Latest / Ridiculous History / Ridiculous Video Game Tie-ins, Part Two: The Olympics and the Great Game of Chex Quest

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Ridiculous Video Game Tie-ins, Part Two: The Olympics and the Great Game of Chex Quest · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's have a shout out for super
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: producer mister Max Williams.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Why why Sorry, a little pure moods for you there.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Did you guys enjoy this two game boys right there?
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  Speaker 1: Yes? Yes, especially the Trust game Boys of agreeing to
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: that despite die hearing it.
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: I have big bullet. That's mister Noel Brown, the one
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: in online dole. How you feeling, were you guys?
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  Speaker 2: Og game boys as owned original black and white uh
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: eight bit game boys.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: I was a little too young to get those weren't
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: actually being sold by the time. But my first game
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Boy was given to me by a friend of my mother's,
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: which was black and white.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I created and won several game Boy Tetris
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: competitions I was.
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  Speaker 4: Creating with it. Yes, how many.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know the formal title that they have, but
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: like people who've bet in Tetris because it's like one
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  Speaker 3: of the highest.
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I've never actually beat it. Very few people have.
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  Speaker 3: I think the titles kind of dropped screen. There is
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: a beating of the yeah you have to beat the
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: last level. The last real level is incredibly hard. Were
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: you so fast? Well, no, you can't see what what
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  Speaker 3: titles are down. You can't see what title is coming down.
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  Speaker 3: You can only see the next tile.
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  Speaker 1: Thirteen year old recently made World News by hidiot Oh. Also, folks,
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  Speaker 1: this part two of the Golden Ages. We love this
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  Speaker 1: video game tie in. We're so excited. We've had such
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  Speaker 1: a great time with part one. We hope you enjoy
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: it too. With the game boy question, I remember one
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: game I got super into was a Bugs Bunny video
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  Speaker 1: game of puzzle solving and getting carrots. Yes, I assume
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Tetris never ended, but I had no idea how deep
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the Bugs Bunny game went.
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  Speaker 4: It just went on.
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  Speaker 2: I do remember that one. I had an original game Boy.
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  Speaker 2: It was probably late in that game. It was so
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  Speaker 2: such a popular device that they sold it and without
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: making a new next gen version for many years. I
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: was born in nineteen eighty three, really quickly, though. There
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: are a couple of documentaries about Tetris. One covering the
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: stuff that you guys are probably talking about is Ecstasy
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  Speaker 2: of Order The Tetris Masters, which you can watch in
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  Speaker 2: its entirety on YouTube. And then there actually recently was
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: a Tetris movie on Apple TV that's just called Tetris
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  Speaker 2: that is a like dramatized version of the Tetras story.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: We're not really talking about Tetris today, guys, but that
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  Speaker 2: is such a perfect example of elegant design meets.
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  Speaker 4: Escalatingly difficult gameplay.
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  Speaker 2: It can get crazy if you stay the course, but
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  Speaker 2: for a casual player, fun as hell's a while away the.
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  Speaker 1: Time, and the music is quite sophisticated. I love the music.
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  Speaker 1: I still play it when I'm writing stuff.
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  Speaker 2: It gets stuck in my head out of the clear
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  Speaker 2: blue sky sometimes, guys.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the name of that game I mentioned earlier, by
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  Speaker 1: the way, is Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle. The Bugs Bunny
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  Speaker 1: Crazy Castle. I definitely played that one. It was so cool.
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  Speaker 2: It's like a detective almost right, isn't He has like
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  Speaker 2: a magnifying It's all coming back.
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  Speaker 1: It's a little flashes side scroller. But weirdly enough, the
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  Speaker 1: thing that bugged me about this and a lot of
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  Speaker 1: other players as well, maybe ridiculous historians amongst us, Bugs
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  Speaker 1: Bunny in that game weirdly does not have the ability
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  Speaker 1: to jump despite being a bunny, so you can just
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  Speaker 1: walk around and you have to find boxing club. Anyway,
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  Speaker 1: as matter, we're talking about video game tie ins. Technically
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: that is a tie in because bugs Bunny was a
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  Speaker 1: pre existing character right from the world of animation.
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  Speaker 4: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: But we are going to we mentioned a very sad
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  Speaker 1: story from Georgia. We are also going to maybe begin
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  Speaker 1: today's episode with another strange story from Georgia. Nineteen ninety six. Atlanta,
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  Speaker 1: Georgia plays host to the Olympics. The as our power,
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  Speaker 1: Lauren would say, the actual facts Olympics and every town
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  Speaker 1: that has the Olympics come through, they spend billions of
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  Speaker 1: dollars on all sorts of things. And Atlanta tried to
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  Speaker 1: make a mascot, I'll say, tried.
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  Speaker 4: Do you remember the mascot.
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  Speaker 2: I've never been a mascot. I've never tried to create
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  Speaker 2: a mascot. You know, people give designers sometimes like oh,
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  Speaker 2: it's so easy, said.
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  Speaker 4: Enough boy, howdy is it not?
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  Speaker 2: It requires once again, a level of precision, elegance and
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  Speaker 2: simplicity that requires a lot of thinking, a lot of
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  Speaker 2: very careful planning. And uh boy, did they bork this one.
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  Speaker 2: And you know whoever designed that monstrosity is he got
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  Speaker 2: paid a mint.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it may have even been a thing. That
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  Speaker 1: creator is John Ryan, and it may have been a
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  Speaker 1: thing where it may have been a thing where uh,
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  Speaker 1: the producers or the other I guess we call them
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  Speaker 1: stakeholders just kept making requests.
