Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 41 - Beefy Boy

Episode Date: November 19, 2018

Matt Lees and Gareth Gwynn join in for this episode, in which we visit the International Beef Library and play an original copy of the videogame Beefy Boy.   By Benjamin Partridge, Matt Lees and Gareth Gwynn.   Includes music by Ozzed (Ozzed.net) licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/   Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com and Soundrangers/Pond5.com      

Just a note before we start, if you're interested in new Beef and Dairy merchandise, there's news about that at the end. Also, this episode might not be great for you if you are phobic of vomiting. You'll be okay for the first half or so. I think it'll become obvious when it's going to happen. But if you're, you know, I know some people really don't like it. So, you know. The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is sponsored by Granium, the new nutritional sand from Mitchell's. If it's not Mitchell's, get back in the truck. Granium takes the hard work out of feeding. Simply hop in a biplane, helicopter or blimp and dust your hungry herd with that delicious sand.

For 10 percent off your next order, Use the code BEACHNOURISHMENT. Hello and welcome to the Beef and Dairy Network podcast, the number one podcast for those involved or just interested in the production of beef animals and dairy herds. The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is the podcast companion to the Beef and Dairy Network website and a printed magazine, brought to you by Granium Nutritional Sand. You may remember about 18 months ago, we celebrated the network's 75th anniversary by engaging the services of a professional archivist to sort through the extensive Beef and Dairy Network Archive. He's been hard at work since then, and in the past six months, his main role has been to transfer the Network Archive

into the newly completed International Beef Library in Norway. Back in the summer, I went to see how he was getting on. OK, well, if you head this way, we always say, we've got a little saying out here which is, be quick, there's wolves. So, hello, I'm Alex Neon and I am the Beef and Dairy Network archivist. But that's because almost the entire thing is underground. The vast International Beef Library is housed deep underground inside the Arctic Circle, over a hundred miles from the nearest town.

I started by asking Alex about the idea behind the library. Right, we're safe. We want an example of every beef that there is and that there has ever been. Where are the beefs being kept and under what sort of conditions? Well, it's no mistake that we chose to build this in the Arctic Circle. We didn't do it because the land's cheap, that's for sure. We're also not here because of the lack of wolves. There are loads of wolves.

And to be blunt, moving tens of thousands of kilos of beef into what is essentially a wolf den is a risk but we're here for a reason and that is the cold obviously as you can see it's all refrigerated but what happens if these break you want to make sure that even if if the temperature isn't kept cool artificially that naturally it's still a cold environment. That's exactly why we're here. Well, it's an incredible achievement, and to see it is amazing. I just wonder, is there anything that has gone wrong? Has everything gone to plan, or is everything...

On an infrastructure project of this size, there'll always be problems. We can't get away from it. The wolf attacks. A lot of wolf it the wolf attacks a lot of wolf attacks there are a lot of wolf attacks what i will say none in the building we need to work out what we do about the car park the second problem was the indexing system we wanted to make sure it was done professionally so we spoke to Google. Unfortunately, what we didn't realize when we signed the contract is exactly what we were signing over. So, they own everything.

So, hang on. Google own all of the beef. A small portion of the sauces and the gravies are owned by Bing. Alex wasn't allowed to show me the refrigerated levels of the library, which was a shame because I'd brought a troc ice with me and it had begun to melt. I asked him where the old Beef and Dairy Network archive is kept. It's a bit like an iceberg, really. Above the ground, you've got the entrance hall reception, the bit where we shoot all the wolves, the turret, as we call it. We all do shifts.

And then below the ground is where all the beef is. Those first couple of floors below the ground, though, it's not beef. It's paperwork. It's media. It's the audio archive, the visual archive. It's the history of beef. There's a huge amount of beef entertainment. This is why I wanted you here today, because we were recently contacted by someone who had found something that we all thought was lost.

Do you know what this is? Okay, so we're looking at a sort of cardboard box. Open it up. Okay, let's just open this. I don't know if you've seen one quite like this before. That is a computer game. Okay, let's just open this. I don't know if you've seen one quite like this before. That is a computer game. Wow, okay. That is a computer game.

Beefy Boy, one of the first games that you could buy for the Beef Boy handheld console. I'll stop you there, because I'm a beef enthusiast, you know that. But I've never heard of this. 1987. a couple of things are going on in the world uh first of all computer games are in their ascendancy second thing you need to bear in mind in japan kobe beef is huge and what are the americans going to do about it they've got a choice they can look at their own beef and they can look to improve it or they can win hearts and minds i see win people around to american beef and they throw a lot of money into the computer game market the beef boy was absolutely huge right because again it's weird because i've never actually heard of the beef boy so when you say it's huge that's i mean huge physically rather than huge in terms of sales or popularity right

you could hold it in your hands but you needed a harness uh in order to take the weight and do you have a beef boy console here no no i don't we've got the game we've got beefy boy i don't. We've got the game. We've got Beefy Boy. I don't have a Beef Boy console. I would love a Beef Boy console. I've seen pictures of it. I've got a box for one. In fact, this is the instruction leaflet for one. And that is also, if you check the back, that's a leaflet basically talking you through safe usage, back pain. Yes, there's a guide to lumbar support here.

Yeah, it was... Really was a heavy console. It came with a lot of issues. The back support, the battery life. 28 batteries, two hours gameplay. I was shocked that I'd never heard of this beef-themed game console, but I was even more surprised when Alex told me that the Beef Boy had been manufactured by Mitchell's Farm Supplies,

which partly explains why he has such a small amount of information about it. They turned one of the pellet silos over to the manufacture of the Beef Boy. And, well, when it comes to paperwork, well, you know what Mitchell's was like, especially in the 80s, when it was under the complete control of Buck P. Mitchell. What it basically means is the only paperwork we've got from that era is thanks to whistleblowers. God rest their souls. In terms of what we know about the beef boy, the number sold,

we're talking maybe double figures maybe well so what maybe 11 of these were well yeah we're talking maybe maybe 11 which is why we don't have one here and it's why we're not able to play this particular copy of Beefy Boy. I asked Alex what he could tell me about the game. Reading the instruction booklet, it seems pretty straightforward. You play Beefy Boy, It seems pretty straightforward. You play Beefy Boy, the character, collecting beef and fighting the forces of the evil Doctor Hospital. So he's the kind of baddie figure. He's the baddie.

You find him, you defeat Doctor Hospital, and you rescue the princess. It's a tale as old as time. Why Doctor Hospital? Who knows? Buck P. Mitchell was obviously involved in the design of the game. We know he was very anti-socialised medicine. Was this the platform to make that case? That's not for me to say.

I'm an archivist who hasn't been able to play the game. Do you think Doctor Hospital is a kind of bogeyman character that he hoped people would associate with what he saw as the evils of a publicly funded medical system? Undoubtedly and absolutely. The way I see it, I think Beefy Boy is an avatar for Buck himself, making his political feelings very clear. And those feelings are twofold. One, that American beef is better than Japanese beef.

And secondly, that a publicly funded medical system is not the way to go. Absolutely. And if it wasn't clear from playing the game, it is definitely clear from watching Beefy Boy the Movie. definitely clear from watching beefy boy the movie in the year 2250 japanese beef is making the world sick and rising public health costs have got out of control only one boy can save us And The Princess. Starring Anthony Hopkins as the evil Doctor Hospital. This holiday season. Beefy Boy, the movie. I do have a copy of it.

Between you and me, it's not great. Actually, no, that is unfair. The first half isn't bad. For a start, let me just... They secured a real coup in the sense that they got Anthony Hopkins to play Doctor Hospital. Wow, I mean, that sort of tells you something about what the budget of this film must have been. I mean, money was no object once Buck P mitchell got involved and who's directing right so so they get scorsese no one can believe their luck and it gets off to a great start and then halfway through filming

buck p mitchell pulls rank my money my vision he s sacks Martin Scorsese and he calls the shots for the entire second half of the film. Well, hang on. So Buck P. Mitchell, the CEO of Mitchell's Farm Supplies, is then directing this multi-million pound blockbuster movie. And you can see the moment in the film when it happens, during which beefy boy himself becomes less concerned with finding the princess and more concerned with exonerating the mitchell's corporation it's quite it becomes quite confusing not helped by the fact that at the conclusion of filming uh buck p mitchell himself revoiced all of anthony hopkins's What, so on screen you still see Anthony Hopkins? On screen it's Anthony Hopkins.

But you're hearing the voice of... You're hearing the voice of Buck P. Mitchell. A sort of elderly business executive. Furious business executive, who is taking the opportunity to really right some wrongs. Oh, so he's even changing the words? Yeah, so by the second half he's directing, so that's it. But he retrospectively goes into the first half and he really makes it clear,

not just his views on socialised healthcare, he's talking about his attitude towards unions. He's talking about his attitude towards his workers' right to sick pay, his workers' right to weekends. He's got his own attitude towards the rise of the boy band. There's a lot of stuff there. It becomes less of a family entertainment film and more a sort of audio polemic against a colourful family film backdrop. I mean, it sounds odd, but I guess in a way

it sort of sounds a bit like a slightly exciting new genre in the world of film, you know, a sort of clash of audio, polemic, video, a kind of multimedia hodgepodge. Perhaps the reviewers, I'll be honest, the reviewers didn't see it that way. Perhaps the finished product could, but what I would say is maybe the version that reached theatres that was shown on television might be interesting. But the unedited version, the director's cut, was certainly not. And that's the version you've got here in the archive? We do have a version of that here in the archive.

But there's a lot of stuff in there that, well, put it like this, that wasn't getting PG rated. that, well, put it like this, that wasn't getting PG rated. There's a lot of sex scenes for what was ostensibly a family film. I mean, some of the things he made Anthony Hopkins do, it's amazing he went through with it, but what a professional. I mean, personally, if you ask me, his Oscar for Silence of the Lambs was the Academy saying, well done for this. We know what you went through.

We know what you went through. We've all seen it. We saw Beefy Boy, the movie. So you've now got this original copy of Beefy Boy. How many copies are there, do you think? And could this be the only one? I think that's the only one. Only a handful were sold.

Obviously, what we want to do now is play this game, which means finding a Beef Boy console. What that means is approaching and interacting with what we archivists like to call the nerd community. Right. Gamers. Yeah. Computer spods. Gamers, you know, all those sort of dweebs.

I'm happy with archive, with audio, with books, with papers. audio, with books, with papers. Unfortunately, when you have to start dealing with computer games, you're really dealing with people who are hard bloody work. So I had to put a call in one of their wretched magazines saying, one of you bloody freaks must have um a beef boy console and um yeah i had an email from someone who uh who said he's he's got one of these consoles he said he'll work his way through the game and we'll record it and send the recording to me which i'm obviously incredibly excited by send the recording to me, which I'm obviously incredibly excited by, number one, because I'll get to see it. I'll finally get to see the game, how it looks, what the politics of it are. And

number two, because it means I don't need to meet him. We'll meet that guy with his Beef Boy console after this. You know what's not smart? The way hiring used to be. Job sites that overwhelm you with tons of the wrong resumes. Now there is a smarter way at ziprecruiter.com slash beef. ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology finds the right people for you and actively invites them to apply. It's no wonder that ZipRecruiter is rated number one by employers in the US. This rating comes from hiring sites on Trustpilot with over 1,000 reviews. And right now, network members can try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com slash beef. That's ziprecruiter.com slash b-e-e-f.

ZipRecruiter.com slash beef. Slash beef. Slash beef. In a world where meat was banned, only one man could stand up to the state. Oh my god, he's taken my meat! Maybe Beefy Boy will save me. Did somebody order beef? Oh hi, slash beef.

Slash beef. Slash beef. Slash beef. Slash beef. Slash beef. You can run along, I'm waiting for Beefy Boy. Who's Beefy Boy? Oh, he's new.

Beefy Boy isn't real. Oh? How do I know you're real? I'm real. We've got a child together. His name is Glangerman. Oh, Glangerman. Glangerman? Glangerman? Glangerman? Glangerman?

Glangerman? Now, do you want me to save you from these government goons or not? No. I'll wait for Beefy Boy. Beefy Boy isn't real. I just want to meet Beefy Boy. I thought you loved me. Slash beef. Slash me.

Slash me. Oh, yeah. Zipagoodoo.com. Slash beef. It turns out that the guy who got in contact with Alex about his Beef Boy console wasn't just any old nerd. It was YouTube star Brian Legacy, better known as Retro Brian.

Hello, my name's Brian Legacy and I run a YouTube channel about retro video games. I went to meet Brian in his central London flat, where he told me about why he doesn't like to play computer games made after 1995. Before that, you know, it was all about colours, wasn't it? You know, it was all about bright colours. You've got a blue hedgehog, a plumber who wears red. It was all bright, it was vibrant, there was a lot going on. Now it's, oh yeah, I'm a grey cowboy walking around slowly. Absolute nonsense. I mean, ideally, really, you want as few colours as possible,

but very vibrant ones. Pac-Man, if you played it on certain computers, it would just be green and black. And I think sometimes that vibrancy of having just one or two bright colors would you say that modern computer games the main problem you have is that they have too many colors oh too many i mean they use they don't know what to do with them they've got so many they're just spreading them around how many colors are there in a modern computer game oh i don't know it's just like a rainbow buffet isn't it's nonsense and sometimes i don't even use all

of them they're just like look how many shades of brown there are in this it's just you've got these kids with Fortnite, and, oh, it's a butterfly in a box, I'm playing online. Mum, can I have money for another thousand gems so I can buy a dance? It's absolute nonsense. Brian's YouTube channel is called Retro Brian Plays, and is part of a burgeoning internet scene where people play computer games and other people watch for their own sick delight.

I watched some of his output before going to see him and despite its stated aim of playing retro video games most of his videos seem to be Brian either apologising for something he did or said in a previous video or flaunting his obvious wealth. Hey guys Retro Brian here I just want to quickly apologise for last week. Thanks so much guys for watching today's video about my new flat pretty excited with it I'm not sure what to do with some of the rooms yet. Guys, it's Retro Brian here I am so so sorry I've let you guys down. And if you haven't seen it already then do check out my video little tour of the new Lamborghini I bought last week it's pretty sweet and

if you're interested in buying a photograph of of the new Lamborghini I bought last week. It's pretty sweet and if you're interested in buying a photograph of me in my Lamborghini then there's a link in the description. So sorry that so many of you felt that the Retro Brian advent calendar wasn't good value for money. We really did feel that the 12 inch tall bobblehead figurine of me would be produced to a better quality and all of the people who worked in that Chinese factory have been punished. I've had that in writing from my suppliers. Before we started talking about Beefy Boy, there was something I felt I needed to address,

which was an internet controversy that Retro Brian was at the centre of last year. A video by Brian concerning another YouTube user, a nine-year-old Swedish girl called Agnetha, and the response to that video by his legion of fans, Club Brian, led to Agnetha and her family having to go into hiding after he accused her of cheating on an online game. Brian maintains that she cheated. Is there not an argument that says that Agnetha is just a very capable gamer and was able to complete those games in those speeds?

There is that argument, yes, and I have heard that argument. I've seen that argument shared. Perhaps she was just an especially competent nine-year-old girl, gifted maybe. But, I mean, I just want to move on from that. I just want to, you know, I apologized. And then, you know, obviously I've had to apologize for other things since then. But we move on. We keep on growing.

Channel growth is going amazingly. We've got a million subscribers last week. Well, the thing is, though, you seem pretty pleased about the million subscribers and congratulations to you. though you seem pretty pleased about the million subscribers and congratulations to you but do you not feel any guilt about the fact that that million subscribers comes off the back of your notoriety because of the the slanderous videos you made about Agnetha I said sorry I apologize to our parents we've moved on do you think you've changed as a person? Maybe I have. Yeah. I think I have. How would you say you've changed? I think I'm better.

I think the ways that maybe you think I was bad before, I'm better in those ways. In those regards. In those respects. In the ways that you think I might have been bad. I've changed in those ways. I see. So if someone said, oh've changed in those ways. I see. So if someone said, oh. He's less cruel. Maybe.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fine. Or maybe, you know, they had the perception before that you had a sort of sociopathic lack of empathy. Right. Yeah.

Now you're saying. No. You no longer have that. No, that's gone now. Right. I mean, you've just said that. I no longer have that. So it's really great that my fans like you who've come to interview me today can see. No. You no longer have that. No, that's gone now. Right. I mean, you've just said that. I no longer have that.

So it's really great that my fans, like you, who've come to interview me today, can see that I'm no longer a sociopath. You know, when you've got fans saying that to you, to your face, it really means so much because I've obviously put in so much work to change for the audience. I don't want to let you down, you know? I'm not really the audience, to be honest. Oh, you must have watched some of the videos, is that right? Yeah, but for research, really. I mean, I can't say I enjoyed it.

I mean, what's to enjoy about watching a fully grown man playing a computer game from 1985? Well, you're in now. You've watched one video. You're part of Club Brian. That's how it works. Club Brian is a very inclusive club. You watch a video, you're in.

I don't have to be in Club Brian. What do you mean I'm in? You're in Club Brian. It's an online thing. It's club. You watch a video, you're in. I don't have to be in Club Brian. What do you mean I'm in? You're in Club Brian. It's an online thing. It's great. It's a family. It's not a real thing though, is it? It's not a family.

Well, it is. We meet up. We support each other through, you know, legal difficulties, emotional difficulties. But no, I have changed and I will keep changing again in any way that I that it seems like I need to to maintain your viewer base to maintain my personal and economic growth okay okay so the club brian um as you say over a million subscribers now to your channel shout out to club brian yeah um what's the what do you think is the kind of profile of someone who is is one of the family as you call it um great people well i this is something i wanted to bring up because

i've i've read a lot of the comments that the the various subscribers leave underneath your video well there's always a bad egg isn't there well it's just like a whole kitchen full of bad eggs it's like a bad omelette well there's always a bad apple as well i think it's important that it's not all eggs you know yes you might have a small bad omelette but you've also just got a couple of bad apples i think that's important that there's there's a lot of diversity within uh the kind of just saying you've got lots of different kinds of bad people you've maybe got a couple of wheels of bad cheese but i think that that's natural can i just read you some of the i don't know if you read the comments that people leave of course i do yeah everyone yeah okay well you'll be familiar with

some of these then i've just picked these at random i haven't i didn't have to look very far for these yeah yeah okay i think general franco is the best leader there's ever been of a western european country that's making reference to to the fascist leader of Spain. Is it? During the 30s and 40s. Is it? Well, up to the 70s, yeah. Well, they had fascism back in the 1940s.

Yeah. I thought it was quite new. It's certainly making a comeback, but it's a kind of retro trend, I guess. Well, that goes beyond the retro trend that I cover, I think. So I think that must have been someone who posted on the wrong channel, retro trend i guess well that goes beyond the retro trend that i cover i think um so i think that's must have been someone who posts on the wrong channel because i really only cover games from you know 1980s through to 1995 but that's what i find weird actually because you look at

if you were to just look at the comments and not look at the video at all yeah and you had to guess what the video was about i would probably guess the history of world war ii that's weird that's really weird i don't think i've seen these comments i must have missed them someone writes uh thanks for the video brian i think if brian had been around in munich in the 1920s he would have got stuck in got stuck into reviewing retro games i mean i don't think that's what they're referring to and finally um someone has simply written here i think all drug dealers should be executed i think that's a reasonable stance i think uh i think there's a lot of a lot of popular ideas at the moment about um about this sort of thing really because you know whatever whatever you think though about

capital punishment it's kind of by the by isn't it weird that someone's written that under a video about the computer game puzzle bobble yes i'm interested in video games especially retro video games games before games got bad you know um but we do talk about other things as well it's it's like light chat you know what do you think about corporal punishment what do you think about capital punishment what do you think about like internment camps and i think that as somebody who has an audience that really respect what I think about video games, why shouldn't these people also listen to regurgitate my thoughts on sociology, eugenics, you know, that sort of stuff. I think

it's, it's fun, isn't it? Cause you can't just, if you end up having your entire experience just being about video games and you don't have a kind of more rich broad outlook on everything then you might end up quite insular and having some very strange ideas about the world i know you don't want to talk about this too much but going back to the uh the incident with agnetha you as has been established didn't do anything illegal however some of the illegal acts that were carried out were carried out by fans of yours who if you look at the way that they were writing at the time they seem to be doing it thinking that you'll be impressed by it so you know you make a video saying hey agnetha you've achieved this time on a Mario Maker level. Yeah, she hacked Mario Maker.

Yeah, okay. There was no way a nine-year-old child or anyone, apart from me, could beat a level of that difficulty. There we go. So that's the claim you made on the video. It's not a claim. As my followers know, it's objective fact. Sure.

As we said, there's nothing illegal about you saying these things, necessarily. No. But there is something illegal about then one of your followers sending her loads of cut-up mice in the mail. You can't be held responsible for the community that you engender and wield like a weapon. That guy who sent the bag of cut-up mice, he's a German guy called Martin. He's 45 years old. In a sense, you can't be held responsible for his actions.

I understand that. But why then did you take the decision to personally pay for him to fly over to Britain to be in one of your videos? And you seem to sort of celebrate him, really. Obviously, the incident with the mice, it's controversial, isn't it? It's a controversial thing to do. It caused a lot of internet drama. He was saying it's a joke, which I don't understand.

I mean, arguably, maybe it was. I don't know. If he says it's a joke, then maybe it's a joke. Well, what's the punchline? Well, who gets to decide that? Are you the arbiter of comedy? Who gets to decide what's funny and what's not? Did I think it was funny? I don't know. But if someone says something is a joke, who are you to say that it isn't? But what's funny about a nine-year-old girl opening a parcel? Imagine how excited she would have been to have got that parcel.

Listen, talking about this stuff is just boring. Why can't we just talk about games? You know, Contra, Sonic the Hedgehog. But do you know what I think is weird? You can spend hours on your YouTube video talking about Sonic the Hedgehog without ever once mentioning that Martin from Germany sent a nine-year-old girl a flattened out hedgehog, like a round pizza size flattened hedgehog in the post after the mouse thing, after he'd been cautioned by the police.

Yeah, I appreciate that that's not ideal. You know, after we'd been through all the police thing once and we kind of aired out that YouTube drama and we'd had the backlash and then we'd had the inevitable boost in views and subscribers that comes after it. We'd done all that. So I once and we kind of aired out that youtube drama and we'd had the backlash and then we'd had the inevitable boost in views and subscribers that comes after it we'd done all that so i agree that's not ideal but the fact of the matter is you know he is undeniably a real expert when it comes to retro games you know and i think sometimes in my line of work specifically it's really important to separate the art from the artist. What, so you're separating the abusive act from the Martin? Is that what you mean? Yeah. I think the important thing about this is you've got to believe in yourself,

and you've got to believe you're valuable. Lots of people told me growing up, they said, Brian, you're a waste of space. Brian, you're useless. Brian, you're horrible. I didn't listen to them. I kept doing my thing. I kept being me. You do you. You know, like all the stuff that Lady Gaga says and all that, like, you know, go on, be a monster. I think she says, and I carried on. And yeah, so now to me, you know, I've got, I've got a million subscribers on YouTube. So what if two detectives in a room tell me that what I'm doing is wrong. It's important to just not listen to your critics. What does it matter what one or two people think when you've got millions of people who think that you can never be wrong about anything? And I just think that's beautiful.

So the reason I'm here today is because, as far as we can tell, you're the only person now on Earth who owns a Beef Boy console. Yeah, a working one, yeah. Pretty amazing. I can see it here. It is larger than I thought, and I was aware that it was big. Yeah, this one's a big one. This is the Beef Boy XL, actually.

I've got three of them, but this is the only one that works. It's exactly the same as the original model but it's obviously contains quite a few more batteries which does increase the screen brightness and the longevity of the console just let me put it on for a second so I can show you let me just yeah hang on just gotta bear with me it's just a little bit heavy. You're kind of strapping it on. Yeah, just got to... One sec. All right, that's in place. There it is.

Yeah. Now, the reason I'm here, and I haven't shown you this yet, is that obviously, as you know, I've got what we think is probably the world's only copy of Beefy Boy. Beefy Boy, yeah. You were aware of this before we got in contact with you? Oh, yeah. I've been looking for a copy of this for years.

Because the thing about the Beef Boy is it's a fantastic piece of gear. You know, the Game Boy came out and everyone was like, oh, you know, this is fantastic. It's very portable. But it lacked a lot of the power, frankly. Like the power of the Beef Boy was immeasurable. And yes, you need a lot of the power frankly like the power of the beef boy was immeasurable and yes you need a lot of batteries for it but because this is the beef boy xl it actually has a small external petrol engine that you can use instead which just takes away the whole problem with batteries

okay so this is uh this is it oh my god um oh my god get of my bag. So this has come all the way from the International Beef Library in the Arctic Circle. There we are, in the original box. Oh gosh. Don't know if it's ever been played. We can play this now? Yeah, that's why we're here. My god, I'm plugging it in straight away. One second, let me just...

Oh, where's the thing? Sorry, I'm a bit excited about this. Oh, OK, I'll just clip that in and then put the car in. And then just sometimes you've got to give it a bit of a kick to start it off. Right, let's go. Brian was clearly excited to play the game, although before he started, I had to warn him of something archivist Alex Neon had told me.

That morning, I'd received the following voicemail. Hello, it's Alex Neon here from the archive. I just wanted to say, before you speak to Retro Brian, I've been researching the game a little bit more, reading a few more reviews and reports from the time, and it seems that that Beefy Boy game caused, well, the best description would be vomiting attacks it's thought it's something to do with this um subliminal advertising that mitchell's put into the game it's probably no big deal uh but i just thought i'd let you know

i hope it's all gone well out there and i can't can't wait to hear about the game thanks very much you take care i played brian the voicemail but he seemed unconcerned, telling me that if a computer game made you ill, it was because you were weak. He powered up the beef boy and took to the game like a duck to water. He was really good at it. I would have been impressed if it wasn't a completely useless skill. I want you to be a fucking piece of fucking... Come on!

Yes, mate! Yes! Yes! OK, Brian, I don't know if you can pause it. Can you pause it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. One sec. I just have to get back to this... Yep, let me just... Hang on. Come on, you twat! That's fine. Right, yeah, sorry about that. Pause.

OK, Brian, you've been playing for two hours now. Tell us about it. What's the game like? It's actually quite simple. I'm enjoying it, but it's fascinating. You know, obviously it's a crypto beat-em-up with some 5X mechanics. Most of the sensibilities of an RPG, you've basically just got to, like, you know, find all eight beef crystals.

And then, you know, obviously there are nine, actually. It all sounded like rubbish to me. But then I had to remind myself, I'm not the target market for these games. I spend my spare time trout fishing, making candles for friends

and relatives, and writing letters to my pen pal, an Uzbek dairy farmer called Pito. It's quite essential for that as a means of skipping the marbling hill zone.

And you've got beef crystals, of course, you've got beef... Pito's having a terrible time at the moment with aggressive athlete's foot i'm afraid i don't know what to tell him we all have our crosses to bear but yeah it seems great poor pito obviously the story seems great so far you've probably heard some of the basics you've got like dr hospital who's the bad guy and you've got a you've got to kill him and you've got to get people out of the hospital i've only met him a bit and uh he just keeps running away really i haven't really had a fight with him yet he just he just keeps running on the box it describes

the doctor hospital as the evil doctor hospital but from what i've seen just over your shoulder he just looks like a normal doctor yeah but on the box and in the marketing materials it says he's evil so that's like the main he is the evil doctor hospital but he's not as far as i can tell he's not doing anything evil like he's not none of his actions so far seem that evil he's just a doctor working in a hospital well he's running away which is indicative of guilt and i think also like he is i mean that's his name he's called the evil doctor hospital brian continued to play the game streaming it live to his followers on the internet non-stop. And he was beginning to look a bit unwell.

Oh, come on, just die. For the love of God, just die. We've been on ice. I will say, Brian, I have noticed that you're sort of looking a bit peaky. Your skin's looking a bit grey. Your pupils are very small. And obviously you've just vomited there into a bucket. Just to paint the picture, you've been drinking a lot of this milk as you're playing the game. What is this stuff?

It's not normal milk, is it? It's just energy milk, yeah. It's energy milk. So it's just energy milk yeah um it's energy milk so it's just it's a gaming thing you drink a lot of it and it keeps you gaming let me just put this bucket down for a second actually i just what is it that's causing the vomiting is it something to do with this lacto boost milk drink or is it the game i don't know why i'm being so sick i think it's it's it's just a weird thing. Maybe I got a bug or something. There's no sense for you thinking that the rumours might be true, that the game does make people sick? Absolutely not.

Despite the turbo vomiting, he pressed on, and it just got worse. But nothing would stop him from completing the game. His grim determination would have been quite impressive, if he'd been trying to complete something useful. indetermination would have been quite impressive if he'd been trying to complete something useful. But as it was, he was glued to the game, barfing hot volleys of frothing milk into a collection of buckets around his feet that I periodically had to go and empty into a drain. I couldn't watch anymore. I got him a fresh round of buckets and decided to have a nap. When I woke up, he was still going. Okay, Brian, you've been playing now for 20 hours.

Still going? Yeah, yeah. I'm pretty close to the end of it now. Beef for my beef. Sugar for my honey. Yeah, I'm just a bit now. You've obviously just killed Dr. Hospital. Now I'm just getting out of there as quickly as I can.

Just, you know, popping up now. You get that final beef crystal. Yeah, the last beef crystal. I didn't get all nine in the end. You do look very unwell. I feel a bit unwell, but I don't think it's got anything to do with the game, really, actually. Then, as he became so frail that I had to hold him up,

he completed the game, which seemed to bring him no pleasure whatsoever. So Brian, you've completed the game. You may be the first person to do so in 30 years. How does it feel and what's your final review on Beefy Boy? I feel absolutely fine. The game is fine. If you could take me to a hospital

that would be quite... That would be lovely. Thank you, Brian. Please like and subscribe. Thanks to Brian for playing Beefy Boy for us. Shortly after we finished recording, I took him to hospital

where he was given a brand new stomach lining by our publicly funded National Health Service. No questions asked. So in a way, thank you, Dr. Hospital. If you like the sound of Beefy Boy, the good news is that since Retro Brian streamed him playing the game onto the internet, there has been huge clamour online and Mitchells have decided to re-release a new version of the game, which includes all the levels from the original Beefy Boy, plus new levels and a brand new soundtrack by Sting. Happy gaming! So, that's all we've got time for this month, but if you're after more beef and dairy news, get over to the website now where you can read all the usual stuff, as well as our

off-topic section, where this month we round up the best ways to tell your partner that you want to move to Malta. So until next time, beef out. Thanks to Gareth Gwynne and Matt Lees. A special thanks to Matt, who came up with the idea for Beefy Boy. It was part of a YouTube video series that he makes called Cool Ghosts. If you have any interesting computer games, it is well worth checking those out. I asked Matt how best to describe them, and he said,

a late-night 1990s TV show about video games broadcast from hell. So that's Cool Ghosts. Go and give them a watch if you have any interest in gaming. Oh, and one last thing. There is a new design in our merchandise store. Someone, get this,

someone found a load of old t-shirts and mugs in a box in the abandoned ruins of Eli Roberts' Mosquito Mayhem and sent them to us. So to have a look, go to beefanddairynetwork.com forward slash merch. Also, we're still selling the old Mitchell's design and there won't be any new designs now for I'd imagine at least a year. Also think about it Christmas is coming up what better gift for the person you love than a baffling in-joke from a podcast about beef. So that's beefanddairynnetwork.com slash merch. Also, big thanks to Tom at Bossman Graphics who designed both of those.

They are really great designs. I absolutely love the Mosquito Mayhem one. It is disgusting. Go and check it out. That's beefanddairynetwork.com slash merch. Bye. Hi, I'm Dave. Hi, I'm Graham.

And we're two house DJs who have been trapped inside our drum machine. We love it here, and we'd love if you stopped by and visited us every week on Stop Podcasting Yourself here on MaximumFun.org. We're just a couple of doofuses from Canada. And listen to our show or perish. Stop Podcasting Yourself on MaximumFun.org. Hey, Kira. So Max Fun Con tickets go on sale this Friday, November 23rd at 11 a.m. Pacific.

And I'm trying to write a promo. Okay. So what do they need to know to look forward to? Inspiring classes. Live podcast tapings. Stand-up showcase. The s'mores party. Making new friends.

Don't forget about the dance party! Oh, and it all takes place on a beautiful mountaintop. Okay, got it. Anything else? Well, if we missed anything, they can find all the details at maxfuncon.com. And we'll see you in June. I think that went really well. That was really good, too.

Yeah, that sounded good. Great job. Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported.