who helped
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: us out with this one. He points out that a
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: two hour movie might have one hundred and twenties page script.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: It's about a minute per page. As the rule of thumb, this.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Is two hundred and fifty pages for a video game
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: that was not very good. Yeah, they didn't have a
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: lot of dialogue, but there were a lot of different
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: outcomes that happened in one just one particular saint short.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: So if you shot a scene, you had to shoot
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: it multiple times to get what you wanted, and then
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: you had to shoot those multiple times multiple times for
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: each outcome.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we should say that the violence in the game,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: like we said, is suggestive for the Augers.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: You don't know, we see anything.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: The only real violence is when the Augers are dispatched of.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: But it is very much a wiley Odie bugs bunny
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: sort of thing.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the definition of cartoonish.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like they will be a murphy bed will flip
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: them out of a window, or they'll just whow, like
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: fall through a trap door.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: The stairs, very like one of the things. If they're
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: coming down the stairs, you can trap them by collapsing.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: This cartoon when they fall into the trap like a
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: smoke machine pours smoke out of it. It's impossible that
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: they weren't going for cartoonish violence. There's no right, of course,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: the producers and directors. Yeah, we're trying to be like
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: scary in any way, shape or form.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: But it was shot by Don Burgess, who was nominated
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: for an Oscar less than a decade after Night Trap
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: for Forrest Gump.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: So they had a real team.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: It wasn't just you know, they didn't, you know, say
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: all right, let's go out in the valley and use
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: some like a porn crew.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: Sure, just do this thing like.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: They had a real crew, know, and apparently has Bro
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: spent depending on who you ask, least a million dollars
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: on this.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they said one to five in the documentary, so
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: they put some money into it, and it is not
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: apparent on the screen. The sets look terrible. The the doorways,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you noticed, but any doorway, they
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: didn't build the door down to the floor. They built
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: the door down to like a one foot tall step over,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: So anytime someone opens the.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: Door, they step over this like one foot tall like
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: wooden set.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. I mean the set is. It's basically like
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: they could have repurposed it for growing pains or family
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: ties or something.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Mate or no, they probably would have said, like, this
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: doesn't look good.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Right, maybe small wonders. I think they used it for
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: small wonder How about that.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: There is no nudity we should point out. But it
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: again was never going to be kid friendly. But also
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: when you when you will get to the court stuff,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: when you hear how it's described by these senators.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: It's so over the top, it's so over the top.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, should we take a break? You don't want to
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: take a break.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: No, I'm excited and I'm ready to keep going.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Let's take a break, all right? Well, I guess we
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: should take a break. By saying that Hasbro dumped the game?
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: This is a nice cliffhanger. Hasbro dumped the game?
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Well, Hasbro dumped the game or not?
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: Chuck, Okay, we'll find out right after this.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck, cliffhanger ants er time.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Hasbro dumped the game because a it wasn't that great,
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: But the big reason was because CD Rahm Technology started
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: up and they were like, we've got VHS technology and
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: we suck a million five into this Turkey, like, let's
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: just dump it.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: And that should have been the end of.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: It, not just Night Trap, but the whole Control Vision thing,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: that the whole platform that Night Trap was just going
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: to be a game on totally gone. Hasbro said forget it.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: The thing is, the people who worked on designing this
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: game said no, no, no, no, Hasbro's being short sighted.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: It's too good this game in particular. Maybe control Vision
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: is good. Granted the VHS thing, we're going to just
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: forget about that, but this game is too groundbreaking to
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: just let die. So they actually went to Hasbro and said,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: how much will you sell us the footage, the code,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: the whole shebang for Night Trap for and the designers
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: actually bought the game from Hasbro and took it and
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: founded their own company, Digital Pictures.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: Do you know how much they sold it for?
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: But now I couldn't find didn't find it either. I
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: would guess peanuts. Basically, they probably were like, I don't
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: ever want to hear the words night or Trap together again.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Get it out of here. But these these designers, developers, directors, writers,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: everybody got together formed Digital Pick and bought it and
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: started developing Night Track, ironically for CD ROM which is
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the very type of media. Yeah, that killed it in
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the first place.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: By Jim's telling on the documentary, I don't know if
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: they were already going CD ROM or if it was
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: initiated by Sega. But he got a call, he said,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: out of the blue from Sega, who had their gaming
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: system at the time, Sega Genesis and then Sega CD
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: was an add on system featuring this new cd RHALM technology.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: And he said, they got a call, They said, hey,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: you want to develop this for CD RAM And he
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: probably got a good laugh out about that and the irony,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: and then said sure, because night Trap must live.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, this guy is dedicated to night Trap living. If
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: there's one thing that he wants to keep alive in
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: the world, it is night Trap, that's right. So they
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: started developing it for CD ROM. It was a step
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: up for sure, from what I can tell, like the
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: graphics worked a lot better. The problem is is this
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: is nineteen ninety two.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety two was when it was finally released as
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: a CD ROM game.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they had shot all this footage in the late eighties,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: but it looked like the late seventies. There was a
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: big difference between say nineteen eighty eight and nineteen ninety two.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Style Wise, it was apparent, visually apparent, and immediately apparent
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: to anybody, say, a video game playing age. Yeah, I
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: agree that was a big strike against night Trap to
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: begin with, But probably the biggest stripe of all was
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: that it wasn't a highly playable game. It was not
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: a good game, and it probably would have just kind
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: of faded away like it sold. I guess enough that
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: it qualified as like a not a disaster. They at
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: least did more than break even, but it probably would
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: have just fallen into the dustbin of history had it
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: not been for Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Senator
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Herb Cole of Wisconsin, a couple of Democrats who created
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: this crusade about violent video games in I think nineteen
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: ninety three.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so this very much mirrored if you listen
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: to our Satanic Panic episodes and the PMRC and music
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: label MPAA m PAA, Like this was all the time
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: when everyone was saying, hey, listen, we need to start
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: at least labeling the stuff so parents know what their
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: kids are doing and just watch a little bit, you know,
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: there's all kinds of it was in the Netflix documentary.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: But there's all sorts of stuff on YouTube about these
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: hearings where they're talking about the disgusting trash and the
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: filth and the hyper violence, and it's like, it's really
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: not that violent.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: So here's the thing. They went after Moral Kombat, Yeah,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: which was super violent, it really was. Yeah, And they
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: went after night Trap, which was again cartoonish. Not a
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: drop of blood spills from a person's body, right, had
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: ladies in lingerie one? Yes, Okay, I'm not defending any
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: kind of violence against women, of course, not defending objectifying women.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: But Night Trap was unfairly railroaded. Oh yeah, because for
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: some reason, I think probably because it was it was film,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: it was people. Like the people were controlling people.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: That was the difference, because there was there were one
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: hundred exploitation movies and horror movies by this point, share
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: two hundred, yeah, three hundred. It was a thousand times
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: worse than this. Yeah, But the fact that you were
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: controlling Yet they never said, and they make a big
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: point about this in the documentary, like you weren't doing
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: the violence, Like the whole point of the game was
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: to stop the augurs. That's like you weren't the person
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: doing the augur You're preventing the violence.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I guess that's why they call them augurs because
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: it was kind of like an augur.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the tool was Yeah, that's what I get tobar.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: What was it called crow car trocar? Yeah.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: But yeah, and they never I mean he Jim Riley
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: was like, they clearly never even played the game.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, they were talking about the.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Cover of the thing was lurid. They didn't like the
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: cover of the box.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they definitely hadn't played the game. It was
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: just impossible from what they were saying happens in the game.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: And the big one was like you were saying that
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: it it let players carry out sexual violence against women. No,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: you do the opposite of that, right, there's violence that
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: is carried out by the augurs if you don't do
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: it right, if you if you're not good at the game,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: if you lose, yes, exactly.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: But even then, like even in the most disturbing scene,
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: which was the one with the lady and the and
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: the night looking in the mirror, the augers come in
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: behind her and it's for sure creepy looking at first,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: but you know, then they get out the croke Car.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: I can't even remember tro Car and she's like ah ah,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: and it's like the worst B movie. And then they
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: just sort of dragger over the threshold of one of
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: those doors.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: I would say, gently escorted, yeah, through.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: The doors, like you don't see any of the violence
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: even No, it's all just suggested, right, yes.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: But again, Night Trip got lumped in with Mortal Kombat,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: and because of this, because it was very clear that
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: the writing was on the wall. The media has a
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: really great track record of saying, oh God, if we
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: don't come up with a rating system ourselves, right, Congress
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: is going to impose it on us. And so they
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: came up with the ESRB, the Entertainment Software Rating Board.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: It was an industry created, self imposed rating system that
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: was brought about in large part because.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: Of Night Right. So Sega pulls the game.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Eventually, it became really popular because of these senatorial hearings, right,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: which is what always happens.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's exactly right. It was starting to fade away.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: It would have been lost to history, and then the
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: senators came in and we're like's go buy that game.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Kids wanted to play it, but Sega did eventually pull it.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Digital Pictures re released it as their own distributor and
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: rated it M for mature, And that should have that
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: should have also been the end of it, right.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I should have just kind of went away, especially
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: after Sega pulled it, because it got pulled from KB
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Toys and Toys r US because the kids. But like
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: you're saying, it was still around, and then when Sega
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: pulled it was like you couldn't find it anyway, right,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: that should have been the end. And then in twenty fourteen,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Tom Riley, Jim Riley, Jim Jim Riley started a Kickstarter
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: and said we're going to resurrect Night Trap. All we
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: need is three hundred and thirty thousand dollars. People are
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: going to go crazy for this all following Yeah, yeah,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: it's going to be the greatest kickstarter in the history
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: of kickstarters. And it was not the greatest kickstarter ever.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: It was a really, really bad kickstarter. They had a
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: lot of criticism, skeptics, and ultimately only garnered I think
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: about forty thousand dollars when they were after three hundred
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: and thirty.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: And that was in twenty fourteen.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that obviously was the end of night Trap, Right,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: that was not.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: The end of night Trap, the bad game that refused
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: to die.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen, there was a video on YouTube that
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: showed someone playing night Trap on their telephone on their smartphone,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: and I don't know if it was Jim Riley or
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: one of the original devs saw it and was like,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: what is going on.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: You can't play night Trap on a smartphone?
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it was never developed that the technology, and
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: let's that smartphone is playing a CD that I don't
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: know about in the background.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: And they got in touch with the person.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: His name was Tyler Hogle and he was a mobile
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: game programmer who followed was a fan of the original
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: as like in a cult fan way.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: That's a deep cut at that time, a.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Super deep cut, and then basically said I'm going to
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: get a playable version hacked together for smartphones and did
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: it like semi successfully.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So he basically created this just on his own.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: And then once the video surfaced, Yeah, and the original developers,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Jim Riley and some of the others got in touch
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: with them. They said, here, man, here's here's we lost
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: the code years ago. No one has any idea where
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: it is but we do have original thirty five millimeter footage,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: which is timestamps, which is really critical because you have
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: to wait. As we'll talk about how to play it
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: in a second. The timing is everything between the video
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: and the player's controls. So with the timestamps, Tyler Hogle
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: was able to basically create a new modern, twenty fifth
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: anniversary edition that just is actually kind of a as
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: far as night Trap goes, it's the best night Trap
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: that there could possibly be.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the twenty seventeen twenty fifth edsh rated
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: tea for teens.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: This time still preposterous, which.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Is funny, And apparently the you know you said he
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: lost the code, but he was, that's really easy, Like
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: I've got all this footage that's time stamped. Yeah, it's
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: like I can code this thing in my sleep.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Basically he basically did. So there's a twenty fifth edition
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: of night Trap, which apparently Nintendo has a version of oh,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: which is kind of funny because at the time of
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: those Senate hearings in nineteen ninety three ninety four, Nintendo
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: famously said they would never allow night Trap on their platform,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: and they did.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Nintendo is still sort of known as the
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: more family friendly unit.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: I think they even had a bloodless Mortal Kombat if
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: I'm not mistaken, or maybe it was a setting.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Oh I think yes, it rings a bell. Did you
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: see the new Mortal Kombat movie? Did you any I
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: have seen zero Mortal Kombat movies. The new one just
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: came out on hbox. Is it good?
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: That's pretty good? I mean, did you play the game.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: Do you have nostalgia for the game?
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Sure? Yeah, you should watch it.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: Okay, it's good enough.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: It looks good and there's great fights and then some
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: nice Easter eggs and it's like the Mortal kom that
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: movie that should have been because they made one previously.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: That wasn't that great. Yeah, from the nineties.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but this one looks it's pretty cool.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, where you rip.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Out spines and hearts and.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: And the way they do the blood, it looks just
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: like the game.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Is it rated T for teen? It's rated R okay
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: because it's a movie.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: But we mentioned that it wasn't that great of a
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: game because of the gameplay. One of the biggest problems
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: was that you've got all these stories going on in
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: these different windows, but you can only kind of control
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: one at a time, So when you're controlling one scene,
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: other stuff is going on, and we mentioned that makes
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: it impossible to follow the actual story.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: That's a problem, so it suffers there.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: But there's also this thing where you have a red light,
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: a green light, and a yellow light. And when these
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: lights turn on, if it's the right color light, is
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: when you engage the trap button, and that's when the
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: auger will flip out the window.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: But it has to be timed right.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And apparently while you're in these other rooms, if
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: you want to follow the story for a couple of minutes,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: they will change the codes, the color codes, right, So
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: if you're in another room, they'll be like, the code
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: is now green, yes, and you don't know that because
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: you're not watching it. So you go back and you
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: think the code is red, and so you're losing the game.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because you have to have the right security code
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: activated to activate the traps. Because this is the Martin's
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: family's security cameras. The Martin family, the vampires are the
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: ones who created the traps. You're just hacked into it
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: thanks to your pals at SCAT, right. You're basically freelancing
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: for it. But when they change those codes, it doesn't
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: show on screen.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: The character tells another character to go down to the
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: basement and change the code.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: A different screen that you may not be watching, Yeah, in.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: A different room that you can't hear or see or
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: anything like that, because you're in the living room and
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: this conversation is happening in the kitchen.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: Uh huh.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: That is not a thing where it's like, oh, that's
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: a cool little little little feature, you know, gay part
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: of the gameplay that is a maddening ho yes, a bug, right,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: So that's a big part. That's a big problem with
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: it as well. And then also you don't have to
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: get a perfect you don't have to play a perfect
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: game to win. But if any of the augers get
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: any of the characters, you lose. If too many augers
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: start to accumulate, you lose, and you get yelled at
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: by the leader of scat it's kind of funny, he
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: gets really mad at you for screwing up. But to win,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: it's you're basically memorizing where to go win, and it happens,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: especially toward the end, really quick, so like you'll you know,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: set off a trap in one room and you have
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: to go remember what room you're supposed to go to
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: to get the trap set for the next auger, And
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: it's not really fun. It gets really intense towards the end,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: but not necessarily fun.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, hats off to the grabster because he
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: actually played this thing and tried to play it, which
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: was more than I was willing to do.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: But I did watch the walkthroughs.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Did you see the night Trap video or the lip
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: sync video?
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: I did not.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: There's actually a theme song night Trap, look Out behind
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: You or something like that that one of the characters
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: does an air guitar tennis recket lip sync too wow
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: dancing while the other characters have to watch and pretend
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: like they're not mortified with embarrassment at seeing this. It's
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: really something.
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: Oh man.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: I kept waiting in the documentary for a big reveal
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: that like George Cline was one of the augurs or something,
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: but Dana Plato was about as you know, yeah, a
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: list as it got at the time, which was probably
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: C list at the time.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you got anything else?
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: I got nothing else? Night Trap, go seek it.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Out, night Trap, look Out behind You.
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: If you want to know more about Night Trip. You
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: don't even have to play. You can just go on
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: YouTube and watch basically the movie, and even then it's
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: still generally incoherent. But since I said it's still generally incoherent,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: it's time for listener man.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna call this speed reading trauma. Hey, guys, I
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: should start with the obligatory long time, first time, finally
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: reason to email, and here I am so hello. I
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: didn't think that a short stuff on speed reading, of
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: all things, would trigger my first email, but here we go.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: Halfway through the show, I was flooded with a vivid
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: memory of speed reading in my elementary school gifted class.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Speaking of other scams, this was in the early nineties.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: My teacher would drag a transparency with a printed passage, Oh,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: I kind of remember this across an overhead projector at
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: increasing speeds, and after each pass we would take a
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: comprehension test.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: I had no idea that this was a scam.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: I just thought it was a standard part of the
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: curriculum that I wasn't very good at, and I felt
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: terrible about it. Then again, in my Louisiana public school curriculum,
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: we also had to get a hunting license and shoot
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: clay pigeons as part of Louisiana history in middle school.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: I grew up shooting clay pigeons.
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: Really for school. No, okay, I would like to try.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: That is cool.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: Skeet shooting.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's another way to put it.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: Looks like fun. Just stand behind.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: That's the rule, right basically anyway, Thanks so much for
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: the entertainment and education edutainment, especially this past year. I've
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: often had you in my ear while I work from
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: home to feel a little less solitary. That is from
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: Kate Ellis Jensen in Boulder, Colorado.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Kate, that was a good email. Very
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: sorry to set off the trauma, but I'm glad that
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: it's passed. I'm presuming it passed.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I kind of remember that happening, but I certainly
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: was not in a gifted class.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like a very fun procedure. It kind
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: of sounds like Ray Finds revealing himself to Philip Seymour
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Hoffman and Red Dragon. Oh spoiler, so you see.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know I'm.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Talking about Sure, we've talked about that recently.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the wheelchair and fire scene.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: This rule hilarious but also really funny. If you stop
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: and think about it. Sure, that movie just danced on
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: the line and sometimes it went over. Agreed. Well, if
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: you want to know more about Red Dragon, Oh wait,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: I already said that stuff. If you want to get
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: in touch with the like Kate did, then you can
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: email us like Kate did at Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.