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The Christmas That Saved Video Games · Children of the 80s

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  Speaker 1: Children of the Eighties is brought to you by Q
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  Speaker 1: one O six point five Internet Radio. You can find
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  Speaker 1: it online at Q one o six five dot com
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  Speaker 1: or download the app.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Children of the Eighties. I am one
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: of your hosts, Jim and I am en joined as
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: always by the lady who cracked the code. Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right,
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: be a start to get unlimited lives in contra. It's
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: my co host Lindsay.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't know what we were talking about there for
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: a minute.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Oh boy, here we go, already.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Already having to make edits. It's too early in the game.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: It is way too early. How's it going over there?
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Great? How are you?
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: I'm doing fantastic.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I am living in a twelve year old girl's world
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  Speaker 1: and it is kicking my butt.
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  Speaker 2: That is a world that I refuse to go into.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: I'm going to stick to my own world and stay
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: out of the twelve year old girl world.
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  Speaker 1: We dealt with some stuff today, heavy, heavy, heavy stuff
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  Speaker 1: from the twelve year old.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, lots of emotions.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, but but.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, lots of emotions, but a lot of big questions.
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  Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, I mean, and that's that's normal. That's good.
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  Speaker 2: I love big questions like why is the sky blue?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's kind of.
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  Speaker 2: Like how many licks does it take to get to
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  Speaker 2: the center of a tootsi pop?
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  Speaker 1: Like what does heaven look like?
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  Speaker 2: Whoa? Yeah, she hts you hard with that one. Did
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  Speaker 2: It's like a Mike Tyson uppercut.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, we had We had a good conversation
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  Speaker 1: about it.
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  Speaker 2: All right, Well, I hope you'll lie to her.
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  Speaker 3: No.
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  Speaker 2: Uh so, Uh that just came out of left field.
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  Speaker 3: I know.
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  Speaker 2: Is she contemplating over Christmas break?
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  Speaker 4: Like?
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  Speaker 2: Is it her brain isn't having to work twenty four
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  Speaker 2: to seven at school, so now she's thinking about deep thoughts?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, other stuff. What was his name, Jack Handy? Yes,
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  Speaker 1: you know, it's interesting how the female brain works. There's
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  Speaker 1: a lot going on up there all the time.
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  Speaker 2: You guys are like a ball of yarn that's been unwrapped.
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  Speaker 1: And that's not just like an adult woman, no, young adult.
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  Speaker 2: No, that's like a four year old girl. Like I know,
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  Speaker 2: I remember when we uh announced that you were pregnant
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  Speaker 2: with a girl. And my buddy Jason, who has been
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  Speaker 2: on the podcast, who had a little girl about four
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  Speaker 2: years prior maybe five years prior said to me, just
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  Speaker 2: be ready for a lot of drama. And I'm like,
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  Speaker 2: what are you talking about. Your daughter's like five. He
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  Speaker 2: was like, lots of emotion, lots of drama, lots of
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  Speaker 2: just crying for no reason. And he was right.
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  Speaker 1: So she said, listen to this. Though, I think some
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  Speaker 1: of our listeners, like I think Deaf Dave is going
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  Speaker 1: to love this. She said that she pictures heaven is
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  Speaker 1: actually dark and Jesus brings the light to the picture.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, she's thinking deep thoughts. I'm telling you, I
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  Speaker 1: am telling you, that's what she said. So she said, heaven,
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  Speaker 1: if Jesus wasn't there, it would actually be pitch black.
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  Speaker 2: Then it wouldn't be heaven.
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  Speaker 1: That's true. But we didn't. We didn't go that down
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  Speaker 1: that road.
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  Speaker 2: But yeah, at least it's not like me at twelve
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  Speaker 2: years old, where there was like nothing there, right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I mean yeah, it was basically a dog's brain at twelve.
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  Speaker 2: At least he's thinking, so I guess pretty much.
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  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Okay, so it's almost Christmas.
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  Speaker 2: It is almost Christmas, and we're ready the most wonderful
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  Speaker 2: time of the year. Tomorrow is Festivus. Yes, this episode
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  Speaker 2: is being released on Christmas Eve, yep, and then Christmas
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  Speaker 2: Day will be the next day and then it's all
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  Speaker 2: downhill from there, I know.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: So in my house growing up, Christmas Eve Eve was
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  Speaker 1: actually a big day.
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  Speaker 2: It was a big day for you.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it all started on Christmas Eve Eve.
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  Speaker 2: Christmas Eve Eve was a big day for us because
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  Speaker 2: I feel like that's about the time they let us
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  Speaker 2: out of school for Christmas break back in the day. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: we didn't get these, you know, almost college level vacations
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  Speaker 2: like they do nowadays.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, So I am really thankful to have middle
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  Speaker 1: school finals behind us because that was new for us
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  Speaker 1: this year. Yeah, we'd never experienced that level of hell before.
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  Speaker 2: It's always good to get the flu the week of finals.
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  Speaker 1: And some of us had the flu the week of
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  Speaker 1: finals and that was fun. So we're ready now for Christmas.
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  Speaker 2: So are you ready to get to today's episode?
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  Speaker 1: Let's get started. This is a podcast that looks back
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  Speaker 1: on the decade of the nineteen eighties. We talk about
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  Speaker 1: things that were important to us as children and what
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  Speaker 1: we look back on with fond memories as adults. Ultimately,
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  Speaker 1: this is a nostalgia pot.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so today we've got a fun episode planned, but
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  Speaker 2: before we get to that, let's do a couple of
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  Speaker 2: clean up items. Okay, So what have we been doing recently?
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  Speaker 1: We've been watching a lot of Christmas movies because there
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  Speaker 1: are so many good ones out there.
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  Speaker 2: We can't watch them all, and we don't watch them
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  Speaker 2: every night, so that's part of the problem. If we did,
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  Speaker 2: we probably could watch them all, but you know, we
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  Speaker 2: get a little bit busy and whatnot. And so we've
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  Speaker 2: watched Home Alone this year. Right, what else have we watched?
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  Speaker 1: The Santa Claus we did, How the Green Stoke Christmas?
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  Speaker 1: The original Grinch is what we call that in our house.
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  Speaker 2: Right, right, How the Green Stoke Christmas? Not the Grinch or,
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  Speaker 2: as Emmy likes to call it, the people Grinch. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: with Jim Carrey. We watched Frosty the Snowman.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a hard one, that one isn't. When I
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  Speaker 1: was a kid, that one made me sad, yes, and
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  Speaker 1: so it still kind of does.
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  Speaker 2: Now when Frosty melts all heavy. Yeah, that's and our
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  Speaker 2: buddy Brad on Pop Culture Yearbook said today that he
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  Speaker 2: doesn't find Frosty to the Snowman. That Christmasy.
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  Speaker 1: I mean it's I don't disagree.
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  Speaker 2: No, it takes place on Christmas Eve. There's snow and
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  Speaker 2: they're Santa Claus. I don't think you get two more
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  Speaker 2: Christmas Eve.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, well that might be taking us to where we're
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  Speaker 1: going here. What makes a Christmas movie?
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  Speaker 2: What makes a Christmas movie a Christmas movie? So we
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  Speaker 2: watched Frosty, we watched Christmas Vacation last night, but at
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  Speaker 2: some point we watched die Hard, and you had never
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  Speaker 2: seen die Hard. So I want to know your thoughts
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  Speaker 2: about what you didn't actually realize was. I would pause
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  Speaker 2: die Hard every now and then and talk about it
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  Speaker 2: a little bit and ask you some questions. And I
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  Speaker 2: was actually recording your thoughts because there's nothing better than
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  Speaker 2: your initial that's scary, then your initial thoughts.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry about that.
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  Speaker 2: So that was pretty funny. So I've got some recordings here. Okay, okay,
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  Speaker 2: we are twenty six twenty six minutes into this movie
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  Speaker 2: so far? Is there any sign at all that this
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  Speaker 2: is a Christmas movie? No anything else? You want to say?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, actually there is. I have never traveled and then
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  Speaker 3: arrived at my destination and asked if there was somewhere where.
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  Speaker 5: I could wash up, and then, like his version of
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  Speaker 5: washing up, he took his shirt off and he was
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  Speaker 5: washing under his arms.
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  Speaker 3: If you ever done that when you travel.
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  Speaker 2: For anytime in the shower, well, yeah.
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  Speaker 5: But that's what I'm saying is basically he took a
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  Speaker 5: bath in the scenk.
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  Speaker 3: In somebody's office in an office building. I just didn't
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  Speaker 3: feel necessary.
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  Speaker 5: But I know why they did it, to get him
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  Speaker 5: down to his undershirt.
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  Speaker 2: Is that what you wanted or is that what they wanted?
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  Speaker 3: That's what the women want of the nineteen eighty.
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  Speaker 2: But he wasn't a star at this point.
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  Speaker 3: But they knew what those guns he would be.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, now we are forty one minutes into it. John
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  Speaker 2: McLean has just killed the first terrorist and he put
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  Speaker 2: a Santa hat on him and said, now I have
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  Speaker 2: a machine gun. Haul. Is it now a Christmas movie?
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  Speaker 3: No, it's not a Christmas movie.
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  Speaker 6: So I don't think you didn't call this a Christmas
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  Speaker 6: movie when it's a Christmas party. But it's terrorist trying
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  Speaker 6: to take over a company, so it's not Christmas eve.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, are you willing to say it may turn in
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  Speaker 2: to a Christmas movie?
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  Speaker 3: At some point if it does, I'll let you know. Okay, Okay,
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  Speaker 3: nobody told me Carl Winslow was in this.
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  Speaker 1: This whole operation isn't hinging on his ability to stop
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  Speaker 1: the terrorist?
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  Speaker 3: Is that because he couldn't even stop.
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  Speaker 2: Rcle Hoose getting twinkies? I think I think he's getting twinkies.
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  Speaker 2: But did you hear the music in the gas station?
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  Speaker 2: The weather outside is freeful? Yeah, Christmas music.
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  Speaker 3: Still want a Christmas movie?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, So those were some of your thoughts throughout the movie.
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  Speaker 2: I want to know now, just your thoughts on Diehard
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  Speaker 2: period the movie.
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  Speaker 1: It's safe to say that Bruce Willis was not a thespian.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know why. Why do you say that?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, will I be offending people if I say that? No,
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  Speaker 1: I think he was.
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  Speaker 2: I think he was an action hero.
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  Speaker 3: I mean he was.
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  Speaker 1: A good actor in the line of he's better than Stallone,
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  Speaker 1: He's better than Schwartzeneger.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, So this movie basic acting. So Bruce Willis in
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  Speaker 2: this movie taught us that our action heroes didn't have
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  Speaker 2: to be he men correct right like Stallone and Schwartzenegger correct.
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  Speaker 2: They could be just normal, average, every day Joe's which
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  Speaker 2: his name actually was Joe. No, it was John. I
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  Speaker 2: don't know why I said it was Joe. What is
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  Speaker 2: wrong with me?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, are you okay?
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  Speaker 3: No?
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: I think I had a stroke. It can be normal, average,
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  Speaker 2: every day John's yes, right, didn't have to be bulky
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  Speaker 2: and former military and all that stuff. So did you
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  Speaker 2: like the movie Diehard?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: It was a good movie.
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  Speaker 2: Uh did do you think it was different than other
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  Speaker 2: action movies that you had seen, like with Stallone and Schwarzenegger?
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  Speaker 1: It was? It was It seemed to have a little
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  Speaker 1: bit more depth to it, a little bit more of
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  Speaker 1: a storyline. Yes, so, and that kept my attention.
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  Speaker 2: What did you think of the bad guys taken over
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  Speaker 2: the Nakotomi Plaza? What'd you think of Alan Rickman in
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  Speaker 2: his first role ever?
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  Speaker 1: I found him to be alien like?
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: What does that mean exactly?
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: He reminded me of an alien?
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Alan Rickman reminded you of an alien?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: He was alien like. I could have done without him?
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: What do you mean you could have done without him?
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: He was fantastic. He made the movie.
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  Speaker 1: Why Dan hate honking that?
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Well? I mean he's an English actor and he is
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  Speaker 2: a thespian. By the way, he was a thespian. I
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  Speaker 2: mean he wasn't.
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  Speaker 1: He wasn't thespian on that movie.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Yes he was. He was brilliant in that we talks
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  Speaker 2: like mass Light is a gentleman. Light is a gentleman.
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  Speaker 2: He was a terrorist who was under control.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, and but I also so, I know, I made
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  Speaker 1: the quip about Carl Winslow, and I was concerned, you know,
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  Speaker 1: if we had to count on Carl to save the day,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: if we would actually if the good guys would win.
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  Speaker 1: I actually ended up really enjoying his character, and I
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: thought that he did really well and I liked what
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  Speaker 1: he brought to the to the picture. But did you
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: know the other African American guy in the movie that
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: was working with the bad guys? He was in there?
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: What was he trying to do?
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: I like, break the vault?
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: That was Matt Locke's Pi. Yes, I don't know why.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I was very like into that.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: You were blown away that it was as Pi. Yeah
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  Speaker 2: in there.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: You know I love Matlock, Oh.
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  Speaker 2: I know you do with his white suits yep is
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Colonel Sanders suits and hot dogs. Yeah. No, it was
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  Speaker 2: a it was a different action movie. The terrorists had
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: a plan, they knew what they were doing. They weren't
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  Speaker 2: just like kidnapping, right. They were all very intelligent and
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  Speaker 2: it would have worked perfectly if John McLean hadn't been
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: in there making uh fists with his toes after being
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: stressed out from flying and apparently taking a bath in
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  Speaker 2: a sink. All right, so I have to ask you,
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  Speaker 2: is Diehard a Christmas movie? Why?
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  Speaker 1: Because the only thing Christmas about it was this whole
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: evening took place during a Christmas party.
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  Speaker 2: Here's the thing. It wasn't just a Christmas party. It
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: was a party to close the fact that they had
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: a big deal. So this could have happened at any time.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: This is absolutely not a Christmas movie. We're gonna make
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: a lot of people angry saying that it is not
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: a Christmas movie. It is a movie that is set
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: at Christmas, and there is a big difference. There's no
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Santa Claus, there's no snow, there's hardly any Christmas music
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  Speaker 2: at all, there's no good feeling. So people will argue
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: and say, well, technically, you know, it's a wonderful life,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: isn't a Christmas movie? And it's not, But it's got
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: that feel good redemption story that Christmas kind of has
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: and die Hard does not. Diehard is an action movie
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  Speaker 2: that takes place at Christmas at what isn't even really
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  Speaker 2: a Christmas party. It's more of just a party because
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: we closed a big deal that just happens to take
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: place on Christmas Eve.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: So the bad guy never redeems himself. In fact, he
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: ends up dead.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: The only thing that is redeeming is that because John
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: McClain saves his life, she might be willing to not
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: divorce him, right right, But the reality is is she
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: moved all the way across the country and changed her
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: last name and used her maiden name.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: So it's probably not gonna work out in the.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Moment, not gonna work out in the long run. And
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: it's not a Christmas movie. It has nothing to do
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: with Christmas at all, And don't give me that.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: That.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: It's the same movie as Home Alone, and people consider
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Home Alone a Christmas movie. Home Alone is a Christmas movie.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: The family's going out of town for Christmas. There's snow,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: there's a Santa Claus, there's like twenty five Christmas songs throughout.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: The house is decorated as Christmas.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Uh, huh.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: They go to a Christmas eve. Mass Stead is a
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Christmas movie. Diehard is not. Don't come at me, even
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: though I know you're going to, especially all my podcast
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: friends that believe that this is a Christmas movie. I'm
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: sorry that you've been lied to your whole life. There
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: is a difference between a Christmas movie and a movie
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: that takes place at Christmas. It's funny because these same
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: people don't consider Lethal Weapon a Christmas movie. The only
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: person I've ever heard say lethal Weapon of the Christmas
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: movie is our buddy Jason Colvin from the Shirley You
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Can't Be Serious podcast. Wow, And Lethal Weapon is more
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: of a Christmas movie than die Hard because it's got
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: a scene with Bobby Hulme's jingle Bow rocket opens up
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: like that. They have Christmas dinner. You know, Darlene Love,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: who sings the one of the greatest Christmas songs of
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: all time, cooks Christmas dinner for Rigs and Myrtle, even
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: though apparently she can't cook. And there is more Christmas
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: than Lethal Weapon than there is in Diehard. And I
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: don't hear anybody talking about how Lethal Weapons a Christmas movie.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: So you take that, you put that in your pipe
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: and smoke it. Yeah, that was my get off my
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: lawn book. OK, I got it out. What do you
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: think you agree with me?
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I agree with you.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: You don't get us fired up, but you agree?
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Now, you agree with It's not something to get that
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: fired up over. But I do agree with you.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: All right? So are you ready to get to today's show?
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: We're pivot to the meat of today's show. So what
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: are we talking about today?
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Today? We are talking about how the Nintendo Entertainment System
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: saved and or revived the home video game console.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: That's right, the nes OR in the the Nintendo Entertainment
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: System or ANES for sure, was released in the US
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: on October eighteenth, nineteen eighty five, to a test market
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: in New York City only. So this is the fortieth
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: year anniversary of the Nintendo Entertainment System coming to America. Goodness,
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: three years before Eddie Murphy did.
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  Speaker 4: And uh.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: It would go on to sell around ninety thousand units
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: in the test market that Christmas season, and then the
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: following year in nineteen eighty six, it would sell one
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: point one million units in the US and over three
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: million units worldwide.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: That's insane to me when you think about that, like,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: stop for a minute. Nineteen eighty six one point one
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: million units.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: So most of us would not have heard of or
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: would not realize that the because we didn't have the
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Internet back then. Would would not have realized that the
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Nintendo had released in nineteen eighty five. Right, we would
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: have all found out about it in nineteen eighty six.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: And I remember, so in nineteen eighty six, I would
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: have been in middle school. I would have been at
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: the beginning of eighty six, I would have been in
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: sixth grade. And I remember my friend Jeff Harlowe getting
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: an inten and invite me over after middle school almost
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: every day to play it, right really, yeah, so, and
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: I just thought it was the most awesome thing I
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: had ever seen in my life.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: So let's get into the history before ANYS, and let's
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit about why it was such a
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: big deal when it came on the scene.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's do that, all right. So I'm gonna give
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: you some of the history of the other home video games.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: It first started for the first I guess wave if
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: you want to call it, was from nineteen seventy two
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: to nineteen seventy six. The first real council. The first
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: real home counsul was the Magna Vox Odyssey, and this
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: was released in nineteen seventy two, so before I was
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: even born, right, It was historically important but commercially modest.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: It was created by Ralph H. Bahar. It was the
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: first home video game counsole ever. It used, so this
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: is kind of weird. It used plastic overlays on the
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: TV screen.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: I have never heard of that.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Right. There was no sound, There was no scoring at
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: all built into the system, but it came with dice
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: and cards and board game like rules, so really it
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: was almost like a board game on your TV, okay,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: and so you'd keep track of it, you know, outside
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: of the television. But here's something that's kind of funny
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: but also kind of sad. Because it was named the
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Magnavox Odyssey, many people thought that it only worked on
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Magnavox televisions, which wasn't true, but that hurt sales.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet it did.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, And so but I will say that every home
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: console that followed traces back to this machine because I
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: think once they realized that this sold, right, they could
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: sell other things. So after that, we have a little
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: game called Pong. You remember Pong?
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I do remember Pong?
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Okay. So Pong was an arcade game that was released
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy two, and it was just a simple
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: thing with two almost little like lines that went back
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: and forth. It almost like you're playing tennis, yep, Right,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: and then it so that explodes in like bars and
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: bowling alleys, like people are playing it everywhere because it's
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: really kind of the first of its kind.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: And then in nineteen seventy five, three years later, Atari
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: brings Pong to the home, okay, And this was the
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: first truly successful home video game. But here's the thing.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: It was a dedicated console. All you could play on
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: it was Pong. It was just one game. It wasn't
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: like a Nintendo or an Atari or anything like that, right,
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: It was simply just Pong. It was The color on
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: the TV was black and white. It had simple paddles
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: that you'd just turned to move your cursor up and
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: down to hit the ball. It was sold through Sears
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: under the name Telegames. Now why did Pong matter. It's
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: because it proved that people would plug a video game
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: into their TV at home, right. And then Pong machines
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: began to flood the market, okay, and then Pong clones
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: came up everywhere, Magnavox, Calico, Sears, RCA, APF, there were
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: hundreds of nearly identical consoles. There were no cartridges. It
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: was just the hardware was the game, and that was it.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: And it was all pong.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: It was all Pong, just made by different different people, right,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: follow the leader kind of thing. So that was from
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: about seventy five on through seventy seven, and then we
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: have something that they like to call the cartridge Revolution.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: So this was the Atari twenty six hundred. It was
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: actually released in nineteen seventy seven, So yes, the eighties
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: kids think of it as an eighties game, right, but
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: it was actually released three years before the eighties, all right,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: But it really exploded the popular it released in seventy seven,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: but the popularity it really exploded in seventy nine. Up
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: to about eighty two, they were just selling like hotcakes.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: So it was originally called the Atari VCS and then
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: changed to the twenty six hundred. So some of the
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: key features of the game were the rom cartridges, right,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Those are the cartridges that actually go into the game,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: so you would buy the game console, and for each
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: game that you wanted to play on that console, it
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: had a cartridge that you'd put in. It actually had
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: color graphics, unlike Pong, which was black and white. It
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: had joystick controllers instead of the paddles, right, and then
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: you had arcade style games at home. You had things
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: like Donkey Kong and Missile Command and Space Invaders and
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Defender and that kind of stuff. You know, arcade games
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: that people were pumping in quarters left and right now
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: at home. Some of the most iconic games were Space Invaders,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: which I just mentioned that was sold with the system, right,
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: So you got you bought the system for one ninety
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: nine or one thirty nine or one seventy nine or
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: whatever it was, and you got Space Invaders to come
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: with it, and then each cartridge you had to buy.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: So Asteroids was also popular. That was an arcade game
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: adventure which was not I don't believe in arcade game,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: but that was it was like an adventure game. Inside
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: it actually had an easter egg kind of hidden in
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: there that you'd have to go find. That wasn't like advertised. Right. Wow,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: of course Pitfall, right, we all loved Pitfall in fact,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: I got I got a little something for you if
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: you love pitfall. That's the sound that happened when he died, right.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: And then of course it also had a missile command
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: all right, So it sold. The Atari actually sold thirty
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: million units. Wow, okay, and made Atari a household name.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: And this is the first time that kids actually bad
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: for a specific console and not just a video game.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: It wasn't just like hey dad, get me pung, Hey Dad.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: It was like, hey dad, mom, get me Atari, right,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: because I can get all these games to play in it.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: I think one of my favorite Atari games was in Duro,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: now that I think about it. I was a car
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: racing game and they had like a green package. So
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: then in nineteen eighty comes the console Wars, right, because
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: they realized Atari's becoming successful. So all these other consoles
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: want to come out and compete with Atari. So the
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: first one was in television by Mattel, which was released
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty okay. And this console was actually very
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: technically impressive. It had better graphics than the Atari twenty
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: six hundred, but it had these discontrollers that people hated.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: So it wasn't a joystick, right, It was like this
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: handheld thing that had the numbers one through nine and
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: then down at the bottom it had like a little circle.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: And so most of people hated that. But here's what
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: it had, that little Jim love. It had sports games,
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: and those sports games were so much stronger than what
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: was on the Atari. I remember my buddy, one of
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: my buddies, had the in television when I was a kid.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: I remember going down there and playing baseball and it
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: was freaking awesome, Like it was just like I had
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: died and gone to heaven, speaking of emmy, right. And
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: so here's a little something they had an ad actually
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: comparing baseball to Atari that I've got here.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: Here's an easy question for you. Which of these games
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: is the closest thing to the real thing? A in
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: television Major League Baseball be Atari Baseball.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: Here they are.
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: Again close up A in television, b Atari. If you
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: thought A in television, you're absolutely correct.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: You see, I told you this question was easy, And
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: if you saw the graphics on there, you'd know it
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: was easy. Like and television looked like a real baseball game.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Atari had three guys in a row that just ran
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: around like this.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: It was.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: It was the most ridiculous looking thing I've ever seen,
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: and that was mister George Plimton, by the way, famous
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: author and actor who did that television commercial. So that
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: was the in television in nineteen eighty That was really cool.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: And then after that, in nineteen eighty two, the Caliko
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Vision came out, and I also had a friend who
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: had Collico Vision. I always wanted that one too, but
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: I didn't have it. So the Clicko Vision was actually
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: short lived but very powerful. It had near arcade quality graphics,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: so it was really like going to an arcade. The
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: game that came with the Callico Vision was Donkey Kong, right,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: and Donkey Kong is one of the highest selling arcade
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: games of all time, so that was really a big deal.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: But the expansion modules promised more than that what they
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: could deliver, and Callico Vision kind of died out. And then,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: of course in nineteen eighty two, we also had the
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Atari fifty two hundred. The Atari fifty two hundred was
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: poorly received. Okay, so it was technically strong, it had
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: terrible controllers, but the biggest problem was it was not
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: compatible with the Atari twenty six hundred cartridges. So if
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: you had an Atari twenty six hundred and then you
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: wanted to upgrade to the fifty two hundred. Those old
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: cartridges were now obsolete, okay, and so it was poorly received. However,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: I can tell you the Butler Household did have the
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Atari fifty two hundred, really, and I absolutely loved it.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Missile Command was awesome on it. Space Invaders was awesome
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: on it. Pac Man actually looked like pac Man and
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: not like the crappy Atari pac Man. It had some
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: sports games on it. I think it had a football
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: game that I just absolutely loved and played over and
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: over and over again. It was so much fun. But it,
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: you know, eventually died out. And then after that we
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: had the the video game home console crash of nineteen
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: eighty three, and this lasted for eighty three and eighty four.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: And what happened was the industry nearly collapses here in America.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: And why why did it almost collapse? What went wrong?
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: A there were too many councils right competing with each other,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: and they were all essentially doing the same thing. And
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: you know, as a kid, right we talked about this
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: last week. Whenever another kid has something, it's better than yours. Right,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: So I've got the Atari twenty six hundred, which is
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: pretty cool, right, Yeah, but my friend has in television
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: that's better. So now I want the in television. Or
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: I hear about Colleco Vision and I want that or
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: the Atari fifty two hundred.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Right, So they're.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: All doing the same thing. Kids want the other one, right.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: But the big two in my opinion, are a. There
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: was no quality control, right, anybody could publish a game,
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: and so they had situations where the same games were
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: like being resold under different names, because Activision might make
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: a game and Atari might make a game, and they're
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: really the same, right, But Activision calls it racer X
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: and Atari calls it racer Y, right, And you've got
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Jim Bob's garage making a racing game that's essentially the
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: same thing, right, And so there's no quality control. Anyone
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: can sell, anyone could publish, and they're the same games
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: that are being resold under different names, and it ultimately
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: led to an oversacturation of bad games. Right. The box
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: has promised one thing, but the games actually delivered another.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: And of course we had infamous titles like Et and
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: pac Man that went wrong. And here's why pac Man
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: went wrong. I mean, it could have simply been just
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: the bad sound, but it wasn't. It wasn't just a
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: bad sound, It was the bad graphics and everything. Does
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: that sound like Pac Man to you? Oh that's Atari
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: pac Man?
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, actually kind of hurt my ears.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So retailers started losing faith in the video games
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: and customers stopped buying. Right, parents were paying forty to
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: fifty dollars for a cartridge, bring it home to the
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: kid for Christmas, birthday, whatever, and within ten minutes, the
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: kid hated it because the game sucked, right, And so
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: there were no refunds for the games, so you were
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: stuck with the crap that you bought. And therefore Atari imploded.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: And back then Atari wasn't just a company, right, it
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: was pretty much the entire industry. And so when they
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: released a terrible pac band or, they rushed et to
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: market within five weeks when developers told them, hey, we
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: need six months, right, Oh really yeah? And they were like, no,
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: the movie's popular, now you've got to get it out,
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: you know. They released it in five weeks. It was horrible,
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: and it failed, and they ended up dumping like millions
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: of them into the landfill because they couldn't sell them, okay,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: and so the stigma because of this, it became that
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: it wasn't just that Atari failed, but that video games
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: were junk, right, And by nineteen eighty four, video games
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: were considered a fad that had died. And that was
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: the stigma that they had and the stigma that Nintendo
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: had to overcome. And then in nineteen eighty five, actually
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: in eighty three in Japan they were already working on it, right,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: but here in the US we did not know about that.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: And then in eighty five here comes the Nintendo.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: So I don't think you can truly understand nineteen eighty
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: five unless you go back and know a little bit
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: about Nintendo prior to then. Okay, so can I give
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: you the backstory?
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Absolutely?
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: So when you hear Nintendo, I'm sure you probably think
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Mario Zelda or may be blowing into a cartridge hoping
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: that that would, like magically, you know, fix the problem.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: But Nintendo's story starts way earlier than that.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, I've heard this before.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Nintendo was founded in eighteen eighty nine in Japan. Bear
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: with me. I'll do my best at the at these names.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: It was founded by Fusajiro Yamuchi. Mm hmm does that
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: sound good? It sounds okay, and yes ques over one
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: hundred and thirty years ago. The company originally made hand
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: painted Hannafuda playing cards, which were very popular for gambling
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: in Japan, so for decades, Nintendo was basically the playing
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: card company in Japan. By the mid fifties into the sixties,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Nintendo realized that cards probably shouldn't be the future the company,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: and they went through what can only be described as
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: a corporate identity crisis. During that time, Nintendo became a
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: taxi company, an instant rice company, rice and Roni love
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: hotels oooh, and toys and novelty items. Okay, most of
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: these failed, but Nintendo found success with inventive toys like
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: the Ultra Hand, a grabber toy that sold over a
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: million units in Japan. That success pushed Nintendo toward electronics
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: and eventually video games. So Nintendo's first massive hit came
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: with Donkey Kong, created by a young designer named Sugaroo
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Maya Moto.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: I thought you were gonna say Sugar Ray Robinson, I mean,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: or Sugar Ray Leonard.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That game introduced a mustached hero named Jumpman, who
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: would later be renamed Mario yep a giant ape. More importantly,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: it had a storyline, which was very rare for arcade
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: games back in the day. So this was the moment
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: that Nintendo went from a toy company to a global
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: entertainment contender. After the video game crash of nineteen eighty three,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: which you just told us about, many thought that gaming
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: was dead, but in walked Nintendo. They released the Nintendo
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Entertainment System and marketed it is a toy, not a console,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: and that worked. So in Nes brought us Super Mario Brothers,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: the Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and punch Out. Nintendo didn't
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: just revive game, I mean, they redefined it. Of course
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: I love Super Mario Brothers. My cousin had Legend of Zelda,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: so I would play that when I was at her house,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: but I never understood it, and that really frustrated me.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: I didn't understand it either.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: I think I've played punch Out, but I don't know
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: anything about Metroid.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Nope, I never played that. I never played Metroid. Punch
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: Out was actually Mike Tyson's punch Out. They don't I
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: don't think they refer to that anymore, Oh, because I
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: think maybe they lost the licensing or something.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so Nintendo made three critical decisions that changed
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: the game. It wasn't a console, so they renamed it
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: the Nintendo Entertainment System. So it's not a game system,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: it's an entertainment system.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: It looked like a VCR, and the VCR was a
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: really big deal back in nineteen eighty four, five six.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: It had that front loading cartridge very similar to a
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: VCR would work, and it was designed to resemble, you know,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: like a home electronic not a toy, right, So this
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: helped parents and retailers take it seriously. Then enter rob Rob.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Rob Van dam.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Nintendo bundled the NEES with robotic operating Buddy Rob barely
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: worked and had only two games, but it gave Nintendo
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: a loophole that it needed.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: Was that that robot that Rocky Kid had in Rocky fo.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, retailers could classify the NES as a toy, not
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: a video game, and that distinction mattered a lot really,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: So Nintendo didn't go nationwide at first. They tested the
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: NEES in New York City during the nineteen eighty five
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: holiday season, so promised retailers that they would buy back
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: unsold inventory, and Nintendo, not the stores, would take all
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: the risks. So that alone was basically unheard off back then,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: probably even now, but the result shocked everyone. The NES
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: sold out in New York City. It quickly expanded to
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: other major cities, and it proved people did want video games,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: they just wanted really good ones. Yes, So by nineteen
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: eighty six, the NES was everywhere. Kids were obsessed and
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: parents were beginning to trust the brand.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: So listen, I was before you keep going on. I
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: was obsessed, right, Like, I loved video games. I still do, right,
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: and I love tatari. But yeah, at some point it
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: did get old, and so you go from something like this, right, right,
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: So you go from to this and what kid isn't hooked?
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: Plus you got the better graphics and everything else. But
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, does that music there just not make you happy?
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Oh? It brings back so many fantastic memories. Yes, it
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: makes me extremely happy. So Nintendo also introduced something that
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: was totally revolutionary then, Nintendo Seal of Quality, so it
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: limited how many games third party developers could release. It
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: prevented oversaturation in the market, and it ensured consistent quality.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: Which were the problems with the old video games, right, yep, yep.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: So once the NES game traction, Mario became a household name,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Zelda made gaming feel epic, and kids planned weekends around Nintendo. Yes,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: by the late nineteen eighties, Nintendo controlled over ninety percent
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: of the US video game market, and Nintendo became synonymous
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: with video games. So you no longer said I'm gonna
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: go play video games. You said I'm gonna go play Nintendo.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, yeah, well I'm going to play Nintendo.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: That's exactly what you said.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about some of the very
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: first games that were released, so between nineteen eighty five
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: and nineteen eighty seven, So of course I have to
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: start with the big one, Super Mario Carns nineteen eighty five.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: Still probably the most popular game of all time.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: It was often bundled with the NES that side scrolling
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: felt revolutionary, had tight controls, secret areas, and memorable music,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: which we just talked about. Also, though a lot of
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: times the system came with Duck Hunt. Yes, did you
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: have Duck Hunt?
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Because when we now, we did not get the
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Nintendo in nineteen eighty six, probably more like nineteen eighty eight, Yeah,
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: but maybe eighty seven. But yeah, I mean by that
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: point it was coming with Duck Hunt and Super Mario Brothers.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: But I had already beaten Super Mario Brothers at my
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: friend's house.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: So gay, been there, done that. Yeah, duck Hunt, you
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: used the light gun, yes, okay.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Which was different than anything that we had ever.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: It was totally addictive and that stupid laughing dog you
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: have whatever you miss? Yes? So why did duck Hunt matter?
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: It mattered because it showed video games could be interactive
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: and physical, not just button mashing. So let me just say,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: I cannot tell you the number of times that I
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: came home from school and my dad was sitting in
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: my bedroom in his tidy whities playing Duck Hunt. That's hilarious,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Like more times than I could even count. And here, okay,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: do you remember this standing two inches from the TV
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: when you played duck Hunt? Because it just worked better
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: that way?
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because you couldn't miss.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah I know, I know, but as a kid, it
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: was like, no, it works better, it does right because
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: you're not missing.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so funny.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: Okay. Punch Out It also came out in nineteen eighty five.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: Mike Tyson's punch out or just punch out.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Well, I think it was Mike Tyson's punch out.
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: Hey.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Now that probably doesn't mean a whole lot to you,
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: but I'm telling you there's like, if we have five
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: hundred men from forty four to fifty five, they're probably
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: giddy over.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: Okay. So it had glass Joe. What had Mike Tyson
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: had glass Joe? And it had Bald Bull. Yes, okay,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: So here's what I thought as a kid. I thought
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: Bald Bull was Bull from Nightcore and I was so like,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: I didn't know it Bull was a boxer, and my
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: mom was always trying to tell me. I was confused,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: but of course I wasn't having none of that. So
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: here's what I made punch out so epic. It was
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: timing over button mashing. Yes, absolutely, so it rewarded skill
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: and memorization in which made kids feel like, oh, we were.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: Really doing something. So this is interesting. So I had
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: Mike Tyson's punch Out and I played it religiously like
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: every day. And of course the first you know, few
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: guys are really easy. But like you said, you've got
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: to memorize patterns because if you don't you get your
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: butt kicked, and then eventually made my way on. But
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: then you get to the harder guys, like right before
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: Mike Tyson, and there were some of them that I
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: had to fight for weeks before I finally figured it
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: out to beat them right, And then you know, so
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: there's a guy and it took me a couple of days,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: and then another guy that took me like a week,
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: and then Super Macho Man took me like two weeks,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: and then finally I get to Mike Tyson and I
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: beat him on my first try, which I thought, wow,
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: after it takes me weeks to get to him, actually
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: months to get to him, but two weeks to beat
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: the guy in front of him, I thought, Okay, I'm
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: gonna be battling Mike for like a good month to
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: a year before I can figure him out and beat him.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: And I beat him on the first and while it
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: was exciting, it was also like the biggest letdown of
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: all time because I was like, I just beat him,
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: and I thought I was going to get another month
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: of entertainment out of this and that was that. Oh,
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: but I was still pretty fired up though.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: The Legend of Zelda followed right behind in nineteen eighty six.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: I didn't get it felt different from all the other games.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: It had an open world exploration, and Zelda proved that
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: video games could be like adventures, not just a quick
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: arcade hit and runown. Yeah, but again, I didn't get
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: it as a kid, and therefore it just baffled me,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: and I didn't want to play it.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: I didn't either. But it's like the second or fifth
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: or whatever most popular game of all time.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's it's it's definitely a cult classic.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah well, I mean and more than a cult It
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: had six point five million units sold. It's the sixth
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: highest Nintendo game sold of all time.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna say about Zelda what me ma said
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: about McDonald's hamburgers.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder how many were eaten?
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, so how many were played?
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: I mean the kids who loved Zelda's love Zelda. My
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: friend Jeff Harley that I talked about, like he loved
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: the legend of zeldaen. Yeah I don't. I don't really
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: get it, like whatever, but you know, he loved Super
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: Mario Brothers. I love Super Mario Brothers. So but yeah, Zelda,
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: it wasn't it wasn't for me, But there were other
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: games that I did like.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: So I'm just going to throw out a couple of others,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: not really going to get into them. The one that
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: I said i'd never heard of, what Metroid Metroit, I'd
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: never heard of at nineteen eighty six, Excite Bike.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: I loved Excite Bike. So Excite Bike you were like
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: on a dirt bike and you were racing well, and
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: it was just a little track and it had hills
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: and stuff like that, and you'd race a qualifying race
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: and then you'd race against other racers and you could overheat,
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: so you had to, you know, let off the gas sometimes,
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: and you had to figure out the hills, how to
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: land to make you go faster and not just bounce
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: up and down. And Excite Bike is actually the ninth
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: highest selling Nintendo game of all time.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: So that music tells me that I should be excited,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: So therefore I'm excited.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're excited about the bike, so therefore Excite Bike.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: What about Ghosting Goblins?
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: I remember that one, and I did not download that,
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: but I considered it and then I didn't, so never
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: heard of it. Yep, Ghosting Goblins was a big one. Uh,
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: an early one. I don't know if it was a
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: big one, but it was an early one.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: Here is what made the bundle so important. When Neees
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: bundled Super Mario Brothers, Doc Hunt, sometimes it would bundle
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: World Class Track Meet. Here's why that was all important.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Nearly everyone then shared that same first experience. Yes, So
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: then you're going to school and you're talking about it, absolutely,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: and everybody's having a similar experience. They're wanting to share.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: You're getting tips and tricks from friends at school that
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: you haven't necessarily found out yet. Right where some of
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: the hidden boxes are that you can jump up and hit,
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: or the hidden worlds, or the or the hidden tubes
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: that you could go down into an underworld. All that
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: stuff that kids are just talking about in middle school.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: It was so much fun.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: And that it just took off. So I think you
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: do you have a few numbers.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do so. Obviously, the number one selling game
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: is Super Mario Brothers at forty million sales, but it
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: was also bundled with the console, right, and then duck
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: Hut's number two at twenty eight point three million, but
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: again bundled, and then Super Mario three is third with
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: eighteen million, again bundled when Super Mario three came out.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: The highest selling game that wasn't bundled is actually Tetris
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: with eight million.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: As much as my dad loved Duck Hunt, my mom
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: loved Tetris.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: So I don't remember Tetris being on the Nintendo. I
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: remember it being on the Game Boy.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: So. Super Mario Brothers two is next at seven point
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: four million. The legend of Zelda is six was six
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: point five Doctor Mario, which didn't come out until nineteen
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: ninety at four point eight Zelda two The Adventure of
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: Link with four point three eight. The ninth highest selling
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: is Excite Bike Oh Wow with four point one million,
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: and then tenth is golf at just over four million.
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: Golf golf just Nintendo golf with a big, fat look
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: Mario looking guy swinging, you know, swinging golf. Not as
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: fun as PGA Tour Golf on the Sega Genesis, which
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: would come out years later, but yeah, golf. And then
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: Kung Fu Baseball, the original baseball. It was simple, but
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: I played it because it was baseball. But did you
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: have some favorite games besides Mario?
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: So Mario was definitely my favorite. I remember for whatever reason.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: And I believe I've shared this before. I remember back
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: to the future. Okay, basic, I just liked my Mario.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, so you mentioned Ghost and Godwins. They were thirty
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: eighth of all time at one point six million. But
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: some of my favorite games. And I reached out to
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: some people before this and asked them what some of
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: their favorite games were. So here is here is one
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: of my favorite games of all time. And then other
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: members in my family said the same thing. Oh, I
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: love this game. So that was Contra. That was two
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: guys going in fighting aliens, you know, trying to get
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: to the alien mothership.
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: This is one that you'll recognize because you would have
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: heard this over Thanksgiving when me and my brothers were
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: going too.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: I do not play.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: That is RBI Baseball. I fully expect that to be
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: stuck in your head for the next two weeks.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: Y'all. The Butler ladies. On Thanksgiving evening, we were just
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: walking around because the guys played this over and over
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: and over for hours.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: It was so much fun. It was almost as much
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: fun as being a kid. So here's another one. I
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: reached out to some people. I've heard Brad Pete and
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: Giff talk about their love for Double Dribble, which was
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: the first real basketball game on that and I love
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: Double Dribble too. We had a lot of fun playing
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: tournaments and so act as teenagers. But this is Double Dribble.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: So that was actually the halftime show from Double Dribble.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: So you might get see shots of fans or cheerleaders
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: moving like one limit of time, almost like you're watching
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: them through a strobe light. So my favorite game of
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: all time, like of all time, and I actually heard
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: Day from totally eighties and nineties recall say that this
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: was his favorite game of all time too, was Tech Mobile.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: You may have heard that too, first down, touchdown. So
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: Tech bo bol was the first football game to have
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: NFL player's license, so you're actually playing with real players.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: And even though it didn't have the NFL license, so
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: they didn't call the Cowboys the Cowboys, but they called
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: them Dallas and they had the Cowboys colors. They called
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: it Washington and they had the Redskins colors and that
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: kind of thing, so you were playing with real teams,
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: real players. Bo Jackson was the most unstoppable force of
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: all time in any video game ever. So if you
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: were playing against the Raiders. If you were another team
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: in playing against the Raiders, you had to pick Bo
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: Jackson's play every single time, otherwise he's gonna score a
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: touchdown every single time he touches the ball. So that
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: was so much fun. My two high school friends, before
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: we were able to drive, every weekend, we would spend
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: the night at each other's houses and we would just
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: have Techmobile tournaments. And there were only twelve teams in
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: the original Techmobil Tech Bow Techbo Super Bowl would come
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: out in nineteen ninety where you had all twenty eight
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: teams and you could play a full season. That was
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: revolutionary too because it cut stats and everything else. But
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: Techmobile twelve teams. We would play tournaments every single weekend.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: Depending on what team we had, each person would win.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: The only difference was if I had the forty nine ers,
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: I could not be beat. And it got to the
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: point where it was fun to play with other teams
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: and I could win. But it got to the point
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: where my friends were so competitive that they would just
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: give because we normally drew teams out of a hat
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: right to figure out what teams are gonna be. They
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: would just give me the forty nine ers because they
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: had to figure out a way to beat me and
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: they could and they couldn't and it drove them insane.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: And so yeah, that was a lot of fun at
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: fourteen fifteen years old until we started driving. Let's see
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: another one that I remember being really popular and I
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: liked it at first. I'm not sure I would like
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: it anymore, but a bunch of friends around my neighborhood
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: liked it. Was Castle Vania. You remember that one. No,
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: So that one. You're kind of like an Indiana Jones
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: type character and you got like a whip or something
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: and you're going through like Dracula's castle and you're trying
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: to find stuff but also avoid the goblins or whatever. Right, Yeah,
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: it was pretty fun. And then finally a game that
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: we all loved, all of us baseball players loved and
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: not that I had forgotten about it, but I wasn't
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: gonna include it, but my buddy Jason Colvin said that
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: this was one of his favorites, and this was Baseball Stars. Now,
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: the neat thing about Baseball Stars was they had just
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: generic players, but you could name them and then you
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: could give them stats. And not only that, as you
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: the more you played it, the more you learned you
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: could hit a certain button and have girls play. So
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: it might not just be for boys, right, Little girls
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: might like it too, because you could change the whole
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: team to girls, or you could just have a girl
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: on the team or whatever. Yeah, and so you could
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: name them anything, give them any stats that you wanted, whatever.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: So me and my brothers we would create the real
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: players and give them the stats were kind of preset,
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: but we would give them as close to the stats
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: as you really could to try and make it as
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: realistic as possible. So those were some of my favorites
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: and other people's favorites who had dialed in.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: So the NES eventually over like its lifetime, sold sixty
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: one point nine million units.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: Wow, is that not crazy? That is so Hiroshi Yamachi,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: he was the CEO of Nintendo.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: He was probably died a rich man if he's dead.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: Well listen. He was president of Nintendo from nineteen forty
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: nine until two thousand and two.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: Wow, and that's a crazy long time to be president.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, I know. So we can thank him for the
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: invention of NES, but ultimately we don't get into anything
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: past the eighties. But Ultimately it was also his inability
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: to see the future in CD based systems that was
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: ultimately Nintendo's downfall.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So so Nintendo maybe the most important toy game
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: of our childhood maybe, but yeah, and it.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: Ruled the world for about.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: Five years there until Sega Genesis came out, right. But
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: when Sega Genesis came out, because Nintendo was an eight
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: bit system, right, Atari was an eight bit, but Nintendo
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: was like an eight bit on steroids, Sega Genesis came
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: out as a sixteen bit system, and then Nintendo brought
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: out there Super Nintendo to compete with that is their
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: sixteen bit system, right, which then led to more Sega,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: the Nintendo sixty four, that kind of thing, the Sega
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: dream Cast which was see and then ultimately the Sony
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: PlayStation which came in and just changed the game. And yeah,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: Nintendo struggled to keep up with that. Then they came
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: out with the Wii, which was kind of fun trying
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: to get kids to exercise and really adults to exercise.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: And now the Nintendo switch is kind of taken back
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: over again.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: Right, But.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Nintendo just they held the crown for so long,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: but then Sega jumped in Sony jumped in. Microsoft jumped
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: in with the Xbox, right, and so it revitalized the
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: video and now they are like, they're legit, like professional
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: video game plays. And it's all because of Nintendo.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: So he was against CD based games because he said
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: they would be easy to pirate. Uh, and that's why
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: he was against it. But that was the wave of
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: the future, right. I got a couple of trivia questions
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: for you. I don't know how you're going.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, this should be fun.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: What does the name Nintendo roughly translate?
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: Two?
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: Well, if you asked most adults when we were kids,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: it was nutendo, So I believe it translates into nutendo.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: Leave luck to heaven.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, I don't understand it, but.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: Whatever, we all And we've already talked about that. Mario's
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: original name in Donkey Kong jump Man, Yeah, jump Man.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: I knew that before you said that.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: But what Mario was named after? A Nintendo warehouse landlord
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: named Mario Sigali?
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: Oh wow?
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: Was he related to Steven Soigali?
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: Probably? Probably? Why did Nintendo call the nes and Entertainment
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: system instead of a video game console?
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: Because the video game consoles were dead and they had
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: a bad name.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: That's right. Who's the main character you actually play as
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: in the legend of Zelda Link? Yeah, everybody thinks it's Zelda.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: No, it's Link.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a Link. Do you remember in our neighborhood
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, the little boy for Halloween
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: dressed up as Link? Yes, that was adorable, wasn't that genius?
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: So the hole blowing into the cartridge, that was a myth.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a myth. It didn't work yet.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that that was a myth until I
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: was researching for this episode.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: So I learned that it was a myth several years ago.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: Because you know, my friend Vince, who I don't talk
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: to anymore, but he actually went out and started buying
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: old Nintendo games at like garage sales and that kind
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: of thing, and old Nintendo's and he repairs them now.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: And he told me, he was like, there's a way
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: to fix them, there's a way to clean them, and
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: blowing into them actually hurts them more than helps them.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: That's what I've heard. You can actually he.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: Was like, you know, come over one day, I'll show
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: you how to fix it. You know, I'll provide some
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: of the cleaner for you. I'll show you how to
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: fix it and that stuff. But I just never made
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: it over to his house. I don't know where he's
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: at anymore, but Bends, if you're out there and you're listening,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: I want to know. But yeah, I knew that was
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: a myth. But yeah, we all did it. Here's here's
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: the thing. Not only did we all do it, like
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: kids across America did it?
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: Right, It wasn't just us.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: I heard Dave and Rob talking about how they did
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: it the other day, right, and you know Brad them
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: did it? And Jason Covid and all these people that
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: lived all across the world, right did this? How did
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: we all know to do that?
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I know?
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: How did it spread? Like wildlid?
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: Know? How did it? Did you ever hear the rumor
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: as a kid that if you did something perfectly, the
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: nes would unlock some hidden game?
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: I know I did not.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: You didn't know? Yes, that used to. We used to
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: talk about that. My cousins and I talked about that
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: all the time. Did you ever hear the myth that
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: Luigi was actually playable in Super Mario Brothers? If you
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: like knew the secret code.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: I may have heard that.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. Oh do you did you ever
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: hear the rumor that you could shoot the Doc Hunt Dog? Yes,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: if you timed it just just right, Yeah, just right.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: It's funny what kids make up as your cousin's brother's
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: sister's friend did at one time.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: Right, and they're and they're trustworthy. I was just gonna,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: you know, mention some of the games that I liked
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: growing up. You know, the kung fu that was fun.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: Ice hockey was a lot of fun. Ice hockey was
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: real fun because you had a little skinny guy that
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: was fast, but he could be knocked off then and
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: he couldn't shoot at all. Then you had like a
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: medium sized guy that was a decent shot, but he
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: wasn't as fast. Then you had a big fat guy
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: who couldn't skate hardly at all, but he had a
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: happy Gilmore style slap shot. And so that was fun
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: to try and you know, get your four on four
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: team with the right combo, uh, you know, to be
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: able to win. So that was a lot of fun.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: Let's see what else do we have? Pro wrestling that
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: was a whole bunch of fun. Uh RC pro Am
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: that was a game that I played a ton of
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: that wasn't a sports game. The hardest game of all
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: time in my opinion on Nintendo's top gun landed that
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: stupid plane on an aircraft carrier. I think I remember
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: Barn Near Impossible, Ghost and Goblins. You mentioned Bases Loaded
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: was another baseball game where if you beanballed the guy,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: he could charge the mound. So as a as a
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: twelve thirteen year old boy, that was a lot of fun.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: Tech Mobile. I mentioned Ice Climber, one of the original
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: games that was It's a simple game, but for some
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: reason I enjoyed it, and I don't know why, but
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: that was pretty fun. Of course, he had the Final
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: Fantasy Game, something that I never really got into. There
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: was actually, you know, the arcade game Popeye was actually
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: released on day though. Yeah, not as fun as the arcade,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: but pretty darn close. Ww F WrestleMania that was fun.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: Nineteen forty two. Oh one of the best games of
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: all time, and it actually franchise, but only I'm seeing
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: that only a million units sold. But I actually got
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: this game for some reason, and I don't know why,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: but Metal Gear and it was like this, You're almost
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: like this Special Forces guy and you're going through it's
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: almost like a Zelda with special forces, and you're trying
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: to do all these things, and oh my gosh, I
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: just remember it being so much fun. And then it
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: spawned like it almost seemed like it was a cult classic.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: But then it spawned like a franchise, like a Mario
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: style franchise, and now there's like dozens of Metal Gear games.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: But that original one was so much fun. And then
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: I mentioned Castle Vania also sold a million. So those
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: are just some of the games that I enjoyed, you know,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: growing up.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: So I have a couple of memories. When we were
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: first talking about doing this episode, you had asked me
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: to think about some personal stories that I might have,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: so I could have a couple of memories. Do you
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: mind if I share it?
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've shared enough, so let's go with you.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: So I remember in the fourth grade we were studying
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: something along the lines of like how businesses are formed
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: and how you would start a company. I don't really
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: remember the specifics Junior achievement maybe, but we had to
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: pick a company or a business and then we had
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: to write to them, right because this was what nineteen
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: eighty eight, and ask for information about how their company
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: started and how their business started and see if they
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: would respond. Well, I picked Nintendo. Really, so I wrote
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: to Nintendo and I got a response. So I've learned
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: in my doing my research that it wasn't Hiroshi that
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: I probably heard from. It was because his son in
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: law ran the US side of Nintendo, Minoru Arakawa or so.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, not that I heard from him directly, but
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: you know, they would have stamped his name at the
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: end of the letter that they sent me. But they
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: did respond, and they sent me a letter and they
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: answered my questions, and then they sent me some like
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: pamphlets and paraphernalia. Gosh, I wish I had kept it. Yeah,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: how cool would that have been?
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: Beat?
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: That would have been really cool.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: Did you ever do that as a kid?
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: No, I never did. I could get me or write.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: It was either playing video games or sports.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: Well, it was a class. It was a class at school.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: I had to you know what, There was a lot
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: of things I was told to do in classes in
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: school that I never did, and then I'd get grounded
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: for it.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: That's funny. I guess. The only other thing that I
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: could add to this is it's hard to put into words,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: really how important Nintendo was for me in like the
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: late eighties, because it was this transitional time in my
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: life where I'm not necessarily playing outside anymore, right, but
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: I'm not exactly ready to not be playing something right, right,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: And so you know, of course I've shared about that.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: My cousins were my best friends growing up, and so
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: we were always together, and we were close enough in
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: age that we kind of grew up together in that
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: same time frame. And so we transitioned again from like
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: you know, playing pretend stuff outside and doing stuff outside
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: and racing our big wheels to what could have been
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: this awkward transition for us that could have kind of
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: divided us or pushed us apart. But Nintendo came along
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: it just the right time, and so we just transitioned
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: right into my bedroom playing Nintendo. And it came along
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: at a time when some of my cousins their parents
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: were divorcing. One of my cousins unfortunately passed away from
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: a medical emergency, we lost another really close family member.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: We were all processing some really heavy crap on top
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: of stuff the kids that you're going through as a
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: kid anyways, right, And Nintendo allowed us that we sort
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: of commiserated together and we didn't really have to talk
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: about it, but we could be together and do stuff
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: and that was comforting and that was like a form
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: of therapy for us. And so I'm just grateful that
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: we had that experience and it prolonged us staying close,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: and I appreciate.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: That that's a neat story.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: We were obsessed with Super Mario Brothers. Oh yeah, I'm
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: sure they were boys, so I'm sure they did more
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: than Super Mario Brothers. But that's all I remember.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: So I'll say this. I said that tech Mobil was
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: my favorite game of all time, and it was, but
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: I probably spent more time playing Super Mario Brothers and
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: I did tech Moobil because tech Bobuls just wasn't fun
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: and playing by yourself, it was too easy to beat
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: the computer, so it was only fun playing with friends,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: where a Super Mario Brothers you could play by yourself
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: for hours and hours and days and days. So right,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: so yeah, yeah, Super Mario Brothers is just something that
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: will always be stuck in my head. And you know,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: we have a Nintendo in a box around here, right,
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: We've got the original nes system, We've got Super Mario Brothers,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: We've got tech bo Bull, We've got super techmo Bull,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: We've got we've got RBI Baseball. I think we've got Anticipation,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: which was almost like a wind loser drawl where the
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: computer would draw something. So, you know, we've got some stuff.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: It doesn't always work how I want it to work,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: And on these new televisions it's really it looks really bad.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: It looks better on the older televisions.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: I've been looking for a tube television forever to hook
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: that thing up to, and I cannot find one anywhere.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: So if anybody has on that, they'd like to send me,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: DM me and I'll give you our address. Yeah. So, yeah,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: Nintendo was just so important to us. I do wonder
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: you talk about how you had reached an age where
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: maybe you didn't want to be outside, or maybe you
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: did but you weren't sure. I do wonder if Nintendo
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: killed our desire to be outside earlier than maybe it
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: should have.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's a good point too. I don't disagree
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: with that.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: You know, at some point we quit play and pretend, right,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: And at some point I don't want to say we
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: quit riding bikes, because we would ride our bikes to
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: places but we quit riding bikes for fun and it
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: became more of a transportation unit. But we'd still play
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: sports outside. We'd still play football and baseball and basketball.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: And you know, for those weirdos in my neighborhood that
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: wanted to play soccer, I'd get bored and play with
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: them because that's what they wanted to play. But it
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: was either sports or video games. That was it. Yeah,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: all right, well I think that wraps us up. We
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: want to know what was some of your favorite video games?
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: What did you get a Nintendo? Did you just jump
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: from Atari to Sega? What did Nintendo mean to you?
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: What we're's you know, some of your memories. We we
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: want to hear that stuff.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we want to know. Let us know. Reach out.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: You can find us on social media or you can
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: of course email us.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah we're on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Our handle is at
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: Children of Underscore eighties or email addresses Children of the
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighties at gmail dot com. By the way, I
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: did get some emails this what tell me? Yes, So
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: it's awesome.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: So we got an email from a fellow named Andrew
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: Bradford who is listening over in the INNA really. Yeah,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: he is Austria, but he's a he's a pat right,
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: so he's from here, but he's en via Austria and
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: he's been listening to the podcast for a few months
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: and he said he likes us, you know, and keep
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: up the good work. So we appreciate that, Andrew, and
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: he gave some ideas. One of our longtime listeners, Chris Lee,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: emailed me today to say Merry Christmas to us, to
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: yes to you and Emmy and me from their family
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: to ours. So that was a very kind Merry Christmas
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: right back at you, Chris, So we appreciate that. And
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: then our buddy Eric Shores, who was on the podcast
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: for his book Life Goes On. Yeah, he reached out
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: and said that the book just went live through the
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: publisher on December twelfth, but the volume of printing that
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: they do this year is heavy, so there might not
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: be enough copies, but there are copies that are coming out.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: So if you remember that episode and you liked that episode,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: go look for that book. Life goes On Lessons we
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: learned from eighties music. It's just you know, it's fantastic.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: And so thanks for reaching out to Eric and letting
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: us know, and of course we'll be anxiously awaiting that
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: book when when you send it. We are looking forward
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: to it. And I know that I've had some people
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: reach out to us and say that they can't wait
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: for the book either, So so cool.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: If you haven't already, we would accept as our Christmas
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: present if you would hit that subscribe button. Yes, I
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: take that. Would you take that?
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: I take that?
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: And tell a friend, tell a friend, phone a friend.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: That means the world to us when people tell us
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: that they've told other people about our podcast.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we love that. It makes us feel good
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: and makes it this all seem worthwhile. Thank you for
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: all the kind words that you send out, Thank you
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: for listening. Merry Christmas to you. If you don't celebrate Christmas,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: Happy Hanukah, even though I think that's over now, but
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: happy holidays, Happy holidays to all to all, a good night.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: Until next time. I'm Jim and I'm Lindsay than we
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: are children of the eighties. Und Blowing into a cartridge
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: car okay, blowing into some cartilage of your an orthopedic surgeon.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: Blowing into a cartridge's cartridge, that's the word. Or maybe
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: blowing into a cartridge.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: You got to save these outtakes because this is classic.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: What can't I say it? Okay, say it cartridge, cartridge, cartridge. Okay,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: we've lost out. Okay, I gotta get it that