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  Speaker 4: So it may not.
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  Speaker 2: Have been his visual vision by committee. Another ship of
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  Speaker 2: thesis kind of situation. Right, but how how should we?
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  Speaker 4: Uh?
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  Speaker 2: And this is this is going to get to a
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  Speaker 2: video game because this you know, the Olympics are huge,
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  Speaker 2: it's a big deal.
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  Speaker 4: What country hosts them?
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  Speaker 2: I believe we're looking at Paris this year, right, isn't
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  Speaker 2: that what's happening? I think we're in Paris. They have
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  Speaker 2: some very unique mascots them. Well, we're gonna get to
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  Speaker 2: that because this is a difficult job. It's sort of
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  Speaker 2: a fool's errand in many ways because you're you're opening
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  Speaker 2: yourself up to criticism no matter what the end result.
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  Speaker 1: Is and no matter what you come up with. It's
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  Speaker 1: kind of a it's a kobyashi maru. Right, it's an
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  Speaker 1: unwinnable situation. You're welcome, thank.
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  Speaker 3: You, God jump and God jump in.
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  Speaker 5: Uh.
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  Speaker 3: I was they had I guess HBO East too, which
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  Speaker 3: is a channel I get now they play commercial free
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  Speaker 3: Star Trek movie.
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  Speaker 4: You get like cable type TV Max. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I for sports, you still have to do well, objected.
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  Speaker 4: Stream Okay, I always forget about the need for sports.
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  Speaker 3: They were playing all last Friday the original series Star
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: Trek movies. So I watched Wrath of Khan in the Morning,
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: which starts off with Kobyashi Maru. Ki's the alley in
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: the Kobyashi Maru. I've got how amazing she is in
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  Speaker 3: that movie, and how which is shame that they screw
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  Speaker 3: that one up. And I've got how dark that movie is.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: It is very incredibly dark. But you said, Kobe Asha Maru,
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  Speaker 3: you can't say a Star Trek with me around, and Knox.
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  Speaker 2: You're like Beetlejuice bro we gotta really stop staying Star Trek.
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  Speaker 1: Starrim Or Jonathan Strickland. That's our one of three mentions
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  Speaker 1: before he shows up, just to reeling back.
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  Speaker 2: In really quickly, to double back a wepins that originally
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  Speaker 2: Kobe Ashamru referring to an unwinnable situation, right.
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  Speaker 1: Like, and we see this in the culmination of a
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  Speaker 1: lot of big things. You could argue that the very
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: last Star Wars film was kind of doomed from the
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  Speaker 1: start because how could you conclude a story in a
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  Speaker 1: way that would satisfy everybody.
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  Speaker 4: That's kind of, you know.
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  Speaker 1: That's similar to what people were running into with these
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  Speaker 1: Olympic mascots Atlanta magazines. Max Blow has a great explanation
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  Speaker 1: of this and a great name, Max Blough. Give me
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  Speaker 1: a break.
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  Speaker 2: What sorry, Max Williams, But Max Blow, it's got you beat.
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  Speaker 2: By the way, Ben, there were four bugs Bunny Crazy
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  Speaker 2: Castle games.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: Didn't they have different cartoon characters as well?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. But Max Blow does
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  Speaker 2: indeed have this to say. It would be hard to
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  Speaker 2: overstate how shocking it was when Atlanta was awarded the
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  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six Summer Olympic Games Atlanta over Toronto, Athens Melbourne.
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  Speaker 2: The news, which came on a Tuesday in September nineteen ninety,
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  Speaker 2: sent the city into a frenzy dare we say, a
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  Speaker 2: tizzy of celebration. But for Billy Payne, who'd run the
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  Speaker 2: three year campaign that led to the announcement, it was
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  Speaker 2: just the beginning. Now came the hard part, finding corporate sponsors,
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  Speaker 2: building an eighty five thousand seeds stadium, delegating the one
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  Speaker 2: thousand and one tasks to ready the city for the
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  Speaker 2: world stage. Far down on his list, designing a mascot
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  Speaker 2: in time for the closing ceremonies of the Barcelona Games
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  Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety two, when the Olympic torch would be
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  Speaker 2: passed to Atlanta, Paying quickly appointed Hey Mascot Committee, which
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  Speaker 2: created design guidelines and canvassed for submissions. Ten companies proposed
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  Speaker 2: to mascot. One was chosen. The winner would live an
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  Speaker 2: Olympic infamy.
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  Speaker 1: And objectively we can say we're kind of generous with
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  Speaker 1: the title winner there, at least that's what the public thought.
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  Speaker 1: Similar to Grimace is he is somewhat a character that
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  Speaker 1: defies explanation. He's got running shoes, he's got Olympic rings
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  Speaker 1: that incorporate into his appearance, and he has a torch
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  Speaker 1: that emanates stars.
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  Speaker 4: I'm looking at him now.
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  Speaker 2: He looks like the kind of mascot that you'd see
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  Speaker 2: for like a public utility or something you know, like
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  Speaker 2: like the water department. He's like an anthropomorphic water droplet
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  Speaker 2: perhaps or a unit of natural gas. He does have
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  Speaker 2: these big, oversized shoes he's got it's a very of
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  Speaker 2: its era nineties cartoon style. You know, it's something I
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  Speaker 2: can imagine seeing on Fox Kids, you know.
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  Speaker 4: On Saturday morning.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know, I can't help but also think that
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  Speaker 2: he kind of looks like an anthropomorphized sperm, that is
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  Speaker 2: something that always.
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  Speaker 4: Shaped kind of blob character, you know. And we know
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  Speaker 4: that his original name is what is it with a Z?
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  Speaker 4: And no one knows, sir, No one knows. No one knows.
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  Speaker 1: They if you see the original design, it's even stranger
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  Speaker 1: for a couple of different aesthetic reasons. But in defense
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  Speaker 1: of the creators, they had to make something that conformed
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  Speaker 1: to the request of the Atlanta committee for the Olympic Games.
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  Speaker 1: So what we see here is the result of someone
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  Speaker 1: trying to satisfy a committee's, perhaps the times contradictory request.
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  Speaker 1: For a long long time, up until twenty twenty four,
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  Speaker 1: is he was considered the worst mascot of his type
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  Speaker 1: or of its type. And now to your earlier point
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  Speaker 1: about the Paris Olympics, they have had the ignomonious torch
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  Speaker 1: of worst mascot passed to them. Let's get a look
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  Speaker 1: at the Paris twenty twenty four mascots. Lest we be
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  Speaker 1: seen as just dunking on our own hometown guy.
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  Speaker 5: Is He?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to see it too, because I'm looking
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  Speaker 2: at an article on Nbcolympics dot com that's just a
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: look through his Olympic mascots over the years, and a
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  Speaker 2: lot of them aren't great.
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  Speaker 4: I'm not gonna lie. It's committee. Yeah, it is. It
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  Speaker 4: is committee.
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  Speaker 2: But I'm also like kind of like, what's the big deal,
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  Speaker 2: Like sort of like who cares?
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  Speaker 4: You know. It's not like something that people are gonna remember.
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  Speaker 4: And honestly, the ones they remember are the bad ones.
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  Speaker 3: Is he.
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  Speaker 2: Merch is kind of sought after. They're sort of hard
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  Speaker 2: to find. So I'm looking at do you tell about
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  Speaker 2: the Paris one? Though I'm looking at them, I'm looking
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  Speaker 2: at it cold.
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  Speaker 4: I'm looking at the twenty twenty four or Olympic.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Mascots for the Olympic Paralympic Games. They're two anthropomorphic hats,
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  Speaker 1: the Napoleon hats the Phrygian hats, like the triangular thing
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  Speaker 1: that Napoleon would wear. That's how most Americans will remember it.
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  Speaker 1: And they've got the the the horizontal points of the
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  Speaker 1: hats are these little fingerless arms, and then they have
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  Speaker 1: really skinny legs. That go up into the aperture of
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  Speaker 1: the hat.
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  Speaker 2: Interestingly, though, I'm looking at this one image of them,
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  Speaker 2: and maybe this is a special version or something, but
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  Speaker 2: I think it's not, you know how, you know, and
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: there are prosthetics that can be attached to people who
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: are missing legs to allow them to run in high
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  Speaker 2: impact situations. It's like they've got they've got some give
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: to them. They almost look like a ski in a way,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: like a bent kind of like the sum of spring
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  Speaker 2: loaded or bring me kind of the version of his
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: mascot that I'm seeing as as that for on one leg.
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  Speaker 2: So that's kind of cool in a way, sort of
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: an effort towards inclusivity. I think this French mascot is dope.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie. I think it's cool.
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  Speaker 1: That's the Paralympic win. Oh and let me correct correct
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  Speaker 1: this real quick. Here the Phrygian cap where the Liberty
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  Speaker 1: cap is not as fancy as Napoleon's. It looks it's
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  Speaker 1: definitely a cap. It looks almost like a rap with
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  Speaker 1: some extra earflaps hanging down.
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  Speaker 2: I see, Ben, there is the Paralympics, and there are
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  Speaker 2: different versions of this mascot.
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  Speaker 4: So all this.
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  Speaker 2: I think this is a very valid discussion and of itself.
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  Speaker 2: But all this to get to is he was kind
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  Speaker 2: of mocked a little bit and panned at the time,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: but he did somehow, you know, because he was part
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  Speaker 2: of the conversation get the kind of slapped together video
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  Speaker 2: game treatment.
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  Speaker 4: I did not know this.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they also, Oh nice, we get to reference a guy,
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  Speaker 1: you know, Thomas Wheatley, local reporter who was writing for
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Axios Atlanta, and he says, the the Olympic Committee left
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: no stone unturned in licensing this mascot Izzy in all
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: kinds of merch, refrigerator, magnets, t shirts, hats, caps, you
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: name it, and of course video games. This is where
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: we introduce our first game for this episode, Isy's Quest
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  Speaker 1: for the Olympic Rings. That sounds like it makes sense.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: You know, it's an Olympic mascot. You gotta collect coins
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: and try to get the Olympic Rings.
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  Speaker 2: I bet you. This is too obscurity even no comes
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: right up. Holy crap. It was on Sega Genesis. It
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: was this is a next gen game. This is like,
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, relatively speaking next gen to a
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: lot of the ones that were talking about in episode one,
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: which were all kind of early home console type games,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: which honestly they were a next gen of their own
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: in their own right, because Atari was kind of the first.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: So even regular nes had more bit depth I believe
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: than an Atari system, Isn't that right, Max?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so the Atari twenty six hundred would have been
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: the one on the same tier as.
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  Speaker 4: The regular nes.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, as regular nis actually correct, regular nsa because the first,
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: the most famous Atari was like pre Nintendo.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Right right, and that was you that that was the
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: thing that walked, so other gaming could run well.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: And that just goes to show too how the difference
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: between Atari and Nintendo they were basically dealing with very
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: similar hardware in terms of power. It really showed how
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: important the game design was. And Nintendo really has always
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: made their bank on the fact that they're the really
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: good to designing games. Because even today, the the you know,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: the most powerful Nintendo system you get pales in comparison
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: to you know what other companies like PlayStation and Xbox.
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: Do, and that's literally by design.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: And the backtrack, I mean, I met the Atari fifty
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  Speaker 3: six twentyix hundreds are very famous one the nes and
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: the twenty are on the same.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Right, So the twenty six hundred is the one people
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: think of with like the ET game, that's like the
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: early really craphole, the looking one. So even the regular
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: NES was a next gen from that. Sorry getting caught
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: up in this. So Izzy's a Quest for the Olympic
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Rings would have been a next gen to that because
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: SNS was sixteen bit if I'm not mistaken, So that
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: was a big old jump. And then you had your
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Sega Genesis as well. I have zero recollection of this.
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: Game, you guys, Well, it was sort of a it
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: was sort of ticking a box for some people.
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: We do know.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: It was not super in depth like Bug but Bugs
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Buddy's Crazy Castle. You can complete it in about an hour,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: not even a crazy difficult speed run. And then the
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: lead animator of the game, William Anderson, said, yet, the
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Olympic officials had just a couple of demands, can't change
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the character design, makes sense. Have the Olympics as a theme,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: of course, and they said we'd prefer no violence. And
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: when these developers got to work, they said it was
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: one of their best experiences to date. One William Anderson,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: who is now the owner of Awaken Games, was speaking
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: to Thomas Wheatley, and he said, look, we're a small
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: group of developers. We're really dedicated to not only making
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: the best games, but having fun while doing it. So
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: you can get a copy of this game for Super
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Nintendo for fifty to one hundred and fifty dollars, or
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: if for some reason you need a price break, you
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: can get a box of six of them, six copies
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: of the game for six hundred bucks like today. At
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the time of the conversation with Axios, Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, interesting.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: I did find a page on Internet archive from Game
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Pro issues sixty nine April nineteen ninety five. It had
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: this to sid this is back. You know, reviewers were
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: a lot less mean back in the day. I'm realizing,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: at least for games and stuff, it was much more
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: felt like a promotional device than it was a purely.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: We're gonna shred your shitty game.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: By the nineteen ninety six summer games seem far off,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: but not for Izzy, as this reads like a press release.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: As the Olympic mascot, he must search the torch world
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: to collect five Olympic rings that keep the torch lit.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: In this ten level quest, Izzy morphs into eight sporting
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: characters collecting power ups and loads of bonuses. Nice backgrounds
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: bring colorful detail to Izzy's world, but it's Izzy himself
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: who stimulates the game visually. His numerous and determined expressions
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: make him an easy to like character. The sound effects
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: are enjoyable too, with great splats, smashes and blasting trumpets,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: and then it refers to a smurfy soundtrack.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: And this brings up an interesting point because my question
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: is would people have been so what they have dunked on?
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Is he so hard if he had just started as
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a video game character?
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: I think not.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I think saying here's a fun game about the Olympics.
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: Well, but Ben I was. I've been meaning to bring
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: this up.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: It's been kind of nagging at me, this whole idea
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: of First of all, I completely disagree the French. I
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: think the French hat guys are cool. The idea that
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: they're somehow worse than is He, I think is absurd.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: But what how does one rank a freaking anthropomorphic cartoon
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: mascot in terms of better or worse? Is it how
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: well they represent the country? Is it how like cute
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: they are? Like?
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: What are what are the metrics for this completely subjective.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: It's water cooler opinion thing, you know, like it's it's
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: one of when I say water cooler opinion, it's one
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: of those things like the BS fashion articles you read
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: where people just want to kind of participate socially by
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: either having a hot take or agree with a thing
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: that other people are talking about. Uh, and we see
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: we also see again the power of nostalgia. I think
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: it's quite possible that it will become a cool thing
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: to play this game in the near future because the
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Olympics are back on again and people are older now
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: and they're having those fond memories. It's, you know, another
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: thing that reminds us of of course, is our next
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: creature on the list or next game? I should say
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: checks quest Quest quest quest.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: Literally the motivation for this entire episode absolutely another one
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: that I absolutely unfamiliar with.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: So we all know what checks cereal was. Is it's
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: still a thing. It's check No checks was a serial?
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Right or was checks? What am I thinking of?
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: It's a serial?
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: But then there's uh checks mix well, of course check
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: trail mixed with check checks mixed.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Though, was one of these things that was just kind
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: of created organically by humans in the wild and then
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: repurposed and and did by Checks you know what I mean,
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: where it's like people were making it themselves, mixing it
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: with all kinds of other little little bits and snacky bobs,
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: and putting some seasoning in there, a little what is
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: it like Old Bay seasoning or some kind of you know,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: kind of umami bit of seasoning.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: And then Checks decide, hey.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Wait a minute, you guys do we're gonna We're gonna
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: do this ourselves and call it something and act like
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: we invented it.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: So chex Mix was huge. Oh yeah, chexs Mix is
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: still a giant.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: You know. It Also is a giant in the world
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: of gaming is the Doom franchise, And in twenty twenty
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: five they're going to have a prequel to the original Doom.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: The trailer released this week yea or this week had
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: ed this game first off is pretty good because it
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: is kind of like to our earlier point about Skins,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: it is a modification of a pre existing game that
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: was just built to be a game. Doom, one of
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the most famous first person shooters of all time. Go
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: to Daniel Horowitz and his article chexs Quest a twenty
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: years later, retrospective on a cereal based game. We see
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: that they took this idea and they ran with it,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: and they did something that you see. To me, it's
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: part of what defines really good comedy. They play it
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: with a straight face. Chex's quest is the when you
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: are the player, the stakes are supposed to be on
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the level of playing Doom.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: You know what i mean.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: You gotta hunt the Flemoids I'm sorry, or the Chechs
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Warrior the guides.
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Isn't that funny though, because there's nothing that will dry
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: your mouth out and gets your real flemy, like eating
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: a big old mouthful of checks mix.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: It's like this gets a breakfast cereal or racist.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Play the high, high fiber version of them.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: This was aimed at This was nineteen ninety six, so
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the same year as the Olympics in Atlanta. It was
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: aimed at children who were at least six.
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: To nine years old.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: And the kind of modification this is is what we
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: call a total conversion. They took a lot of the
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: violence out of Doom, or a lot of the the
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: egregious blood right, and they I gotta tell you, the
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: gameplay is pretty much the same as do.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: It's exactly the same. The only difference is you're not
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: killing the Flemoys. The Flemoids are immune from any type
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: of damage. You're teleporting them back to their dimension, so
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: when you shoot them, it's sort of like Splatoon.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: If anyone's familiar with the the Nintendo or I guess
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: it's on Switch game Splatoon, it is a first person
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: shooter where you don't kill anybody, you just blast them
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: with ink. It's like paintball. So it's a way of
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: having the mechanics of a murder game. Sands the murder
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: is that kind of the idem x exactly. That's one
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: hundred because, as Ben said, it is. My dad fought
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: it hilarious the time, and I was too young to
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: understand what Doom was. He's like, this is literally Doom
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: for kids.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got and the power ups change the weapons
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: and ammunition shape to all be serial themed and just
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: like just like any other first person shooter, you win
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the game by beating the final boss at the last level.
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: And I think it's.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Also a little bit easier than Doom because you want
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: people to associate the cereal with fun. Alex Walker has
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: a great short history. Excuse me, short official history of
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Chech's Quest, which talks about how brilliant it was for
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: the cereal manufacturers to put a video game in your
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: boxes cereal as a prize. I think that's the really
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: brilliant thing, because one of the best parts of children's
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: cereal is, of course the prizes you get. And I
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: got to say furthermore, in recent decades, they've really started
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: skimping on the prizes. You guys, notice that I'm an adult,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: like I can vote.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: That's scary skipping on the prizes and the cereal.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: And yeah, if I'm not mistaken, I think it's become
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: a little less popular to put them in the cereal
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: at all because of like potential choking hazards. And so
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: you get some kind of coupon that you mail in
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: to get the prize after the fact, which just ain't
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: cutting that.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Right exactly, because that's not the kind of delayed gratification
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: kids are overall into. Originally, the game was supposed to
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: be in a cornfield and you had a flashlight. The
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: idea was you would make an educational tool in the
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: form of a video game, similar to like Math Blaster
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: or the Oregon Trail. But the team behind checks Quest
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: said let's if we're doing a video game, let's do
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: an actual video game. Let's look around at other video
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: games and see what's taking off, what's already popular, and
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: let's try to do that. And it looked around and
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the most popular one they found was Doom.
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: At least.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: This wasn't on a console rigially either, I think it
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: was on It was on personal computers. And then they said, okay,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: we'll make a first person shooter.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: We'll make Doom.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: But checks and then they said, oh, hang on, it's
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: kind of tough to make a video game in six months.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's super hard. And that's the thing with a
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: lot of these product tie in games is that they're
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: sort of an afterthought and that they're you know, absolutely rushed,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: and that is evident in the final product because sometimes,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: to your point, bent, either they're egregiously difficult and look
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: like crap, or they look good but are really really
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: really short. Games were expensive back then, just like VHS
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: tapes were expensive, which is why there was such a
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: robust rental market. So you certainly wouldn't be quite as
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: letdown if you rented the game and realized you could
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: beat it in twenty minutes, but if you shelled out
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: the that could be cause for a meltdown.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, And this is we have to remember before the
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: rise of the video game online review industry on YouTube
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: and stuff, so you couldn't act. It was much more
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: difficult to just hop on a website and watch someone
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: play the game and decide whether or not it was
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: a buy or a rental. And also these guys they
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: had another problem. They had to get a co sign
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: from the FDA, one of the most famous bureaucracies in
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: the country, and the FDA needed to sign off on
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: checks shipping all these cd ROMs, along with food people
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: would actually consume. To your earlier point, they had to
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: adhere to the demands of the FDA, which meant they
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: had to redesign weapons so they looked as non weapony
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: as possible, non descript, and then they had to really
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: dumb down the sound. It was a huge gamble for
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: General Mills, but it was also a massive success, so
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: much so that just one year later they released the sequel,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: checks Quest. Two Flemoids take Chextropolis.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I gotta jump in the emergency like you're out
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: of AMMO weapon. You get in the game.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: Is a spoon.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, as your melee emergency weapon is bro what better
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: way is there to defeat Cereal?
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: You know, well, you're you're helping them. Sorry, you're helping
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: the Cereal. I know, I get it, I get it.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: I get it.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: You're you're you're shoveling snot with a spoon.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Basically, it's weird though, the snot thing, because another thing
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: that makes you real snotty is milk. You know, milk
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: gets you real. The whole thing is very strange. A
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: couple opportunities that they may have squandered. I haven't played
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: the game, so I can't say. And again, it would
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: have been cool if they had allowed violence. Then you
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: could have officially been a serial killer. But instead you're
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: not killing the Cereal, you're killing the phlem And when
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: I was in middle school, I had a very brief
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: attempt at trying to write some sketch comedy with a
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: few friends, and I came up with a really great
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: step that had zero follow through. It was a parody
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: of Beverly Hills nine o two one oh called General
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Mills nine oh two one oh, and it would just
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: be about you know, cereal drama. I don't know whatever
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: issues that cereal answer for morphive cereal? Would it be
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: between the different imprints of the different types of cereal
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: that were on General Mills tbd? But you know you
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: can't argue with the alliterative connection between Beverly Hills nine
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: oh two one oh and General Mills nine oh two.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: I yield my time, well done, and people, just like
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: you're saying, people know when there's a good idea, you remember,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: you want to run with it. General Mills is in
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: this crazy serial video game casino and they keep winning.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: So after they released chex Quest two and ninety seven,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: they released che Quest three in two thousand and eight,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: and get this, they re released it in twenty twenty.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Checks Quest HD.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. They needed they needed more resolution for
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: that checks You know, they had.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: To pretty several bust universe now. There's multiple playable characters now,
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: and so a lot of lore. It's a legendary game. Truthfully,
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: it is a legendary. It is very short. It is
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: about thirty minutes to play the entire thing.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I don't have a problem with short games, no, no, no, no,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I don't have a problem with them unless I'm paying
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: the same price for them that I'm paying for you know,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: forty hour RPG, you know.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: And that's the best thing about chex Quest as it
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: never costs money.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Well, so it was always a serial tie in. It
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: was it was the prize. Yeah, you got it in
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: the box.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: That's sorry you said that. I'm sorry.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: I didn't fully understand the ramifications of that is very
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: forward thinking, you know, a digital prize, uh in the nineties,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: how about that.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just looking to confirm something. Yep, chex Quest
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: HD on Steam. It is a robust game with multiplayer features,
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: and everything is also free.
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: Ah, it's always free.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Which makes it the best, the best deal out of
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: the four because the other ones are free if you
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: purchase a box of cereal. So there is still technically prizing.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: We can't even get to stuff like, Oh, Ronald McDonald
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: McDonald's treasure Land Adventure. That's a weird tie in. There's
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: a ton of Ronald McDonald's games. There's Donald Land in
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight. It's a platformer that just came out
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: in Japan, where, weirdly enough, they call him Donald McDonald.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: I was about to say Donald Land. I don't understand. Okay,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: that makes sense. He's Donald McDonald.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: I kind of like it. I like the internal. I
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: like how they added an extra d.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: It does add an extra layer of absurdity to it,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: doesn't it. You know, it's sort of like having two
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: first names, right, you know, you're like the first name
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: and then a last name that's also a first name,
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Gin published a nineteen ninety two game called
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: MC Kids, which is sort of an also ran.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: That looks one that one looks like incredibly lying by
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: the way, that looks like the worst one.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: And then well we've got McDonald lang Global Gladiators another
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: spin off.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: To backtrack, though, ben, I would assume that would be
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: pronounced mckids.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but they've got the dots. They've got the initials
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: M dot C dot kids.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: So there's MC kids, but it's definitely MC kids.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: But what is so what if it's dots, they're supposed
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: to stand for something? What what do they stand for?
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: Massively cool? Yeah?
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: I think it actually somewhere I read it stood for
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: Mick and mac and the thing afterwards said this obviously
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: makes no sense because the acronym is uh EMC, but
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: they didn't think it out too far. Basically is what
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: a lot of people said.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: It seems so, yeah, what are we gonna play Grimace's Birthday?
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: Oh boy?
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: I love all the freaky, creepy pasta memes that were
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: spawned from the whole Grimace Shake thing with people like
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: just consuming the Grimace Shake and then immediately descending into
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: some sort of murderous David Lynch nightmare hellscape.
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: I thought that was just absolutely peak Internet of Today,
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: really really good stuff.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: And then there is, of course McDonald's treasure Land Adventure.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: There's so many that there's so many different McDonald's tie
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: in games that we could even do another episode on those,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: But for now, all you need to know is that
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Treasure Land Adventure has its own kind of fantasy lore.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Ronald McDonald is in a magic forest one day, or
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the Magical Forest, and he sees a piece of paper
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: under a tree. He finds it's part of a treasure map,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: and he doesn't know where the rest of the pieces
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: of the treasure map are. But the other pieces of
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: the map, it turns out, are in the hands of
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: some dangerous bad guys. So you play as Ronald McDonald
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: on a treasure hunt to find the pieces of the
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: map that will lead you to the treasure fun.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, so sort of an RPG, a very light RPG
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: kind of yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay. Do you guys remember
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Chester Cheetah Too Cool to Fool?
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, did we reference in episode one? Don't think we.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: Got to let's spot in Chester Cheatah of the same
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: air Chester Cheetah you got his own video game two
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: that apparently had a really interesting glitch in the gravity
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: of it that would cause him to like be propelled
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: into the air like massively accelerating rates.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: I found a cool Reddit fred with a discussion on
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: the Chester Cheetah game. Then they described the glitch as such,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: by some glitch of the game physics, Chester was propelled
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: very high into the air. Of course, once you launch
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: anything into the air, it eventually slows down and then
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: starts falling, another side effect of gravity. The farther you fall,
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: the faster you fall. The game is probably doing something
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: like this. Trouble is, Chester might be falling so fast
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: always passes right through the area where the game checks
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: whether he's on the ground. So one frame he's too
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: far above the ground, I eat out on the ground.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Next frame he's too far below the ground. I eat
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: out on the ground, so the game just lets him
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: fall forever.
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: So yeah, that's a fun one.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's so many others that were like barely
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: we could maybe just laundry list some of these. Pepsi
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Man Japan loves a lot of these tie in games.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Pepsi Man is game where you play a pepsi themed superhero.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: You're delivering pepsi to people. And then on the Chester
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Cheetah stuff.
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: Two, we's got two games. There's Wild Wild Pest, There's
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Too Cool to Fool and Too Cool to Fool. I
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: didn't know this doesn't have any actual Cheetos products appearing
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: in there.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Frankly, that's smart because Chester is synonymous with Cheetos.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: You don't even need them. All you gotta do is
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: remind people of Chester. Cheetos is in his name.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: You know, guys, remember the golden era of cartoon advertisements
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: for cigarettes. How come they never got a game? How
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: come Joe Camill never got a game? I guess that
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: kind of ended before these video game tie in things
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: really became a thing.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think because there was a video game crash
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty three for the industry. So if they
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: were making moves to do something like that, you know,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: would work a boozer beer based game, Yeah, defleeing work.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: We talked about some of those, we didn't get to
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: some of the most terrible, Like movie tie ins often
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: have a bad reputation. We mentioned nineteen eighty two et.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: But the New Suicide Squad was apparently awful, as was
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: a Ghostbusters fight Club.
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: There's a fight Club video game? No, see, that's how
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: bad it was, was there really? Yeah? Yeah?
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: It was released five years after the movie. Critics and
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: fans like didn't dig it whatsoever. It's weirdly fred Durst
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: shows up in it.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Oh Man speaking of viby, nostalgia based and also potentially
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: creepy things, and that Fred Durst shows up in I
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: made a video of this for our other show stuff
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: they don't want you to know, but highly recommend a
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: film that I've already seen three times in theaters called
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: I Saw the TV Glow.
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: That is the.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: Most wonderful, affecting, immersive kind of send up of nostalgia
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: pop culture stuff. And one thing we mentioned on these
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: episodes is the way you remember things looking a certain
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: way that you were important to you as a child,
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: because you're remembering them through the lens of the way
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: it affected you emotionally as a child. But then you
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: look at them again as an adult and you're like, wow,
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: this looks like trash. And that's true of TV shows,
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: that's true of movies, that's definitely true of video games,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: probably more specifically, because they just looked like crap and
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: you had to kind of fill in the blanks, you know.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: And I remember seeing turbographics sixteen Bonx Adventures for the
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: first time when I was like, you know, maybe twelve
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: something like that, and I thought it was the most magical,
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: wonderful thing I've ever seen.
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: Looked like playing a cartoon.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: Go back to it now, glitchy and blocky and not
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: smooth or cool looking at all. But anyway, sorry, that's
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: my rants about nostalgia, but check out, I saw the
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: TV glow. As far as other movie tie ins, Disney
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: was very infamous for putting them out and having them
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: be egregiously difficult. There was The Lion King and Aladdin,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: both of which I actually owned on Sega Genesis, but
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: the Lion King notoriously incredibly hard.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: And Aladdin was the thing that answered the question what
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: if we could make Prince of Persia, but bad, ye
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. And then we also see a
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: problem is with a lot of the film tie in. Specifically,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: they're working with the hectic production of a film schedule
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: right where they want it to be, ideally around the debut.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Terrible Catwoman movie has its own video game. The I
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: would also notice there is a bad street Fighter game.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: It is street Fighter the movie the game, and it
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: is so much worse. Yeah yeah, Max. They have motions
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: are cracked. It's so much worse than the other iterations
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: of street Fighter. Because the film itself, you know, had
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: a really troubled production, and then the actors, after a
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: lot of them ended up hating each other. They had
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: to get back and do motion capture for this game
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: that looks like it wants to be Mortal Kombat dressed
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: as Street Fighter. It's just I don't know, man, this
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: You read the game reviews of this kind of stuff,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: and I'll tell you, actually, you know what now that
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it, I don't want to get us
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: on a tangent here. But Aladdin was tough, but I
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: did like it.
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: No, I realized I owned Aladdin. I didn't own Lion King.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: But Aladdin, I remember distinctly the level where you're in
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: the Cave of Wonders and you're on the flying Carpet
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: and it's a side scroller platform me one, and you
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: have to jump over and avoid all of these lava
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: flows and like geysers of lava, and you have to
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: jump over it and then jump back onto your magic carpet.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: And I remember, again, if I looked at it now,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: probably wouldn't hold up esthetically the way I'm picturing it
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: in my mind. But I very much owned the Aladdin
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Sega Genesis game. But there were tons of other ones
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: as well, in terms of movie animated movies and specifically,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: But nowadays it seemed we were talking about this at
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: the beginning of episode one. It seems like kids are
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: wise to this stuff now, and kids aren't gonna just
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: play a game because it's based on their favorite snack
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: unless there's something absurd or ironic about it. So when
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: you see these product tians, it's now a lot more
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: of this, like extra add on content, like with the
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: different skins that you can get for a Fortnite et cetera.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Or the different fighting characters you can get as DLC
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: downloadable content.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: In Mortal Kombat, you know, that's when you can get
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: Dark Predator.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: And Yoda and Soul Caliber series. Those were great because
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: they have force powers. I think what we're saying is, yeah,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: the trends will evolve and the methods will change. But
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: even though you know it's easy to dismiss some of
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: these things as perhaps cynical advertisements or grabs for attention,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: this we these strange bedfellows of products and video games
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: actually resulted in some really cool experiences, and the nostalgia
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: is so real.
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: Oh man, just a.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Couple that I'm just remembering now. I'm like having a
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: core memory unlocked Home Alone. There was a video game
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: based on Home Alone on Nintendo that was terrible. And
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: I just found a Reddit thread that was what happened
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: to video games based on every single movie, and it
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: really was a thing like whether they were live action,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: animated or whatnot. So if you want to dig into
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: more of that stuff and find, you know, little bits
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: of Internet debris leftover of gameplay that stuff, you certainly can.
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: It's a very deep rabbit hole hap happy hunting.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And to jump in real quick, I want to
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: just talk about et for a little bit. We go
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: much more detail in our femeral episode about this with
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: somebody who knows way more about Williams than I will
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: ever know. But I want to state some love and
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: support for Howard Scott Warshaw, who was actually the programmer
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: made ET, because he's putting in an impossible situation. Basically,
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: they paid the studio for the rights of Fortune and
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: they gave him like a few weeks basically built the
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: game back then they can only build it stuf. He
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: also has one of the funniest creative games ever. It's
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: called Yars Revenge is a direct shot at Ray Kazo,
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: who was CEO of Atari who had been hired there
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: to replace Nolan Bushnell. Literally got hired away from Burlington
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: Coat Factory. That's who they put in charge of thing.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: He was this guy's this is Ray Kazzar is the
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: guy who agree who worked the deal for you know,
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: the ET game and uh also you know basically killed Atari.
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: And this guy, Howard Scott Warshaw's on a lot of
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: great things, like you know, uh said raiders have lost
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: ark and stuff, video games and stuff like He's done
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: a lot, and so it's really crazy to see how
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: bad et was because there was nothing he could have done.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: With that one, right, And that's something we have to remember,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: just like is he the mascot, there are a lot
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: of hard working people who are laboring under at times
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: and possible situations. Also shout out to the Atari Jaguar
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: as one of those.
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: And I found a jaguar ad. It it has oh god,
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: it has been it.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Ripping through the page kind of is one of those
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: where it's like claw marks or something. I'm just picturing
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: magazine ads for that kind of stuff.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: It's a kid who's playing a tough, bad kid and
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: he goes to the bathroom and plays the jaguar pulls
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: out of his pocket, which is hilarioucause jaguars are massive
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: and huge. But it's an actual guy who had an
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: acting career who was not considered as a bad kid.
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: Let's say to that can career. I'm looking it up.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well yeah. Jack Black did some video game ads.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: It was for a game called Pitfall that you can
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: actually find that ad online with a very young, fresh
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: faced Jack Black. But while you're looking at that at
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: Max's when I add my last thing. It's kind of
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: full circle for this this doesn't happen anymore. You know,
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: these product high end video games, these movie kind of
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: tempole tie in video games, unless they're something like a
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Spider Man, are something that you know has been in
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: development for a long time, that they know will sell
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: because now the expectations for the quality of the game
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: must reach are just so much higher, and the typical
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: development cycle for a big game, often referred to as
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: like a triple A game, can be up to six years.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: So now what's replaced the cheap quick dirt, the cash
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: grab of the the the rushed you know, video game
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: tie in of yesteryear are phone games as sure?
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: So I would argue though that the while it's again
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: like I was saying earlier, while it's evolved, we still
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: see those same core trends. Lord of the Rings has
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: some terrible video games. Shout out to their their Golumn game,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: and Suicide Squad, which I mentioned earlier, also had a
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: really difficult game release. I think the money is just
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: too good. I think you do make an astute point
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: about the mobile gaming, which again is the evolution that
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: we see the cyclical, uh, the cyclical process of nostalgia
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: bringing people back to the things we loved as kids.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: So I do want to say again, if it sounds
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: like we're dumping on developers and publishers and so on,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: we're not dumping on the creatives at all. It's uh,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: it's again. I think one of the most important points
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: sometimes these strange bedfellows eight stuff that remains an awesome
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: part of people's lives, and I think it's really cool
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: to acknowledge that. I'm looking at the positive side. You know,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: for every et, there is at least two there are
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: at least two to three other games that people will
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: always pick up, regardless of how old they are. And
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: with that, this concludes our two part history on the
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Golden Era the halcyon age of video game product tie ins.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams, Thanks our
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: research associate Max Williams and our composer Alex Williams.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Christopher Rasiotis and Eaves, Jeff Coates here in spirit, aj
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Bahamas Jacobs the Puzzler. Actually we've got a date with
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: him on the books coming up real soon, so for
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: another Puzzler tie in episode coming your way.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: And then of course Rachel Big Spinach Lance, our pal
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Gabe Luzier all of you ridiculous historians, gamers and non
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: gamers alike. We can't wait to travel with you to
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: some new place is In future episodes. We're gonna learn
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: about Popeye harems, We're gonna learn like real harems.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: We're gonna learn about karaoke. We're gonna learn about the
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: Swiss Guard.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: So many things ahead light spoilers, but we can't wait
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: for you to be riding shotgun with us.
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: I guess that's kind of what we do, Ben, We're
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: sort of spoilers of history. We'll see you next time. Books.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows