Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Soundcore P40i Earbuds, & Yars Rising
About This Episode
We head to the theatre for Tim Burton’s supernatural comedy sequel 36 years after the original, test out some new feature-packed earbuds sure to satisfy the audiophile in you, and, as you wish, we pull the plunger on a virtual pinball table themed after a beloved ’80s movie!
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Show Notes
- Jujutsu Kaisen » youtu.be/pkKu9hLT-t8?si=j-mSW30jFaiOIK7y
- Beetlejuice Beetlejuice » youtu.be/As-vKW4ZboU?si=SNXHOINt349jBVhe
- Chino Crazy » youtu.be/qqP1VUhCpi8?si=y7HpMzfRxZ2-5Jq8
- Soundcore P40i by Anker, Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds » amz.run/9Wdo (affiliate)
- Blip » en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blip_(console)
- Star Wars Outlaws » www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/star-wars/outlaws
- Pinball FX Princess Bride » zenstudios.com/games/the-princess-bride-pinball/
- JR: Yars Rising » atari.com/products/yars-rising
- Yars Rising Launch Day Gameplay Live Stream » youtube.com/live/kHSNej1jeL4
- From Season 3 » youtu.be/DfvdbB5-V8Q?si=wDBUmqq-W3VmTW5i
- The Wild Robot » youtu.be/VUCNBAmse04?si=cZkDLbsw9pw7grQR
- The Walking Dead Daryl Dixon Season 2 » youtu.be/N5uZBSQ2R_M?si=VqeSOBYAlZ-hdnr3
- Email the show » podcast@genxgrownup.com
- Visit us on YouTube » GenXGrownUp.com/yt
Transcript
| Speaker | Transcript |
| Jon | Welcome back GenXGrownUp podcast listeners to this episode 176 of the GenXGrownUp podcast. Mo shaking his head. You can’t see that. I am John joining me as always, of course, as Mo. Hey man. |
| Mo | Hey, how’s it going? |
| Jon | Of course, you know that George is here. Hey buddy. |
| George | Hey, how’s it going, guys? |
| Jon | In this episode, we head to the theater for Tim Burton’s supernatural comedy sequel 36 years after the original. Test out some new feature-packed earbuds, sure to satisfy the audiophile in you, and as you wish, we pull the plunger on a virtual pinball table themed after a beloved 1980s movie. Love those topics and many more coming up in this episode, but first! |
| Jon | It’s time for one of, if not the, favorite parts of the show, and that is fourth listener email. There’s three of us. We’re liable to listen, no guarantees. But if we did, anyone else would be the fourth listener. |
| Jon | And the fourth listener this time around is Sean Peay, who dropped us an email on the subject line of Sean’s email. Dukes of hazard. Another Dukes of hazard email. |
| George | o lord |
| Mo | that keeps That keeps coming back. |
| Jon | yeah Yep, yep. This is a bit of a long email, but I didn’t edit it too much. It is a great story. So I wanted to share this. So here is what Sean had to say. Dear John Mo and George, I’ve been listening to GXG over the last few months and really enjoy your backtrack episodes. |
| Jon | So when I looked at my podcast feed and saw you all were doing an episode about the Dukes of Hazzard, I was hyped. |
| George | Oh, Lord. |
| Jon | As I think a lot of people were. i think We’ve gotten so much feedback on the Dukes episode. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | He goes on to say, I appreciate the fact that you addressed the issues with the Confederate flag and its meaning, as well as the fact that little to no black people were seen in the show during the entire run and the black person did show up, who’s more than likely to be a villain, LOL. |
| George | mmm yeah yep |
| Jon | Yeah, that’s welcome to the 70s in the early 80s, yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
| Jon | um i so It’s shameful now, but like why we were blind to it back then. |
| Mo | You didn’t even notice. |
| Jon | I don’t know why. it was Anyway, right, yeah. I watched the show heavily as a kid. I remember my dad telling me about the flag on the General Lee and its history, and that while it was cool that I enjoyed the show and the cool ass car jumping over mountains every week, to remember that while the cast and car were awesome, we should never idolize that flag. |
| Jon | being black and during the 80s, a lot of history was not discussed in schools. I appreciate my father telling me these things as a child. What a great, like a teaching opportunity in the middle of watching the dukes of hazard. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | I think that’s wonderful. |
| George | The awareness is top-notch. I mean, like you said a minute ago, John, we, we just weren’t paying attention to that kind of thing back then. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | It wasn’t in our mindset, but obviously his father, ah Sean’s, you know, dad just, you know, made sure he educated him and sounds like he did it in the perfect way. |
| Jon | yeah |
| Mo | Yeah, absolutely. |
| George | So yeah, kudos to him. |
| Jon | Right, right, right. You don’t have to not like this, but understand. Make sure you know the context, and that’s that’s beautiful, yeah. |
| Mo | Right, exactly. |
| Jon | Way to go. Kudos to your dad, Sean. ah He goes on to say, plus, the Dukes fought against a corrupt city commissioner and the police force, so outside of that flag on top of the General Lee, how could you not like the Dukes? |
| Mo | your anti establishment. |
| George | All right. |
| Jon | Right, yep. He kind of wraps it up by saying so. While the series does have its problems, and I fully recognize and understand the issues, it was one of the first of the vehicle motivated series for me. As part of my childhood, I will never forget. Thanks again for a solid podcast. Looking forward to the next one. Peace and take care, Sean. |
| Mo | That’s good. |
| George | Cool. |
| Mo | I like that. |
| Jon | delightful. thanks Sean, thank you for, I’m glad you enjoyed the episode. Thank you for sharing that story of your great upbringing, your dad taking good care if they take care of business while you enjoyed the show and that you wrote in to let us know about it. |
| Mo | Hehehe. |
| Jon | We love every time the fourth listener takes time out of their day to drop us a line and let us know what they think of the show or memories it dredges up for you. If you would like your email featured here on the show, it’s drop dead easy. |
| Jon | Just hit us up at podcast at genexcoronup.com or read every single one. And most of them, like Sean’s, will eventually make the show. All right, guys, with that good business behind us, let’s say we jump into the body of episode 176 after this quick break. |
| Jon | Okay. It’s time to get the ball rolling. Talking about media as we always do. Now, of course, this could be any films or books or television or, uh, music or whatever you have been enjoying since we last had a chance to speak. |
| Jon | And George, I want to start with you. What have you been checking out? |
| George | Well, first of all, I’m going to do a George Cheat moment here and talk about two things as I often do on the podcast. |
| Jon | Oh, ah wouldn’t be a show without it. Sounds good. |
| George | Right. um So first off, I just wanted to go back to a recent regular episode where, John, you talked about going to watch Long Legs with your daughter. |
| Jon | Yes. |
| George | And you had some issues with maybe its classification a little bit, and ah you guys kind of walked out going, well, like if we hadn’t been thinking this, we would have liked it more, blah, blah, blah. |
| Mo | Hmm. |
| Jon | Right. Good way to say it. |
| Mo | Hmm. |
| George | And it was centered mostly around the fact that people were going off the hook about it being the greatest horror movie of all time. You know, it was like 100% of Rotten Tomatoes at that moment. |
| George | Um, I didn’t get to go to the theater as everybody knows, um, you know, my wife is still struggling with recovery from her stroke. And so we don’t get out as often. So I have to catch things when they hit streaming media. |
| George | And that’s what I did with long legs. |
| Jon | Oh, good. |
| George | Um, as soon as it hit the, uh, you know, the public domain, so to speak, uh, got to watch it. |
| Jon | You saw it. Okay. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| George | And I was struck by one thing immediately. |
| Jon | Oh, all right. |
| George | And so I want to ask you a question, John, because how you answer the question might change your mind about how you viewed this movie. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | Okay. |
| George | Do you consider Silence of the Lambs a horror movie? |
| Jon | ah |
| Jon | If it is, it’s with an asterisk. Like it’s more of a eight gripping drama crime procedural thing. |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | I don’t see it as horror per se, although the horrible things happen in it. |
| Mo | Yeah, I was considered a psychological thriller more so than horror. |
| Jon | You know, that’s kind of no, not really. Yeah. |
| George | Right, so long legs is a modern reproduction with a supernatural aspect of Silence of the Lambs almost to the T. |
| George | You’ve got the young female FBI detective type of person, right, who is being |
| Mo | Mm-hmm. |
| George | kind of tortured mentally by the overbearing long legs character that Nicolas Cage plays. He’s got his helper who’s actually doing the crime in much the same way that Buffalo Bill was the person who was perpetrating all the crimes in Silence of the Lambs. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Spoiler alert. |
| George | You’ve got all the final ah stuff that happens where that is revealed and how, you know, she catches up and all the weird. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| George | It does have the supernatural element, which to me makes it slightly more horror-ish than Silence of the Lambs. |
| Jon | Mm hmm, skosh. |
| George | But in the same way that Silence of the Lambs is considered to be one of the greatest thriller slash horror films of all time, I would say Long Legs is a pretty close second. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| George | If due in no short part, to the greatest Nicolas Cage performance I have ever seen. |
| Mo | actor knows him. |
| George | it was He was transformed and the one scene that I found out later on from watching some behind the scenes kind of stuff that was the first time the girl who played the lead character saw Nicolas Cage in his paint in the interrogation room |
| Jon | yeah Yep. Right. |
| George | And they did that so that they would get her natural visceral reaction to seeing him that way. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | Oh my God, that was Dark Knight Joker esque of a performance. It was beautiful. So I just wanted to talk about it just for a brief moment, because if anybody got the wrong impression from the last time we discussed the film, do not miss this movie. |
| Jon | Right. |
| George | I’m not saying it’s the greatest horror film ever. I’m saying it’s a hell of a movie, though, and maybe one of my favorites of the year so far, certainly in my top five for this year. |
| Jon | No. |
| Jon | Great film. |
| George | It is riveting. It’s creepy. It’s intoxicating. It draws you in at the same time, making you want to pull back. It’s it’s got a lot going for it. |
| George | So. |
| Jon | I’m glad you liked it. It sounds like Mo you watched it too. Did you have similar feelings about it or? |
| Mo | Yeah. I mean, I don’t think I like as much as George. I mean, George already loves it. |
| George | Hmm. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | um But it was it was like a movie. I looked at it and I could appreciate what they were doing. Like I could see that they were everything was purposeful. |
| Jon | Yeah. yeah |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | Like I said, like like they were doing everything with intent in it. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | Yep. |
| Mo | um like There was no wasted scene, I don’t think, in that whole movie. I think everything seemed like it had a purpose in it. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | Now. Yeah, I think the only thing I might have done different from an editing standpoint was not shown the long legs girl interaction in the first two minutes of the film. |
| Jon | yeah Yeah. |
| George | I thought that was a little too much of a giveaway, but. |
| Jon | It was almost like a little teaser of what’s to come to had to grip you. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | Yeah, I mean, other than that, ah tremendous film. But to move on to my second topic ah for the media segment, my son and I have been watching, right? |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Jon | So George, what else have you been checking out? |
| George | My son and I have been watching another anime, and I bring this one up mainly because I know Moe will be more likely to watch than John, but it’s a it’s a fun new anime series, not new. It’s been out for a couple of years. Jujitsu Kaizen. |
| George | And the Jujitsu is J-U-J-U-T-S-U. |
| Mo | Okay. |
| George | so Little hard to spell, but go check it out. |
| Jon | okay |
| George | It’s essentially, you know, kid gets plucked out of obscurity to become the superhero kind of thing. Sorcerer’s versus what they call um curses. |
| George | The curses are these. different creatures they start at low levels where they’re just like blobs that are messing with people all the way up to super high level curses that can speak and think and act and are trying to bring about the end of humanity kind of stuff where the sorcerers that the kid becomes a part of they go to schools to learn how to do their craft and of course |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| Mo | Oh, no, that sucks. |
| Jon | Oh, so anime. |
| George | You know, he’s like the most powerful they’ve ever seen since the head guy that’s running the school kind of stuff. |
| Mo | she |
| George | It’s one of those kind of stories. um If you’re going to watch it, Moe in particular for you, watch season one, then make sure you download the movie, which is special season zero. |
| George | Watch that because it fills in gaps and it’s definitely in the middle of the two seasons. |
| Mo | Okay. Okay. |
| George | Then watch season two, which is where my son and I aren’t now with just a couple of episodes left to go. |
| Mo | Gotcha. |
| George | ah Really fun series. Really crazy anime stuff happens. |
| Mo | Oh, that’s good. |
| George | There’s no boob grabbing like the last anime that I suggested. |
| Jon | Well, I’m out. at No, sorry. |
| George | Yeah, I know. That’s what I said. John’s not likely to watch, but it’s a fun series. It’s got a lot of crazy action going on on it. Don’t think too hard about most of it. |
| Mo | Oh, yeah. |
| George | It’s one of those. Just enjoy it for having fun. |
| Mo | Okay, cool. I definitely will. |
| Jon | George, when you watch these, are you, and now I know that your son is more of a purist about anime, are you watching with English dubs or are you watching with the original Japanese and with subtitles? |
| Jon | Or have you learned Japanese and I didn’t know about it? |
| George | in this No, no, I did not learn Japanese. In this particular case, I’m watching original Japanese dialogue with English subs. |
| Jon | so Okay. |
| George | There’s another series that my son and I ah enjoy called Demon Slayer. We listened to that one with English dub actually, because he prefers that one and I do too. |
| Mo | Oh, yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah, I know that one, yeah. Okay. |
| George | um Every series I think is different. I think if you’re comfortable doing the Japanese with English subs, nine times out of 10, they’re going to be the better version of the anime. |
| Jon | Better experience. |
| Mo | yeah |
| Jon | Okay. |
| George | Yeah, just because Japanese culture is different than American culture, as we all know, obviously. And I think the emotional context suffers a lot with English dubs. |
| George | They they might get the words right and the phrasing and the intent, but |
| Mo | Yeah, but not the. |
| George | Because the culture is different, what I notice is what comes through in the vocal performance that might elicit an emotion is not translatable over to the English side as often as you would like it to be. |
| Jon | Okay. |
| George | So in this particular case, like I said, we’re doing the Japanese original voice with English subtitles. And I think that’s probably what I do for, yeah, nine out of 10 of the ones I watch. |
| Jon | Okay, all right. |
| Mo | It’s funny George, the one that you’re saying that you liked the sub or the dubbing on, ah what was that one? |
| George | ah Demon Slayer. |
| Jon | Dragon, Demon Slayer, yeah. |
| Mo | Oh, Demon Slayer. I actually stopped watching because ah one voice was just annoying me to no end. |
| George | Oh, yeah. |
| Mo | So I went to the Japanese and read subtitles because it was easy. |
| Jon | ah Yeah. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Mo | You know what I’m talking about. |
| George | Yeah, and that definitely happens in a lot of these. I actually have had that happen to me in an anime series where the Japanese voice was so annoying. |
| Mo | Oh, really? |
| George | I couldn’t i couldn’t take it like it was ear-splittingly high. |
| Mo | He did the other way around. |
| Jon | Oh, oh boy. |
| Mo | Yep. |
| George | And so I’m like, no, fuck this. I’ll go to the English. and But yeah, it’s a lot of fun. They’re 20 minute episodes. They’re easy to consume. |
| Mo | Cool. |
| George | You can binge watch the the whole thing in a weekend if you really wanted to. So ah check it out. It’s it’s fun and it’s a nice distraction. But that’s enough about all the things I’m going to cheat with today. |
| George | John, ah you have something that is also ah labeled twice. |
| Jon | yeah |
| Jon | It is labeled twice, you’re right. Yes. 36 years after the original Beetlejuice, sequel finally out. I don’t think we saw this coming up until a couple of years ago when we started getting rumblings of it. |
| Jon | So you know Tim Burton returning to to this film that he and Michael Keaton started this love affair with. They moved on to go Batman together and stuff like that. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Now, of course, no spoilers at all. and Am I going to talk about here? ah But I did want to talk about it because I was up at RetroCon in Pennsylvania this past weekend and I had a chance to see it with my co-host Will and Kat from 1980s. |
| Jon | Now, we got to see it together, which the last time we got to do that was like Ready Player One. |
| Mo | no Nice. |
| George | Hmm. |
| Jon | We all got to see a movie together. That’s been a long time since the three of us were in the same place, ah but it was a great experience. |
| George | Oh, wow. Yeah. |
| Jon | and I don’t know, oh like I know that both of you have, you tend to like avoid reviews, you tend to avoid trailers and stuff like that. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | um And I guess I just wanted to share my take on what you can expect going to see it. And the first takeaway for me is this is most certainly, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, I won’t say it a third time, is a, no, but if you if you had to say them three times contiguously, that’s those are the rules. |
| George | You already did though. You said his name earlier. |
| Mo | Yeah, that’s the rule. |
| Jon | Yeah, come on, read the read the manual, the book for the recently deceased, George, you get it straight. |
| George | I don’t know. I keep seeing things that like that. What’s that progressive commercial that’s going around where they’re trying to decide what the rules are. |
| Jon | They’re breaking the rules. Yeah, they are, they are. |
| Mo | yeah |
| Jon | ah This sequel is most certainly, I would call it a welcomed and logical and thematically on point sequel to the original Beetlejuice. |
| George | Nice. |
| Mo | Okay. Okay. |
| Jon | Is it going to knock your socks off? Maybe, maybe not. |
| Mo | okay |
| Jon | I came out of the theater with someone who was a casual Beetlejuice fan and he’s like, I don’t wanna get anybody mad, but I like this better than the original. |
| Mo | Okay. |
| Jon | But then he went on to explain why that was and it was its modern movie structure. |
| George | Okay. |
| Mo | Okay. |
| Jon | They go back and watch a TV show that came out in the 70s and 80s and the pacing is odd and the editing is odd. |
| Mo | Oh yeah. It’s, it’s, they’re all like laugh tracks and yeah. |
| George | Right. |
| Jon | Yeah, because the language of film has changed. |
| Mo | Mm-hmm. |
| Jon | And so this was a very ah structurally a very 21st century film. |
| George | Sure. |
| Jon | ah But the things that they did, they didn’t just tell, what’s what’s the risk so many LEGO sequels do? Let’s tell that same story again with just a slightly different twist. |
| Mo | Yeah, I hate that. |
| George | Right, yeah. |
| Jon | They didn’t do that with this sequel. |
| Mo | Oh, it’s it’s a new story. |
| Jon | It is no longer, yeah, it’s no longer, oh, these two you know people are stuck in the house and we have to call. |
| George | Right. |
| Jon | Instead, we get to see more about the Dietz family, specifically Lydia and her life. And of course, she has this daughter now, Astrid, that you know. and As you might imagine, they’re estranged. But as they come back to to town, they’re drawn there because of a death in the family, which I think anyone seen the trailer probably knows. But I won’t I won’t say in case you don’t. They’re there for that reason. So they’re all brought together. They normally aren’t together. And things have been happening in this town. Lydia is now has a TV show because she can see ghosts and she’s like doing ah a haunted house shows or celebrity kind of thing. But her daughter thinks she’s like capitalizing and she’s a fraud and she’s a liar. |
| Jon | And imagine, imagine, I just want to leave you on this note, what it would take for Lydia Dietz to intentionally summon the demon she bleached once to ever see again. |
| Jon | What shit must have hit the fan? |
| George | Hmm. |
| Mo | Yeah, maybe something serious. |
| Jon | Yeah. And so there are stakes there. |
| Mo | Okay. |
| Jon | They expand upon the the afterlife world, the netherworld that we just kind of got little glimpses of in the first one, we see different things in the universe that expands upon the world characters doing things they should be doing as they’re 30 years older. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | ah So I I would give this easily four tokens, four and a half tokens maybe out of five. I really enjoyed the film. |
| George | and Okay. |
| Jon | Can’t wait to see it again. In no way is it one of those where you watch it and you go, oh, that really sully the memory of the original. No, it doesn’t do that. |
| Mo | Okay. |
| Jon | You might not love it. I think you will, but it definitely adds to the mythology, adds to the story in a logical and satisfying way. And I’m really happy that they did it that way. |
| Mo | Cool. Good to hear that. |
| George | So it sounds like you’re leaning more toward the Ghostbusters Afterlife kind of feeling versus the alien resurrection feeling as far as sequels go with this one. |
| Jon | Most certainly, most certainly. Yeah, absolutely. |
| George | Yeah, um I am kind of curious at something you said, though, you said ah what kind of crazy stuff would have to happen for Lydia to want to call back the demon that she most she least likely wants to see or whatever. I didn’t get that impression from the first movie at the at the end of the wedding ceremony in the first Beetlejuice. |
| George | she felt more wistful to me when Beetlejuice got pulled down in the pit and she dropped her bouquet down the pit. She didn’t look like happy that he was gone. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | It was almost like Oh, that’s it. She reminds me a lot of April from Parks and Rec in that like she seems to want to be melancholy all the time. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | So I mean, it’s interesting to see how she’s grown up and I can’t wait to see the film because I’m guessing that how she grew up is what informs the fact that she really hates Beetlejuice moving forward. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Jon | There we go. There we go. There we go. |
| Mo | and Okay. |
| Jon | Yeah. This is driven home at the beginning and ah there are a couple things I was about to say. We’ll talk maybe later when there’s the spoiler embargo is lifted, but I’ll save those things. |
| Mo | okay |
| Jon | But ah what you talk about, George, is kind of addressed early on in the film and what she’s been going through. |
| George | Uh, okay. |
| Jon | It’s almost like she has post-traumatic Betelgeuse syndrome, right? |
| George | Hmm. |
| Jon | Like like so she’s really been suffering in her life since then and more so lately. |
| Mo | That |
| Jon | And they really drive that home at the beginning. |
| George | Yeah. PT BJ. That’s a thing, man. |
| Jon | It is, there it is. |
| Jon | That could mean lots of stuff problem to work on that acronym. |
| Mo | was good. |
| George | It could. |
| Jon | I think a lot of things it could be. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, definitely see it worthwhile. |
| Mo | All right. |
| Jon | Mo, ah what have you been watching, man? |
| Mo | Yeah, um I just this thing. OK, it’s called Chimp Crazy. I don’t know if you guys heard of it. |
| Jon | Mm-hmm |
| George | He’s not wasting any time. He’s just dropping right in with the title. |
| Mo | I’m just going to drop it right in because because I was trying to figure out how to get it. |
| George | No, no pretext. |
| Jon | Okay, |
| Mo | I’m like, I’m just just because I was saying this the title fits because this story is just freaking insane. The same guy who did Tiger King, the same guy who made Tiger King made this one. |
| George | So a documentary again. |
| Mo | Yes, it’s a documentary. |
| George | Oh. |
| Jon | okay there’s a film a series what do we got we’re looking at okay, all right |
| Mo | And it’s a documentary about it’s a series four for four episodes, like Tiger King. Uh, and it’s about people who have chimps as pets. |
| Jon | OK, yeah, he he. |
| George | OK. |
| Mo | And it’s yeah, that, that, that came up. Uh, and they go into just basically. There’s like a couple, there’s a main character. She has like, for some reason you don’t, and you kind of get into a little bit, but you’re not really sure. |
| Mo | But basically they kind of go, it’s like, these people want chimps as almost like surrogate children. |
| Jon | OK. |
| Mo | You know, they dress them up, they feed them, they do all this stuff. |
| George | Yeah, okay. |
| Mo | And then the problem is, is that chimps are not domesticated animals. |
| Jon | They’re wild animals. Yeah. |
| Mo | They’re wild animals. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Mo | And once they hit a certain age, they mature. And when they mature, they become, they fight to become alpha. they |
| Jon | Nope. |
| Mo | protect territory. |
| Jon | So, so they go chip crazy, if you will. |
| Mo | They. Yeah. um And so, you know, they talk about some of the things that people who had this as pets and the the animals like turn on somebody and really like ah ah what was the movie? |
| George | he |
| Mo | um The Jordan Peele with the alien. |
| George | Nope. |
| Mo | Nope. |
| Jon | Nope. |
| Mo | Remember the the actress that they got mauled by the chimp in that thing. |
| George | Yeah, yeah. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | That was based on the true story. |
| Jon | Right. |
| George | Chimped away crazy in the, in the. |
| Jon | Or was it? |
| Mo | Yes, that was totally based on the true story that they go into on this. |
| Jon | Who? |
| George | Oh, wow. |
| Mo | Um, because they said they’re not, they’re not team animals. And so it it goes to this whole fight about this woman who’s just obsessed with these chimps and how they, and how basically it’s like this whole thing where PETA is trying to take the chimps away from her. And you know, there’s all this legal stuff going on and, you know, it’s it’s just, it’s every, at the end of every episode, we’re like, what the hell? |
| Mo | you know Then you go to the next episode. like They just leave you on these really great like endings. You’re like, you’ve got to be kidding me. you know um and its said like I never saw Tiger King. I don’t know if either of you guys saw it. |
| Mo | I never saw it. |
| George | Oh, yeah. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. Yeah. |
| Mo | I know that was like a big pandemic. |
| George | Oh, yeah. |
| Jon | Yep. |
| Mo | Everyone watched it, but apparently I just missed it. |
| Jon | It was. |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | um But this is as I heard that this is as insane as far as the people and what they do you and what they’re like. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | Really? |
| Mo | You, you sympathize with the people in it, even though I think what they’re doing is wrong. You could say, but they do a good job of that. you You do feel sympathy for them. You understand why they’re doing it. |
| George | Well, that’s that’s different from Tiger King then, because I didn’t sympathize with any of those motherfuckers. |
| Mo | Oh, really? Okay. |
| George | All of them could have dropped off the face of the earth would have been fine with me. |
| Mo | Okay. So these these people are a little bit more sympathetic because to me, these characters are just very sad. |
| Jon | They were just weirdos. |
| Mo | You know, like they’re just lonely and they’re just trying to find, you know what I mean? |
| George | Okay. |
| Mo | Like it’s just, and they’re finding the scene that as a replacement. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| Mo | But again, it’s like the fact that it’s a wild animal and. you know, that what these people are doing, you find out that, you know, United States has all these endangered species laws, but chimps are not included in it. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | No. |
| Mo | Specifically, they are excluded because of science and the entertainment industry. |
| George | oh Heavy lobbying, right? |
| Jon | Oh, interesting. |
| Mo | And there’s, and there’s some states that you can still buy and sell them in the United States. And matter of fact, this person makes like a quarter million dollars a year doing that, you know, it’s, it’s crazy. |
| Jon | Mm |
| Mo | Um, so if you liked Tiger King, I heard that you would definitely like this one. Uh, it’s, it’s, it’s nuts. |
| Jon | hmm. |
| Mo | It makes it, it’s just a, you watch this thing and you’re just like, what the hell? And like these people are the weirdest people I’ve ever seen. |
| George | it The title of it, and here you talk about it, it reminds me of the old Chris Rock ah joke that he used to tell. And I thought of the same joke back when I was watching Tiger King several years ago. |
| George | He’s talking about the story where the woman gets grabbed by the tiger through the cage when she got too close at a zoo. |
| Mo | Oh, yeah. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| George | And, you know, real story. And Chris Rock’s stance is, you know, everybody was saying that tiger went crazy. Tiger went crazy. That tiger didn’t go crazy. He went tiger. |
| Mo | That’s right. |
| George | That’s all it is. |
| Mo | He just did what tigers do. |
| George | So yeah, like people saying chimp crazy. |
| Jon | Right. Yeah, you can’t blame him for being him. |
| George | This chimps didn’t go crazy. They just were chimps. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | That’s it. |
| Jon | Yeah, yeah. |
| George | You know, it’s if, if you’re dumb enough to think that you can control an uncontrollable animal that’s stronger than you, you deserve whatever the fuck happens. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | Oh, way stronger. I mean, that’s the thing, too, that they are. Yeah. |
| George | That’s it. |
| Jon | Yeah, so I can see these people like you’re projecting human emotions and human thoughts upon them because they’re treating them like children, forgetting in fact that what I have here is a powder keg potentially that could cause a problem. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| George | Mm-hmm. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| Mo | Yep. So, yeah, definitely worth watching. It says four episodes. Again, if you’re going to watch it, ah be careful because the end of every episode you like, I got to watch the next episode because that. |
| George | What, so what service is it on Netflix again or HBO? |
| Jon | Okay. |
| Mo | HBO, HBO. |
| Jon | HBO or Max or whatever the hell they call themselves. |
| George | Okay. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. Yeah, HBO, Mac. |
| George | Right. |
| Mo | Yeah, whatever. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | Okay. |
| Mo | You know, it’s it. Yeah. |
| Jon | All right. Chimp crazy. All right, well, cool. |
| Mo | Chip Crazy. |
| Jon | Thanks. |
| Mo | So George, you have something you kind of want to talk about briefly for Tech and Toys, right? |
| George | Yeah, just real brief, um you guys know that I’ve talked about um how I’ve drawn an interest lately in pinballs and ah virtual pinball machines and playing Zen Studios, pinball FX and all that stuff. |
| Mo | Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. |
| George | I finally went and did something really fucking stupid. |
| Jon | Good for you. |
| Mo | um no |
| George | um |
| Mo | but do you buy |
| George | i ah So we have a local um arcade by the hour kind of place called Flipping Great Pinball. And they’re really great guys. If you’re ever in Tallahassee, by the way, stop in and support them. |
| George | They’re just really great guys who are enthusiasts for the arcade era, just like we are, um who have done something about it. They’ve opened up this arcade pinball place. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| George | ah they had a really old Atari pinball cabinet that was unsalvageable basically. |
| Mo | Oh no, what did you buy? |
| George | And so I was talking with him because I had gotten in contact with him again through Infinity Con that we went to and did some stuff at. |
| Mo | OK. |
| George | And he sold me the damn cabinet for a hundred bucks. So now |
| Mo | Oh, OK, that’s not that bad. |
| George | I have this super old cabinet. |
| Jon | That’s all right. |
| George | Well, the dumb thing is what I’m going to do. |
| Mo | Oh. |
| George | I’m going to try and turn it into a virtual pinball machine. |
| Mo | Oh, God, OK, that’s going to be expensive. |
| George | I found a few series online that that talk about how to ah make the virtual pinball as realistic as possible by doing things like adding controllers that actuate solenoids to make the bumpers feel right or the flippers and ah the flashing strobes and syncing them up with the with the hardware software stuff and everything. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| George | so it’s It’s going to be a project. The guy who, whose series I’m watching right now on YouTube, his project took him two years to complete. |
| George | Now I’m assuming a lot of that is because life gets in the way kind of time, but I’m hoping I could do one within two years, but. |
| Mo | I’ve heard that, yeah. |
| George | Uh, I’m in kind of the same starting point that his series starts with a really old, like 19, his is like a late seventies cabinet, which this is as well. |
| Jon | Right. |
| George | Um, and yeah, it’s so much so that we’re, my wife and I are talking about trying to refinance the house to take our back porch and build it into a real room to have the pinball cabinet and the old arcade machine in my jukebox in. |
| Jon | Ah, yeah. |
| George | So yeah. |
| Jon | That kind of leads right into, I had a two-part question. One was, which room have you sacrificed to put this pinball machine in? |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | And the other is, you’re a hundred bucks in. I was curious how much deeper you are already, or is it just that hundred? Have you started any additional pieces and purchases yet? |
| George | No, no, right now it’s just that hundred. um I got, well, I didn’t get fortunate. They were kind. They left most everything in the cabinet that they could. They kept the play field, um which is understandable, but they left me um the glass for the back glass. |
| Jon | Mm-hmm. |
| George | I just have to scrape off the old decal because it’s really falling apart. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. No. |
| George | um plungers, flipper buttons, ah legs, all of the stuff is in there, the coin door with the coin max. So they left me a lot of stuff in there that may save me some money. |
| George | My guesstimate is that I’ll probably end up spending ah about a grand of cash, not including how much my time is worth, so. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. Sure. Yeah. And what about the room? Which room are you giving up to store this right so far? |
| George | Uh, like I said, we’re genuinely going to refinance the house to turn the back porch into a new room that would become the arcade. |
| Jon | Well, right now is like in the kitchen. I mean, where were you? |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | happy |
| Mo | Where’s it now? |
| George | Oh, no right. |
| Mo | I guess is it. |
| George | No, right now it’s over in the, uh, it’s over in the storage facility right next to the house. |
| Jon | Okay. |
| George | So yeah, no. |
| Jon | So it’s not in your house yet. |
| Mo | Oh, okay, okay. |
| Jon | Okay. Cause we talked before they’re enormous. There’s not like you can’t put it off to the side. |
| Mo | Yeah, the pimples are big. |
| Jon | It sucks up a room. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | Okay. |
| Mo | Oh, yeah. |
| Jon | All right. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | Well, I wish you luck. |
| George | Yeah. There. |
| Jon | I look forward to updates and go. |
| Mo | Well, we got we got two years starting now. |
| George | Yeah. It’ll, it’ll be a fun thing. I’m, uh, I’m trying to work out some deals with some of these companies to maybe sponsor some of the thing. And if I, I’ll shoot some video for it and maybe put it up on, uh, one of our platforms or something at some point. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| George | So we get some sponsorship dollars out of it or something, but yeah, it looks to be fun. So anyway, that’s what, that’s my little brief thing. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | Mo, how about you? |
| Mo | Okay. Wow. I said two years from now. So episode 300 and something. We’ll talk about it again. |
| Mo | So, um, I’m going to be doing some traveling over the next couple of weeks and I’m sure John will tell you from someone who used to be a frequent traveler, you know, um, noise canceling headphones are pretty much like a must have when you’re on the plane. |
| Mo | I think, you know, you gotta have them, you know? |
| Jon | Oh God. |
| George | Sure. |
| Jon | Yes. Oh yeah. Yeah. Regular headphones won’t even do it. |
| Mo | So yeah, you turn the volume up so loud that you basically, you know, |
| Jon | You can’t hear them. There’s just just the plane is like in here. Yeah. |
| Mo | So um I found my, you know, my old noise canceling headphones, which I paid a shit ton of money for. And of course, you know, it’s a quarter inch plug old fashioned. |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | Oh, nothing has a plug anymore, right? |
| George | Oh, wow. |
| Mo | one that, yeah, which you can’t even find, you know, the adapters for anymore. |
| Jon | Oh no. |
| Mo | So I was like, Oh, okay, crap. |
| George | Right. |
| Mo | Let me go find this pair. So once a, you know, our favorite place, Amazon. Um, and so I found this pair on Amazon and they’re from a company called anchor, which I’m sure a and KER, which I’ve bought like little Bluetooth speakers and they were amazing. |
| George | Oh, yeah. |
| Jon | Oh, yeah. |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | Actually, I thought they were really, and for the price, especially, I thought there was, you know, especially, you know, well worth it. |
| Jon | They make good stuff. |
| Mo | So they have a pair of noise canceling wireless earbuds. |
| Jon | All right. |
| George | Okay. |
| Mo | You know, not, not super, um, whoops. No, not super, super expensive. Um, you know, they were, uh, 50 bucks even, you know, $49.99 or something like that, you know, um, and they come, you know, their earbuds, you see, I’m holding up, comes a little case, you know, the charging case, like kind of like has, uh, the case itself will double as a phone stand, which is kind of cute. |
| George | Okay. Yeah, that’s fair. |
| Jon | That’s all right. |
| Jon | Sure. |
| Mo | I thought, you know, when you opened up, he actually has the whole thing. |
| George | Oh. |
| Mo | You put your phone in it. Bluetooth, of course, I synced it up. I’ve listened to it. So it supposedly has 60 hours of battery life, which would be impressive. And I think that maybe include recharging it in the case possibly. |
| Jon | I was wondering, yeah. |
| George | Probably, yeah. |
| Jon | but you Usually get at least 12 or 15 even out of little buds like that. |
| Mo | Yeah. Yeah, I should get a enough, right? |
| Jon | So that sounds fair. Yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah, it sounds good. um I listen to them. |
| Jon | It’s a flight. |
| Mo | They sound great. I mean, they sound great. um The noise canceling, you know, I kind of just walked out in the street and just see how street noise affected it and stuff. And it worked now. They don’t work as well as over the ear headphones. |
| Mo | You know, I think those are probably the best you can get for noise canceling. The ones that actually go over your whole ear. But these were, I mean, like I said, I was like the street noise didn’t distract me at all. I was able to, you know, use them pretty well. And for 50 bucks compared to some of the other ones I was looking at that were like upwards of at least $150, $200 for like some of these things, I was like, you know, for 50 bucks, I think it’s a good deal. |
| Jon | I was just on two flights because I went to RetroCon, as I mentioned earlier in the show, and I had both my yeah my Samsung um Buds 2 or whatever they call them, and I also had these really expensive wireless ones that I got for Christmas. |
| Mo | Hmm. |
| Mo | Hmm. |
| Jon | hey four or five years ago, maybe like $200 earbuds. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | Mm. |
| Jon | And surprisingly, the Samsung buds too that have light noise canceling did really well, because my my power died on the expensive ones. I’m like, oh no, let me switch to these other ones. |
| Mo | Okay. |
| Jon | But they’re clearly improving on, and I prefer the in ear, honestly, when I’m when i’m flying, because it helps to block out more of the noise. ah But the ability to have good quality sound with noise canceling has come way down in the last, |
| Mo | Oh, yeah. |
| Jon | oh, four or five years compared to what it was. So it doesn’t surprise me that Anchor would be somebody putting out really good ones. |
| George | Yeah. I remember John, this was probably six plus years ago. You introduced me to your noise canceling headphones. I think were Sony, if I remember right. |
| George | And they were like one of the first ones and they were the over the ear kind. |
| Jon | Mm-hmm. |
| George | And you put them on my head when I was over there at your house and like, I couldn’t hear anything outside and it was crazy. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | Cause it was a new technology thing at that point. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | And I remember the price being prohibitive to me. Like that’s awesome. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | of the Oh, yeah, absolutely. |
| George | fuck that price, I ain’t buying those things. |
| Jon | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a neat novelty. |
| George | To now, yeah, see a in ear earbud style, which I do prefer myself. |
| Jon | I’ll wait. Yeah. |
| George | I like that over the, over the ear things, because the over the ear things, my ears get sweaty, they feel uncomfortable sometimes. |
| Mo | Comfort. |
| Jon | They get hot. |
| Mo | Yeah, yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah. Yeah. |
| George | Um, but these to be $50, I mean, that’s, that’s impressive. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Mo | I said, I’m sure there are better ones, but since I didn’t listen to any better ones, these sound great to me. |
| Jon | but still, right. |
| Mo | yeah i say As far as I’m concerned, they’re great. |
| George | Right. |
| Jon | But if it costs a hundred, can you imagine being twice as good for a hundred bucks? |
| Mo | Yeah, exactly. I don’t think it’d be twice as good. |
| Jon | I mean, right. |
| Mo | You know, so again, the anchor 50 bucks on Amazon, that’s the regular price too, I think. |
| Jon | Right. Yeah. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | Nice. |
| Mo | So I think it’s, it’s, it’s it’s a good investment. |
| Jon | All right. |
| Mo | So as you know, after my plane trips, if they work really well, absolutely. |
| Jon | Right. Link in the show notes for those interested and we’ll get a nickel. |
| Mo | So maybe a nickel. |
| Jon | We love it. Yeah. |
| Mo | How about you, John? What do you got for us this time? |
| Jon | I got a brand new previously owned 1977 toy. |
| George | Oh, wow. |
| Mo | Nice! |
| Jon | Do you guys remember the TV commercial around 1976, 77? It went blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, blip. |
| Mo | Is that the pong one? |
| Jon | Yes, Blip is this electromechanical game |
| George | Yeah, right. |
| Mo | Oh, oh wow, look at that! |
| George | Yeah, the little black. Yeah. |
| Mo | Okay, for those of you showing it to me right now. |
| George | Right. |
| Mo | Oh, that looks like in good shape too. |
| Jon | Yeah, so I’m showing it. |
| Mo | Holy cow. |
| Jon | Yeah, yeah. So at RetroCon, I saw a couple of them. I passed on them because I hemmed and hawed, and then someone surprised me and picked it up for me as a gift. It was $20, not a big deal. |
| George | Nice. |
| Mo | Oh, that’s. |
| Jon | Still still operational. |
| Mo | thats |
| Jon | but Look blip isn’t something new. I’m rediscovering I never owned one i had friends that owned one And so I want to take just a moment to talk about the the slice in time that this electro mechanical game is so this is 77 right so Atari was founded in 72 with pong I mean we’re talking this is just five years after pong was a thing in the first place and |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | and it has electronics. You watch the commercial and they go, it has an LED light as if LED is technology itself to be advertised, right? |
| Mo | o |
| George | he |
| Jon | All the moving parts are wind up like a toy. |
| George | Wow. |
| Jon | You wind it up and when you push start, all it does is release a little lever and it’s all mechanical inside. The only thing the battery is doing is turning on the LED light below the smoked glass. |
| Mo | Ooh. |
| Mo | Oh geez. |
| Jon | So what happens is each player has three buttons, one, two, and three, and the dot goes through the center, and when it gets to your side really fast, you gotta predict whether it’s gonna stop on one, two, or three, hold that button down while the dot gets to you and it’ll go to the other side, or if you miss, you lose and you you know’t and you lose a point. |
| Jon | And by the way, scoring, you have a little mechanical wheel, you have to turn yourself for scoring. |
| George | ah You have to keep your own score. |
| Mo | or yourself. |
| Jon | It’s not keeping score, that’s your job, Buster, on this little dial, |
| George | Wow. |
| Jon | It is, in a world of video games and everything’s digital electronic and my swiping you know touchscreen phone, there’s something so organic. |
| Mo | Hmm. |
| Jon | That’s a cheesy word, I guess, for it. There’s something so fun and tactile and like when you run it, just got someone to listen to hold up the microphone while it’s running. Let’s hear what it sounds like. |
| George | he Like the old windup toys, right? |
| Jon | right’s |
| Mo | Yeah, that’s really cool. |
| Jon | it’s it’s It’s a little, it’s a windup toy with an LED in the middle and a whole bunch of crazy gears to figure out how the thing goes. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | I loved getting one of these. I mean, I’ll do more with it. I saw one with a box and almost got that one. ah Blip is always wanted it. Finally got one. So thank you so much to my friends, Will and Kat, who went back to the show floor after I was done and picked this up as a surprise for me. |
| Jon | And I’m half so happy to have it. |
| Mo | It’s and I know what you mean, though, about the fact that it’s all analog, you know, because one, I always just like the ingenuity to make that. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | An analog thing like that, to me, is the part that really got to me like that. |
| George | Sure. |
| Jon | Yes, yes. |
| Jon | I’ve looked at the guts. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | It’s crazy. |
| Mo | Yeah, it’s it’s nuts and they got to work somehow, you know, like it’s right. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | A computer program to do that would be easy, you know, to have it on the screen and do something. |
| Jon | Yeah. Oh, yeah. |
| Mo | so It’d be simple, but to actually do it mechanically. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | I mean, to me, that’s something. |
| Jon | It is, yeah. And the funny thing is, I think, I’ll dig in more, but I think if you just didn’t want the LED light, you wouldn’t need batteries at all. You could just wind it up and play it because it’s all based on the gears and levers inside, which is kind of bananas. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | Right. |
| Jon | So yeah, in in a world of everything’s video games and electronic, it’s kind of fun to go back that far and look at kind of where we started with these handheld toys and this it’s really cool. |
| George | All right. Time to get into the heart of the episode with our game segment. Mo, I believe the thing that everything was just preamble. |
| Mo | ah |
| Jon | if it’s |
| Mo | Everything was just a lead up to this. |
| Jon | Oh, |
| George | Uh, I believe the thing that you want to talk about is something that I’ve been seeing commercials for, uh, lately where, when I’ve been watching actual commercials on TV, which is a novelty in and of itself, uh, it’s an open world game based on one of the most popular IPs of all time. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| George | Right. |
| Mo | Yep. Oh, yeah, it is, you know, like this is one of the things as soon as I saw it, I’m like, well, crap, I guess I’m buying it the first day. |
| Jon | Required. required |
| Mo | Yeah, you know, because it’s Star Wars outlaws. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Mo | um Easiest way to describe it is Red Dead Redemption with Star Wars. |
| Jon | Yeah, yeah. |
| Jon | OK, all right. |
| George | Sure. |
| Mo | OK, that’s the gameplay. It’s it’s it’s almost exactly like, you know. |
| Jon | Oh, so Firefly. |
| Mo | Yeah, yeah, kind of sort of. It’s cool because and they do a good job. It takes place after the Death Star explodes, but before the second movie, it’s like in between time. |
| George | Okay. |
| Jon | Spoiler God, Mo spoiler alert. |
| George | Okay. |
| Mo | That’s not a spoiler, it’s in that in-between time. um But they do like a really, and you’re playing some, there’s no Jedi, there’s no lightsabers, you’re just, you’re basically. |
| Jon | Death star exploded. |
| Mo | a thief trying to just get by. |
| George | You’re an outlaw. |
| Jon | Oh, yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah, you’re not well. Yeah. And you’re trying to get by like you’re just trying to just survive, you know, and circumstances are making you kind of get involved in things you maybe don’t want to get involved with. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Mo | You get involved with the rebels a little, you know, you don’t want to, you know, because, you know, how you don’t really care about the, empire you know, like empire. So it’s always somebody else, you know, who whoever the authority is. |
| Jon | good You just kind of care about your survival on this planet, probably not so much the intergalactic, like, I don’t care about government politics. |
| Mo | Doesn’t even matter who it is. Exactly. |
| George | Right. |
| Jon | I’m just trying to get by, right? |
| Mo | Exactly. Yes. And that’s your character on all this. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | Um, they do an excellent job of making you feel like you’re in that Star Wars universe. You know, as far as like we walk through towns, cause you can’t go to Tatooine. I mean, you know, um, you go to Mos Eisley, you can go there, you know, that’s actually there. |
| George | Right. |
| Mo | Um, you go from going to the bar that’s in Star Wars. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | Well, it would have to be if they didn’t do that in an open world Star Wars game, it would be like criminal. |
| Mo | Oh yeah. |
| Jon | Right. Just delete your account. |
| Mo | Yeah. Absolutely would be. |
| Jon | What are you doing, game designers? |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | Right. |
| Mo | Yep. And they, and they do a good job of just like getting the atmosphere like I guess today with modern computers, you know, you can have like crowds of people around, you know, like make it seem like it’s a crowded place, you know, even though you don’t have to interact with everybody, at least the people are there, they’re doing things. |
| Mo | um You could, you know, your missions, you could, and there’s four different like factions, like, you know, the huts are one and then there’s Crimson. |
| Jon | Okay. |
| Mo | This is like basically four different criminal organizations. And as you take jobs, your favor with these other organizations goes up and down because they’re actually competing against each other. So you may do a job for a hut, which, oh, it’ll raise your esteem with them, but it’s going to lower your esteem with this other group. |
| Mo | which comes into play because sometimes your missions are going to hut territory and steal XYZ. |
| George | Mm. |
| George | Right. |
| Mo | Well, if the huts are friendly, you just walk right in. you know And then you only have to sneak around some areas. um If they’re not friendly, then you have to sneak in and through the territory, which is much harder, much longer, but it can be done. |
| Mo | like So it is possible to do it. It’s just It’s a little more like, uh, more strategy. Like you just can’t just run in there and start shooting. Um, the combat is fun. I mean, like, you know, blasters shots don’t miss you as often as you do in the movies, but you know, they do miss you often enough. |
| Jon | Well, there’s no stormtroopers down there. Actual marksmen are using the guns now. |
| Mo | Yeah, exactly. And they do i kind like, kind of like a red dead redemption. Like you don’t really raise your character doesn’t come up, but your equipment gets better. |
| George | Hmm. |
| Mo | You know, like you improve your equipment. |
| Jon | Okay. |
| Mo | That’s how you improve your character. And it’s the same kind of thing. You can visit like four different planets. Each one is completely different from the other one. There’s. So many missions, so many. |
| Mo | You’re just walking through and you see a spot says, oh, listen. You just kind of sit there and you listen. You’re over here somebody talking about something. It’s like, hey, you now know where their hidden stash is. You can go get it, you know, and that kind of stuff. |
| George | Right. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. Oh, yeah. |
| Mo | So it’s a really good game. |
| Jon | Get some Intel. |
| Mo | I got it. I played it a lot. It was, you know, the main story really carries you through. It’s interesting. But the side missions are also interesting enough that you kind of, you know, you don’t mind taking those detours and doing some other things, especially if you’re already, you’re already at this planet. So you might may as well do this. ah They do a good job of easing you into the world. Like you don’t, it’s not like they throw everything you at once. I can introduce it slowly, like different, different ways of playing and oh yes, now you have to sneak in and get in this thing. Now you have to shoot your way through it, that kind of stuff. So overall, I think it’s, it’s a really, really fun game. It’s a little expensive. |
| Mo | You know, it’s one of these new premium $69 games. |
| Jon | 669 pushing 70 now really. |
| George | Mm. |
| Mo | Yeah. Yeah. That’s what they’re going for. Um, it’s they’re good. They are going to come up with DLC at some point. |
| Jon | Sure. |
| Mo | They promised, you know, it’s Ubisoft makes it, you know, same people did, you know, Assassin’s Creed, all those little ones. Um, I don’t regret it. Now that I’ve already spent the money, I don’t regret it at all because it’s been a lot of fun and I will probably, it’s one of those games I’ll probably keep going back to. |
| Mo | You know, every now and then and play for like an hour and it’s, you know, stop and, you know, just kind of get through the main mission and that kind of stuff. But it’s it’s a load of fun. I have really nothing really bad to say about it. |
| Jon | pretty rousing review. That sounds good. |
| Mo | Yeah. And Star Wars. |
| Jon | And it’s Star Wars. |
| George | Right. |
| Mo | You know, maybe one day they’ll have a Star Trek one. |
| Jon | Maybe. |
| Mo | Maybe. So how about you, George? What do you got for us? Something pinball related? |
| George | Yes, 100% pinball related. |
| Mo | All right. |
| George | um |
| Jon | I’ll PayPal you the five bucks mo you win. |
| George | Yeah, right. Well, and oddly enough, that’s about how much this thing that I’m going to talk about cost. |
| Jon | oh there we go |
| George | um So ah Mo can now buy it if he wants. |
| Mo | Oh. |
| George | So I’ve been playing a lot of pinball FX from Zen Studios, um and they’ve been really kind. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | Hmm. |
| George | They’ve been sending me some keys to test out some of these new tables that they’ve been coming out with, both in the pinball M |
| Mo | Oh, nice. |
| George | platform in the traditional pinball FX platform. um The one that I was most interested in and John alluded to it in the tease earlier, ah they just released the Princess Bride pinball machine. |
| Mo | Oh. |
| George | So |
| Jon | Can only imagine. |
| Mo | Is this based on a real pinball table? A real pinball machine? Or is this? |
| George | ah That I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you. |
| Mo | Okay. |
| George | um i If it is, they have embellished the shit out of it so much so that there’s no way this could be done in the real world. And I’ll explain why. So when you’re talking about virtual pinball machines, you haven’t added benefit that it can be almost anything you want it to be, right? |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Right. |
| George | It’s not limited by the physical world anymore because it’s virtual. And um as most people might know, but maybe don’t, pinball machines have come a long way from the 60s and 70s machines up until today. |
| Mo | Oh my god, yeah. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | They’re very high tech. |
| George | And the one thing that I think is probably the most enticing characteristic of modern pinball machines is that they’re no longer just see the high score you can get. |
| George | games now, because of, you know, computers and all kinds of circuitry and everything else, they can build tasks into the pinball machine that are related to the IP of the pinball that you’re playing. |
| Jon | Right. |
| Mo | All right. |
| George | So, for instance, ah when we’ve gone to SFGE this past year, I was mesmerized, as I’ve talked about before, by the John Wick pinball machine. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | Hmm. |
| George | Part of the tasks in that were things like, you know, ah having the fight with the guy at the end of John Wick 1 going to the helicopter, right? |
| Mo | Hmm. |
| Jon | Right. |
| George | uh in in order to win the fight you have to go up a whole bunch of ramps or maybe hit a bunch of targets or that kind of thing that’s the way the pinballs accomplish the storyline task that you’re trying to do well |
| Jon | Okay. |
| George | given that princess bride is one of my top five favorite movies of all time you can imagine i was certainly keen to try it out because i wanted to see what tasks or missions they would have for this pinball and they are exactly what you think they should be from that movie so one of them is |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Mo | Are you SSS? |
| Jon | It better be. |
| George | One of them is you’re fighting a nigo mentoya at the top of the clips and insanity. |
| Mo | Oh, really? |
| George | Another one is you’re going into a battle of wits against vicinity with the poison cups. |
| Mo | Cliffs of insanity. |
| Mo | Nice. |
| Jon | ah hu |
| George | ah There’s one where you have to traverse the fire swamp with buttercup. |
| Mo | Battle of strength. |
| Mo | Yes. |
| George | So ah another one, you have to get rid of um ah the people in the forest, all the all the ruffians, you know, when Vasini and Vasini was already dead at that point. |
| Mo | Nice. |
| Mo | Oh yes. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | And Andre and Inigo were drunk and whatnot. All of this stuff. is there. ah There’s side missions as well like um there’s the pit of despair is represented. |
| George | um There’s the the the best kiss is a mission of course that’s in there. All these are part of the game that make it fun and of course since it’s pinball effects every time you |
| Jon | Storm in the castle. |
| George | earn more points by playing the table multiple times. You get little knickknacks that you get to put up on your virtual shelf in your little environment. |
| Jon | Oh, yeah. |
| George | So I’ve gotten all of those from the table already, which is a lot of fun. There’s, of course, there’s a Dread Pirate Roberts with his sword and there’s the Pit of Despair Life Machine is one of them. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Jon | Oh, yeah. |
| George | And there’s a poster, of course, of Princess Bride. They got to have a poster. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| George | um But I think the one that makes me the happiest is the fight with Inigo Mantoya at the top of the Cliffs of Insanity. |
| George | when you When you do all the things you need to do to activate that mission, it’s unlike any other one that I’ve seen before. Instead of continuing to have to go up ramps or hit targets, |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| George | the screen changes, the pinball machine disappears, and you’re now looking at the two characters sword fighting, and you have to use your flippers and the launch button to do certain moves to beat Inigo Mantoya in order to get the bonus. |
| Jon | Oh. |
| Mo | Nice. |
| Jon | Like a fighting game almost kind of. |
| George | Yeah, like a little like like a timed fighting game. |
| Jon | Oh. |
| Mo | That’s neat. |
| George | like It’ll tell you, left flipper, and you have to hit it in a certain amount of time, or he gets the hit on you. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | Oh, yeah, like a quick time event things I see. |
| Mo | Okay, okay. |
| George | Yeah, it’s really cute, it’s really fun. |
| Jon | Interesting. |
| George | ah For $5.49, because pinball FX itself is free on the platform of your choosing, whether it’s on Wii or on Epic Game Store or where I play it on Steam. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| George | That part is free, but it’s the, um and I said Wii, but I meant Switch. um |
| Jon | I was thinking they have it on weed. That’d be something. |
| George | Right. They probably do. I mean, it could, but. |
| Jon | Motion controls. |
| George | Then you pay for the pinball machines later. And this one is $5.49. It’s also part of a pack with God help me goat simulator. |
| Mo | Oh, yeah, that’s a weird I tried that one. |
| George | I don’t know why, but it is. |
| Mo | It’s a weird game |
| Jon | Yeah, yeah. |
| George | Um, so anyway, there’s a few that right now in steam, uh, are on sale. Like there’s a Mo there’s a star Wars pinball collection that’s on sale right now where you get three machines for like, uh, $23. |
| Mo | Ooh. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | Cause it’s 20% off. |
| Mo | Oh, wow. |
| George | Uh, star Wars has a premium like a Marvel does. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
| George | Um, there’s a Williams, uh, collection that has a couple of bundles in it. That’s like $16. |
| Jon | Yeah, more I think that’s based on a real Williams pinball machines that Williams collection, I think. |
| George | Um, and then of course. |
| Mo | Yeah, and yeah. |
| George | ah Yeah, the Williams ones usually are. um Then there’s one that’s called the starter bundle, which is really interesting because it’s got a universal pinball machine in it, which is the Back to the Future one. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | It’s got a Williams Volume 3 set of pinballs. And then it’s also got this other one that’s like ah Secrets of Shadows, which is an original from Zen. |
| Mo | Okay. |
| George | Uh, studios. |
| Jon | collection, you know. |
| George | So yeah, a lot of fun stuff. Um, I think it’s well worth it if you enjoy pinball just to spend 10 or 15 minutes having fun in between meetings at work or, you know, when you’re sitting there at night and you’re. |
| Mo | During meetings at work. |
| Jon | During meetings at work. |
| George | Yeah. |
| George | it’s it’s a good It’s a good value for a good system. It’s got its hiccups, but I’m really enjoying it. So if you like pinball, Princess Bride pinball table is pretty fun. |
| Mo | Awesome. |
| Jon | Nice. Yeah. That sounds great. |
| George | What about you, John? I think the thing you’re going to talk about is one that you were showing on a live stream recently. |
| Jon | Yeah, brand new from Atari, ah published by Atari, developed by way forward. A company I didn’t know before, but apparently well revered company, they do a Shantae series. This is other game they’re well known for. Yars Rising. |
| Jon | This was announced a couple of months ago um and it has since the day of its announcement and up to and including today and the day you listen to this show has caused a great deal of divisiveness ah that |
| George | Mm. |
| Jon | I understand the sentiment, but I don’t understand the hatred, honestly, about this game, because, as you might expect, Yarr’s Rising is an allusion to Yarr’s Revenge, our Howard Scott Warshaw classic for the Atari 2600. |
| Mo | Mm. |
| Jon | There have been other iterations. There was Yarr’s Return that was Dennis De Broe did as a homebrew that got adopted into the Pantheon. 2011 saw a Yarr’s Revenge on Xbox Live Arcade that was an on-rails shooter. |
| Jon | that saw a lot less hatred than this one. but I think the majority of, first let me say, I have played the game, I have 100%ed the game, I played the entire campaign. It’s a campaign game. |
| Jon | It’s not just an arcade shooter. This is a Metroidvania adventure game, exploration, gathering abilities and skills and buffs and perks and working way through a story. |
| Jon | You guys know how much I love the Metroidvania style of game. |
| Mo | Oh, yeah, yeah. |
| Jon | So that was a big plus for me in the first place. |
| George | Right. |
| Jon | So I mentioned that to disclose my bias. I was already predisposed to to like it in the first place. |
| Jon | how you how people talk about this game, I think impacts their feelings about it. It’s been called, and it was never called publicly by the company, it’s been called, oh, it’s a sequel, it’s a prequel, it’s a reboot, it’s it’s none of those things. |
| Jon | If anything, and I talk about this in the live stream I did where I played through the first two and a half hours of this game, mo and I’ll give you a link to that live stream if you wouldn’t mind throwing that down in the show notes. |
| Mo | Okay. |
| Jon | Think of this as a parallel story that intersects with the Yars’ Revenge mythos you know, that you read about in the comic books, that you know the history of it. Think of it like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is to this Marvel Cinematic Universe. |
| Jon | Their own story happens to be going on in the same world or think of it as Rogue One as it relates to the main Star Wars films, right? |
| Mo | Okay. |
| Jon | It’s not not a reboot of Star Wars. |
| George | Hmm. |
| Jon | It’s another story in that universe. It’s Star Wars outlaws, Moe, right? It’s happening in that world like it is, but it’s not, you’re not, I’m not Luke Skywalker, right? |
| Mo | But that it’s not part of the main story though. Right. |
| Jon | It’s not that. um I completed this game as I said, I spent 15 hours running through this game. They say you can do it in 10 to 12. I took my time and really enjoyed it. |
| Jon | I wouldn’t spend 15 hours on a game that I didn’t enjoy. Many games I’ve talked about here in the show, I’ve started and never went back to finish because it just didn’t grab me. |
| Mo | Yeah, I hope not. |
| Jon | You know that I love Yarr’s Revenge. I am absolutely in adoration of Howard Scott Warsaw and the work that he did and the originality he brought to it and his inventiveness with creating a comic book around it. |
| George | Mmhmm. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | And I get why people, I think just like so often we see in public discourse today, people don’t think they can disagree without hating their opponent. |
| Mo | I know. Yeah, why can’t we just talking? |
| Jon | I think it’s right. It’s fine if you don’t think this belongs in the Yars’ Revenge world. I get that, but Atari says it does. And I can tell you playing all the way through the story, knowing what happens, there are parts that don’t make perfect sense and are kind of wedged in there, but it doesn’t do any disrespect to Yars’ Revenge. |
| Mo | Right. |
| Jon | It doesn’t hurt the mythos in any way, because it kind of parallel. It brushes against Yars’ Revenge, if you will, a little bit. And if you were to back that out of it, it’s an adventure game where the way you hack computers is playing iterations of the original Yars Revenge. |
| Jon | little mini games where you have to fly around and destroy a co-tile, or sometimes there are centipedes running around that your yar has to defeat, or maybe there’s missile command bases that you have to defend with your yar. |
| Jon | It’s kind of a bunch of Atari, I wouldn’t call them Easter eggs, references, allusions to, you know, kind of the Atari world. |
| Mo | Okay. |
| Jon | ah its It’s a, I think it’s a, $30 game, $20, I think it’s $30 right now, a brand new, which you know what that means. |
| Mo | Okay. |
| Jon | The first sale, it’s gonna be 25, then 20, then 15 very soon. |
| George | Right. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | I get, you might not wanna pay 30 for it, I get that. But as I said, I spent 15 hours on it, really enjoyed it. um If you are against it, learn more before you make a judgment. |
| Jon | is something that I will say. Before you think it’s crapping all over Yars’ Revenge, it’s not. It’s very different. It’s kind of anime style, which turns some people off. ah But the gameplay, while not remarkable, doesn’t break any new ground. |
| Jon | It’s enjoyable and fun and light. And I had a great time playing it. So I recommend you check it out. |
| Mo | Okay. |
| Jon | Watch some of the live stream. George, you were there for some of the live stream. You saw that some of that. |
| George | Yeah, absolutely. |
| Jon | Yeah, you have any initial thoughts of it as vis-a-vis Yars’ Revenge or anything? |
| George | absolutely |
| George | I mean, it ah so I rarely get upset when somebody tries to create something in a universe I already enjoy. |
| Jon | Okay. |
| George | I think when I was younger, I would get mad all the time, but as I’ve gotten older and I’ve learned to appreciate the fact that things can be different and still have same thing and they can still exist and I can like one and not like the other. |
| Jon | Mellowed. |
| George | It doesn’t have to make me mad. Um, with the yards revenge that I saw, it looked like a very fun game that I would enjoy. I think the little nods to the original, like when you were playing in livestream, there was that little sign that had ah the co-tiles, little head on it and stuff, and you shot it. |
| Jon | Yeah. It’s like in the building. Right. Yeah. |
| George | Just little nods to that made it fun for me. um I think I would enjoy the game if I were playing it. I don’t know that I would get a big yar feel from it because it’s not. |
| Jon | Fair. Yeah. |
| George | I mean, it does have those little mini games that, you know, you get to kind of play yar a little bit. |
| Jon | Right. |
| Jon | Right. |
| George | um yeah I think it’s fine having the title. I’m not upset about it. It’s, I don’t know why it would be divisive. It’s okay for it to have the title. Um, and I felt like they paid a decent amount of nostalgic homage to the original with the placements and the things they did with the mini games and stuff. Look, companies can do cash grabs anytime they want. |
| Mo | Yeah, look at the movie industry. |
| George | I’ll be honest with you, Atari is a company that I like in its current form, almost as much as I liked in its original form back when I was a kid. |
| Jon | Yep. |
| Jon | yeah |
| George | So if this company needs to do a cash grab to keep themselves afloat and keep doing the other things that they’re doing, I’m happy to support that. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| George | And if you’re one of the people who get mad and this is not the Atari I grew up with, you’re right, it’s not. That fucking Atari died a long time ago. |
| Jon | That’s gone. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | these These are new people. |
| George | And that’s okay because that Atari wouldn’t survive today anyway. |
| Jon | no Yeah. Yeah. |
| George | So just be happy that the people that are trying to make money with that name are at least trying to be respectful of what we grew up with. |
| Jon | I agree. Yeah. |
| George | Because they don’t have to be, they own that shit. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah, I completely agree with you, George. It’s like, to me, the only time I get angry when someone goes like a yard’s name does a nostalgia name is when you could look at it and you obviously can tell this person could care less about the original game. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. Right. |
| Mo | Yeah, when they just like just they don’t care. |
| Jon | Not the case here. |
| Mo | They just want the name just for the name, which this doesn’t seem like this what this is. |
| George | Right. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | You know, like I said, it seemed like the person actually has probably played and loved the original game, but wanted to do something different new, you know, and |
| Jon | Right. |
| George | Sure. |
| Jon | So what happened? |
| Mo | Technology has ah gone come a long way since the original Atari. So, you know, I would hope that they would make it more exciting and more involved game than what we had, you know, 30 years ago. |
| George | Yeah. I mean, we’ve seen it in movies all the time, right? |
| Jon | So |
| George | Like there was the Ghostbusters that came out between Ghostbusters two and the Ghostbusters afterlife, right? |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | did. |
| George | That was same universe, but different people playing same characters and all. |
| Mo | Yes, it’s not good. |
| Jon | Yeah, kind of a reboot. |
| George | I didn’t like that one. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | But it didn’t make me mad. I just don’t go watch that Ghostbusters because I just didn’t enjoy it that much. |
| Jon | Right. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | right |
| George | They made something. Some people liked it. Cause some people went to the theater and talked nicely about it, I’m sure. And good for them. Maybe then they went back and watched my Ghostbusters and liked that. But either way they, they can both exist and you don’t have to lose your shit just because somebody did something with the same name. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah, yeah. So yards rising. It’s on all the major platforms, including the Atari VCS PS four or five Xbox s one series, all the different Xboxes, whatever those are. And I played it on Steam on PC. |
| Jon | So really good. um Yeah, check it out, or at least check out the live stream and learn more about it. We’ll be right back. |
| Jon | We are rounding out the back end of this episode. As we always do at this point, we’d like to take just a few minutes to talk about the things we’re currently looking at or looking forward to between now and the next time we get a chance to speak. And Mo, what do we start with you? What do you have on the horizon? |
| Mo | Oh, sure. Let’s see. So ah Tulsa King season two is coming out ah September 15th. |
| Jon | Oh, so ready. |
| Mo | Love the first season. So I hope the second season is as good. ah Disney’s come out with another Marvel thing again. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Mo | But this one I’m actually kind of looking forward to a little bit. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Mo | It’s Agatha All Along. |
| Jon | What is it? |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | It’s called. It’s a spinoff from the WandaVision series they did. And to say truth, I didn’t care so much about the WandaVision, but I like this character a lot. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| Mo | Like the like the person who played Agatha, who’s like the real like actual evil person in the whole thing, you know? |
| Jon | OK. |
| Mo | um The actress who plays her is amazing. So it looks like an interesting, looks like it’s a good story, which I’m hoping they actually have in this, which, you know, that’s really what you need for anything. |
| Jon | and crime |
| Mo | ah The last thing looking forward to was a show that I thought was gone, ah but apparently it’s not. It’s it’s a series called From, F-R-O-M, ah season three. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| Mo | It’s about a town that basically when you drive in there, you can’t leave. And at night, like these scenes come around, like if you’re outside, these scenes come out and they kill you and voices of dead people. |
| Jon | Sounds |
| George | Okay. |
| George | Oh yeah, I remember you talking about that before. |
| Mo | Yeah. I talked about a long time ago. |
| Jon | familiar. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | yeah Okay. |
| Mo | Um, they actually come out the season three, September 22nd. So I was like, awesome. |
| Jon | Yeah. Hmm. |
| Mo | You know, they said it’s always nice to surprise me. You think a show is gone and it comes back for another season. |
| Jon | Yep. |
| Mo | How about you, John? What do you got? |
| George | Mm-hmm. |
| Jon | A few things. There’s a new new series. I saw a Cabin in the Woods and I’m like, I saw that movie. |
| Mo | ah Yeah. |
| Jon | That’s fine. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | No, there is a documentary series on an investigation discovery called Cabin in the Woods that are true stories of horrible crimes that took place. |
| George | Right. |
| George | Uh-huh. |
| Mo | Oh God. |
| Jon | Georgia’s nodding. Have you seen some of this? True crimes that took place |
| George | I’ve seen the trailers, yeah. |
| Jon | At cabin in the woods very like remote places and I’ve watched the first one and the first one as I was I thought it was first part was over in a second half like oh crap they’re connected these two stories are connected it’s really interesting. |
| Mo | Oh God. |
| George | he |
| Jon | um and so I like true crime documentary kind of things. These are a little more, ah less whodunit and more of a like a recap of how the crime took place. But from the first one, I liked the structure of the show. |
| Jon | So looking forward to those. They just started, first episode is out now. ah That’s on ID as I said. ah September 18th season, wait for this, 47 of Survivor. |
| George | Nope. |
| Mo | That’s crazy. That is crazy. |
| Jon | Yep, yep. |
| George | Nope. It’s not season. It’s series 47. |
| Jon | Oh, series 47. |
| George | I’m not, I hate when the seasons are per year. You can’t have 47 of them in 10 years. |
| Jon | Well, you would love living in the UK where everything is a series. |
| Mo | yeah |
| Jon | This is the 47th iteration of Survivor. September 18th, it’s kicking off on my wife’s birthday, actually September 18th. Such a sucker for that series. |
| Jon | I love the production, I love the story, I love seeing people lose their shit in the woods, it’s great. ah Yeah, it’s wonderful. Yeah. but People just don’t know how to act out there. They lose their minds. |
| Jon | So, um, and the thing I’m most looking forward to is a new film, an animated, uh, film called the wild robot. |
| Mo | Oh, I saw this trailer for this. |
| Jon | I’ve already seen, uh, comparisons to, uh, you know, like the iron giant and things, this being the next, like really big heartfelt animated, it’s about some kind of a, probably a weaponized robot or something that gets lost in the woods and raised or, you know, um, socialized by the animals in the forest and, |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | oh yeah |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Mo | Well, it’s like it’s like a baby like like blashes onto it or something like a baby animal of some sort and it’s yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah, yeah, it’s forced to do something from the animals yeah and it gets a conscience and maybe it’s actually a weapon. |
| Mo | Imprints onto the river. Yeah. |
| Jon | It’s hard to tell, but it’s animated show and it looks really nice. |
| George | Oh, yeah. |
| Jon | So looking forward to the wild robot. That’s September 27th in theaters. So it’s actually just before we might get a chance ah to to talk again. How about you, George? What’s coming up for you? |
| George | Well, ah first of all, is one that you pointed out to me, and I appreciate it because I had not heard of it, but it’s a Netflix documentary series called Mr. McMahon. |
| Jon | Oh, yeah. |
| George | It starts on September 25th. |
| Jon | Oh, yeah. |
| George | It’s about the WWE kingpin, and I’m hoping that the documentary doesn’t just focus on the most recent debacle that he’s gone through where he is no longer a part of the company. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | um But also I hope it goes back through the history because there is a crazy history with that man and his rise to power and money and fame and everything else. |
| Jon | yeah |
| George | um Right after that I’m kind of interested in this new Penguin series from HBO Max. |
| Mo | The Batman. |
| George | Uh, yeah, it’s the penguin. |
| Jon | Really? |
| George | It’s, it’s got kind of a feel of like the Batman and Joker films that have come out the last few years. Um, but it’s on HBO max. It starts September 19th. I’ve seen a couple of trailers. |
| George | It just looks interesting to me. |
| Jon | Okay. |
| George | So I want to check it out and see what they do with it. |
| Mo | Okay. |
| George | Um, and then I think the thing I’m most looking forward to, uh, finally getting back into some walking dead mythology, Daryl Dixon season two is coming out on AMC September 29th. |
| Mo | Hmm. |
| George | So, uh, yeah, I mean, just like you’re a sucker for survivor, I’m a sucker for walking dead. |
| Jon | Oh, more walking dead for you. |
| George | So, you know, a lot of people love and hate different parts of that universe and those series and everything. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| George | I’m just going to enjoy all of them and. I don’t care you know if people you know laugh at me or make fun of me, the they’re fun for me. |
| Jon | Hey, you like him, you like him. |
| George | So as soon as that comes out, I’ll be watching it. |
| Jon | Yep. You know, I have a couple of new patrons to welcome. But before I do, I know, Mo, that one of the benefits of being a supporter over on Patreon is a chance to ask us a question right here at the end of the show. Do you have one for us this time around? |
| Mo | Yeah. so Absolutely. So questions from our patron Dave, and this is one is be a little tough. I don’t know how we’re going to do this one. We’ll see. It’s what is the one movie that will make you tear up every time? |
| Jon | Okay. Hmm. |
| Mo | So. |
| Jon | I can tell you, mine mine’s really easy. |
| Mo | OK, go for it. |
| Jon | That’s good. Thanks, Dave. Thanks for the question. It’s not an 80s movie, I guess in the 2000s or something. And it’s not the whole movie, actually. It’s just a little part of the middle, every single time. um There was a ah Civil War, kind of a historic action piece by Mel Gibson called The Patriot. |
| Jon | You familiar with that one? |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah, I watched that probably about, ah two or three years after I was a parent for the first time and there’s a scene where he’s going off to war and his young daughter who’s four or five is furious at him because he’s leaving her and you know he’s going to fight this war to protect his family and she won’t talk to him she snubs him and um i’m yeah I’m tearing up thinking about it just that scene with that like you know |
| George | Mm hmm. Yep. |
| Jon | Anytime I see a film or something in fiction where someone’s being, is doing something hurtful, but you know it’s for the benefit of other people and you can’t tell them, it’s that feeling like their heart is all in and they can’t even defend themselves because they’re doing the right thing. |
| Mo | Right. |
| Jon | Every time I see that scene with that little girl being mad at her daddy, cause he’s going off and might die. Oh, it’s killing me. |
| Mo | Oh, you George. |
| Jon | It’s killing me right now with a Patriot. That’s the one right in the middle. That’s mine. |
| George | ah I mean there’s probably too many for me to remember truthfully. um I should have looked at the question ahead of time so I could have picked. um But since I don’t have the time to you know research and remember, I guess I’ll go with my gut, the the Spock death scene in Star Trek 2 Wrath of Khan. |
| Jon | Oh, mmm. |
| Mo | That’s a good one. |
| George | Uh, that one does make me tear up every time, especially, um, with the, with the Kirk eulogy, uh, most human, uh, that whole, that whole sequence of that part of that film. |
| Jon | Al. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Jon | Oh, damn. |
| Mo | ah Yeah, yeah, that’s a good one. |
| Jon | Yep. |
| Jon | Amazing grace bagpipe. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| George | Yeah. I mean, it’s, you know, Scotty playing the bagpipes. |
| Jon | Yep. |
| George | It’s, it’s tough. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | It’s tough to watch. Um, without tearing up, uh, Rudy is another one that comes to the top of my mind. |
| Jon | Powerful. |
| George | I don’t know why, but just, |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | That movie it being a sports guy does that kind of thing. Um, so yeah, I would say top of my list though has got to be Star Trek too. |
| Mo | like Yeah, I can see that one. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | Yeah. Wow. Those are good ones. ah Okay, so for me, i like Georgia, there’s a couple I could probably name off the top of my head, but the one that got me the first time I saw it was the End of Glory, the Civil War one, because when they’re all, basically they all die, you know? |
| Jon | OK. |
| George | Mm. Yep. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | And that scene when they’re all getting just like pushed into the mass grave after everything they’d been through, |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| George | Alright. |
| Mo | You know, because one, I didn’t know the full story. So when I saw that, I was like, what the F is going on? |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| Mo | You know, this is not, you know, American movies don’t end like this. It’s supposed to be a hero. Yeah. Yeah. It was supposed to survive this. Um, but just the fact that, you know, these people went through so much, you know, and at the end they were like, you know, we can do this because, you know, you know nobody else wants to, we’ll do it. |
| Jon | Yeah, I can see that. |
| Mo | And then they all sacrifice themselves for it. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | You know, and for some reason that one just, it, that just gets me just that whole scene. So thanks, Dave. Made us sad. But again, but yeah, but good question. |
| Jon | Yeah. What a downer, Dave, come on. |
| Mo | Um, so again, it’s super easy to get your question on this show. |
| Jon | Yes, it was. |
| Mo | It really just become a patron at jennasgroomup.com slash patreon as low as a dollar a month. Told me a question out there and the odds are it’ll show up right here on the show. |
| Jon | Mm-hmm. |
| Jon | There you go. And as I mentioned, I want to thank a couple of brand new patrons, some great folks, brand new to us, Scott Orr and Sean Peay, who, yeah, who, as you said, went to genexcrownup.com slash Patreon and got out their wallet and said, let me pledge a dollar five, whatever it is, whatever you want to do per month. |
| Mo | oh two |
| Jon | Look, you get this show for nothing. We love doing it. We love doing this for you. You can help us out. It costs money to do. It’s subscriptions and time and energy and effort. ah We really appreciate it. |
| Jon | And it ensures that we can keep on bringing you this show. |
| Mo | Wow, |
| Jon | So thank you to you. And you’re joining a roster of amazing people that already support us and have for many years continue to. |
| Mo | two. |
| Jon | And we love all of you for doing that. that will then wrap up this edition of the show. Don’t worry, we’ll be back in two weeks with another one. But next week, that’s our backtrack where we pick a single nostalgic topic and dig in deep. George, would you mind telling the fourth listener what they have to look forward to next week? |
| George | Well, you know, we try and do one of these at least once a year, and we’re back with the top hits from the billboard hot 100 chart. This time from the year 1984, because we love to go back 40 years. |
| Jon | What a year. Oh, God. |
| Mo | God, 40, that was 40 years ago? |
| George | I’m just gonna is 40 years ago. |
| Mo | Oh my God. |
| George | I’m telling you, uh, I’ll just say that this billboard chart could have been the year of purple. You do with that what you will. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| Jon | Yeah, yeah, yeah, I people love our musical backtracks. And yeah, I’ve been prepping for this one. |
| Mo | Oh, absolutely. |
| Jon | And it’s there’s some great music on there you’re going to hear. So be sure you join us for that. George did all the research work for that to get us lined up. So we will talk to you then until then. I am John George. |
| Jon | Thank you so much for being here, man. |
| George | Yes, sir. |
| Jon | Mo, you know, I appreciate you. |
| Mo | Always fun man. |
| Jon | Fourth listener, you’re the one we all appreciate most of all though, and we can’t wait to talk to you again next time. Bye-bye. |
| George | See you guys. |
| Mo | Take care everybody. |
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