Citation Needed - Famous Failed products

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

Sometimes, even with the very best marketing research and R&D departments that money can by, companies make bafflingly stupid decisions and bring terrible products to the market. This week, we explore a sampling. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

Well, that's why you put lipstick on the penguin. Absolutely not. So that does not explain what you think it does on. Hey, fellas, you guys are here early. Well, you know, we know that you love before show shenanigans. You're always the one who has to set them up. Cloning the clones, you know. Get wrangling packs of animals to destroy the studio with.

Yeah, it seems like a lot of hassle. So this week we did it all for you. You did? And you think it did about this week's episode, failed product? What we sure did, buddy. Hey, you know, we've made a little poster for each of your failed products for you, man. Sorry, Tom, did you say my failed products? Sure, isn't that what this essay is about?

See, like we got your blog here. Remember when Patreon took away your creator account because you hadn't posted in so long? I mean, they said I could have it back. And right here, here's you losing your job as the US rep for a magic toy company. Okay, that one wasn't my fault, the store closed. So. Yeah, it sure did, but the magic shop in New York that fired you didn't close. That's right.

No, that one because it wasn't a good mesh, you know, employistically. And of course, you have your own magic show, 11 years without making any money. Wasn't wasn't about the money is about about losing money. Yes, money. Yeah. Of course, there's the book of Mormon. Okay, guys, guys, this week's episode isn't about my failed products. It's about stupid cell phones and things like that.

Oh. Okay, that does make a lot more sense. All right. Well, I guess we know. Why don't we just take the stuff down when you get started? Yeah, sure. I just got to give me a, I'm gonna stand in the hallway, staring for a little bit.

Yup, you got it, buddy. You got it. Stare it up. Maybe you can learn to tap dance out there. Hello and welcome, citation-eated podcast where you choose to subject read a single article about me, Kapiti, and pretend we're experts, because this is the internet. That's how it works now. I'm Cecil, and I'll be product testing tonight, but in order to do it right,

I need my production team. First up, two guys who carefully straightened and then snorted the entire production line, Eli and Noah. I appreciate the comment, Cecil, but I've never been straight with cocaine. That's it. But it is nice when you can just put it on a conveyor belt like that, though, since a ton of time.

Sure does. Yeah. Also joining us tonight to meet based entities that hate produce. He's a Tom. If I smell one single goddamn cell wall in that kitchen, I'm going to make a scene. It's really hard to go out to dinner with me. It's just a giant pan the ass. Cecil, you know I do not hate produce.

That's what meat eats. That's what right. That's fine. Food eats. Non-patrons seem to be rooting for a failed product, just saying you'd like to learn how to become a patron on a per episode basis. Be sure to stick around till the end of the show. And with that, the way, tell us Tom, what person, place place thing, concept, phenomenon or event we'll be talking about today.

But today we will be talking about famous failures. That would not include us because the caveat of famous is included. Right. Key. Key. And Eli, you peruse the website of a museum you learned about on Twitter because the show is regressing towards a truly terrifying mean. Are you ready to bait us? What you clicked, my friend.

Did I am, Cecil Far? Did I am. So tell us, Eli. What are some failures or something? Thank you, Cecil. Come, let me kiss your hand. Let me kiss it. Let it go. Don't touch me. Okay. Right. Failure. One might argue as they begin an essay like Tom is the lifeblood of our podcast. Nay, the very essence of America itself. From the Challenger explosion to the explosively challenged cocaine polar bear, our show is a monument to falling short or thank you in the case of our death by selfie episode falling long, but not all foul failures to be fall. The four Lauren are enough for their own episode, which is why I've provided this factory of flops forth with. Is he know what I can do it to?

I don't even know what you think you're imitating. Let's speak in the world of tech. I thought he was just gonna do every word I've been asked for the entire show. That's what I'm saying. That's normally alliteration, but when Eli writes it, it's illiteration. That is an a way to spell foul.

Yeah, exactly. Let's begin in the world of tech, where bad ideas go to be overfunded. First up from 2006, the ESPN branded flip fosks, which posted. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, which posted not quite 144 p.m. I know. Yeah. And 24 seven sports news, except for when it did it, you see, it pulled scores and headlines

from the ESPN website constantly in an uncustomizable OS that led critics to accuse ESPN of creating the phone solely to boost their internet traffic. And the worst part about this phone was the default ringtone of Chris Burman shouting, he could go. Right. It should have been. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I was like, no, so if I could get this out of fact, the him going fumble and stumbling rumble when I drop the thing that I'd pay for.

But don't worry, it actually didn't do that because part of the constant updating meant that during sports heavy times, like say Monday night football, scores and headlines would often refresh too fast to click on or even. Nice. Two of my idiot friends had these things. They thought they were like day traders for sports with a Bloomberg journal, making no money. They'd actually be losing money because they were gambling.

They'd have it out while we played poker while they were losing it poker. They were losing bets and they'd have this thing out and they look at it. It was so many alerts. It was like Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate factory. So stupid. Yeah, here I am trying to imagine Heath even being friends with someone who owned this phone and I can't get there. I just, I can't. No, I'm want to cause it costs $399. For comparison, the first edition iPhone, which was also released that year, was just a hundred bucks more expensive and, you know, worked. But don't worry, you can actually get the ESPN phone free with a 65 to $225 a month. Yeah. $225 plan.

Yeah. Does it come on? As courts, what the fuck? What? And it was hosted on ESPN's very own satellite network. You can rent Scott Van Pelt for that to just hang out. And if you're thinking to yourself, wait, Eli ESPN doesn't own a satellite network. No, they don't.

But as they later explained in court, they were allowed to use those satellites. And that is kind of theirs. If you think that sounds like a BMW driver's relationship with the road, actually. I was thinking of white people's relationship with history, but same difference. Yeah. Yeah. The product lasted less than one year at which point ESPN execs tried to sell it to Steve Jobs, who told them, quote, your phone is the dumbest fucking idea I have ever had. Are you serious?

I'm not going to overcharge people for a phone that you can't customize with a bunch of obnoxious proprietary stuff that makes it even more. This is the old corporation. That's crazy. We're not doing that. When the phone went under, they prematurely severed so many contracts that until they were bought by Disney and Hurst, they had a warning on their better business profile, not to buy a cell phone from them. Right. Yeah. An America was like from ESP. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Say what you will about the ESPN phone, but it was at least a phone that made phone calls and you could send and receive texts. But what if it had done none of that? Well, for that level of mono use, you need the election destroying fascist enabling powers of the one the only Twitter. Oh, okay, I thought you were about to say you go chavez and dominion first. They released the Twitter peak in 2009.

It was bright blue and priced at $200. The single-use device for Twitter was not even good at Twitter. The main list of tweets on the screen only showed the first three and a half words of each tweet. To read more, you had to hit the return key. Then you could choose which tweet you wanted to read by pushing either n for next or p for previous Then when you finally chose the tweet you want to read the screen could only display 20 characters at a time Plus linked websites were inaccessible because and I cannot emphasize this enough It was just a device for Twitter and literally no thing else. You have to love a phone, the treats its own platform, like the monster from bird pops.

I don't know. I feel like a device that doesn't even allow context was just ahead of its time. There you go. A little side note here, one of the two pieces of media about the Twitter peak before it was buried on top of all those ETs in the desert. One of them is a gizmodo article titled, The Twitter Peak is so dumb, it makes my brain hurt. And the first comment on that article is quote, one thing you failed to factor in, this

$200 device comes with lifetime service. Try finding a smartphone with lifetime service for $200. Yeah, not gonna happen. Try finding just a smartphone for $200 and quote, and I like to think that that comment is kind of perfect proof that we've always lived in a castle, you know what I'm saying? I don't know that smart is the right descriptor for this phone. In any way overused word these days. The titles weird to the peak.

Like, like, I'm just gonna tell you, I'm being coy. Maybe I should take a peak. Or a Twitter or so not. I don't know. So even funnier, that's based off the peak, which was an email only device that was also a massive failure. So the company that made the Twitter peak was like, hmm, device that was also a massive failure. So the company that made the Twitter peak was like, hmm, people don't like mono use devices, even when it's something super accessible that they want.

Let's do it for a website, everyone cares about, yeah. Sometimes when you fail, it's not your fault. It's just bad luck. And this next failure was a diet supplement. First patent ended in 1937, flavored like a chocolate but containing a small dose of the decongestant and appetite suppressant, fennel propanolamine. It had celebrity endorsements from superstars like Hetty Lamar and Bob Hope. It claimed, dubiously, that it could help you lose 10 pounds in five days without diet or exercise. It was so popular, it was featured in the Macy's Day Parade.

And when they held a contest to win a lifetime supply on New Year's Eve of 1950, they received over one million entries citation. I'm talking, of course, about AIDS. Okay. What? Every time I'm forced to make jokes around eights, I add one more genocide to my assay to do list. That's the way it works, guys.

Also, just a quick medical note to our listeners, but if you do lose 10 pounds in five days and you are not cutting weight for a upcoming wrestling meat. Please go to the doctor. Immediately go to the doctor. But it's a crazy. Don't do that. I'm out of weight. If you're wearing like a garbage bag to catch the sweat, then you're in the clear. But if you're not, you know, right?

Yeah. That's right, podcast listener. You heard me correctly. AIDS spelled A-Y-D-F. Oh, it felt different. Okay. That's amazing. I'm in the family.

Real felt stupid, but that fixes it. That made me feel really bad. It really felt stupid, but yeah, that fixes it. It really was pronounced that way. I know we don't usually play clips on this show, but there are a couple of ads for AIDS that I'd love to play for you. Cecil, can you hit us with that footage? Eat that, here we go. If you look as broad as this,

and you'd rather look as slim as this, try the AIDS-reducing plan. The delicious tasting AIDS candy contains vitamins and minerals, no drugs. Taken with a hot drink before meals, AIDS helps you curb your appetite. You eat less because you want less, so you lose weight naturally. Thousands of men and women have lost weight on the AIDS plan. You can too.

Why not try AIDS? They work. That's so bad. Jesus, there's another one too. There's another really cocaine one. Be healthier than that. It sounds like. I've tried bad diets, powders, pills.

Still, my weight's been up and down like a yo-yo until the AIDS plan taught me how to take off weight and help keep it off. AIDS made tastes like a candy, but AIDS contains one of the most effective appetite suppressants you can buy. And there's no stimulant in AIDS that could make you nervous. With AIDS I ate less, so the weight came off to help keep it off. And I sometimes want things loaded with galleries. AIDS helps put me in control.

Let the AIDS plant teach you how to take off weight and help keep it off. Try and peanut butter AIDS. What? Okay. So they had that commercial and they were like, I don't think it's done yet. Try peanut butter eggs. Like, not at the end for you. No reason.

That's a try peanut butter eggs, by the way. That's approximately our national policy for the next 15 years. Right. Yeah, that's fucking candy. Kidding, right? Yeah, no, that's probably how the company failed. Reagan calls the CEO. He's like, sorry, guys, we're officially ignoring AIDS

for this decade. You're funny. You're kidding, right? Yes. Needless to say, when the 1980s rolled around, the folks at AIDS were in for a nasty shock. Initially, sales weren't negatively affected. In September of 1985, the president of the company

stated in an interview that sales had 1985, the president of the company stated in an interview that sales had increased as a result of a connection. What? Look at those people. They're like, I saw special news look like people really were losing the weight. I don't know. I get some AIDS candy. How do you try to beat a butter? Yeah. By 1986, they were looking a lot more negatively at the correlation. Another executive of the manufacturer was quoted as saying, the product has been around for 45 years. Let the disease change its name. Real quote. No, tell it, ask.

The disease gets famous. We're supposed to change our name. What do you want us to call it citations needed? That's stupid. We're not. But the disease did not change its name. Yeah, turns out AIDS is a real dick about it. Right. Yeah. By 1988 company leadership announced that the company was seeking a new name because sales had dropped as much as 50% due to the publicity about the disease. I'm just going out and getting some aids, honey. I'll be right back. The name A Slim was tested in Britain. That's not better.

And eventually the name of the product was changed in the United States in 1989 to die it. It's like that does not healthier than regular aids. Yeah. Way better than crystal aids that just. AIDS zero. And believe it or not, advertisements for diet aids could be found in newspapers and magazines until at least $0.93.

Yeah, no, they also thought about AIDS. No, not that one. We assure you it's candy. The candy, all the aids we are AIDS. No, not that one. We assure you it's candy. We are AIDS. They went with diet AIDS instead. I got a remedy. Yeah. And as Wikipedia so hopefully it tells us quote, the product has been withdrawn from the market. Well, I have to spend the wheel of genocide to see which one is next here. It's it. It's it. It's it.

Hold it a more. Okay, great. Cool. All right. Well, while I write that one down, let's take a quick break for some apropole of nothing. No. All right, gentlemen.

There is no better way to put this, but we hear it, AIDS, weight loss, need to change our name. Wow, how's the rest of the teen handling the news? Not well. Mother fucker! Okay, okay, what if we lean into it, something like AIDS, not that one. My whole fucking career 30 goddamn years. Hey, I like your thinking, but I think of anything that's just going to draw more comparisons

rather than that. Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. So many fucking boxes. Okay. Could we change the pronunciation? Say it like I eat ease or something. I mean, people already they know how it's pronounced. That is the whole problem.

They pronounce it. Okay. He's really close. Okay, so new name got it. Yeah, can we like take 15 and start coming up with stuff? You might want to give it a minute. Yeah. I'll try. BOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH which is like have, nope, that's it. Okay, they won.

All right. You're right, that's just, did that wheel again, yeah? Yeah. Podcast listener, I know my place on this podcast. Cecil does history and all the proper angles. Okay. Tom tells stories of men dying while striving for greatness

and a cry for help that we have, and we'll continue to ignore. And he does whatever the fuck he wants. But if I may step ever so gingerly over the line into the expertise of one no illusions, there is one massive failure. It would be a tragedy to leave out of this episode. I'm talking, of course, about the Nintendo power.

Gloves. 100% would have been taken off this list if they just added fisting the most titles, I think right. Right. And let's face it, like if they'd named Zelda to the fisting of Link, that would have been a way more apt description of what you were going to get. We're going to wish controller you used. That's true. That's true. So the first thing you need to understand is that the Nintendo power glove was an absolute miracle of ingenuity and invention, right? Popularized in the 1989 kids movie The Wizard,

it was a piece of technology that seemed light years ahead of its time. It was, at least in the movie, which was basically a commercial for the damn thing, the virtual reality controller come to life. You could drive a car in a racing game, shoot down baddies by simply aiming and pulling an invisible trigger. Help! You could deploy deadly finishing moves on defeated

opponents in Mortal Kombat with just a touch of one of its many programmable buttons. But sadly, yeah, actually couldn't do any of that because it was a piece of shit. Okay, in my experience, you'd watch your one friend who had the glove play with it. You never get to play yourself and you get super mad about it. But then one time he would stand way too close to the TV and bunch of hole in the screen. And then the mom would yell down and say, what was that? And then you would all run away and dive into the show. Or in my case, you just lie in bed lovingly touching the picture in the Sears catalog like a marine with a photo of Cyclops and gene grades. Or in my case,

you'd have gotten one in your 40s in a sad futile effort to stave off your own physical decline by trying to buy your youth on eBay. Sure. Okay, these progressively got a lot more sound. Now, I want to be clear, no, no strangles me with his thighs, the technology behind the power glove was sound. Right? Here's the explanation from the how stuff works article I read on the power glove. Quote, the system worked thanks to two primary components, the glove and three microphones on an L bracket that you mounted to your television. Pin in that for later. From two small speakers, the glove-enitted ultrasonic beeps, inaudible to human ears.

The microphones mounted near the TV, picked up the sounds, and the system's CPU calculated the relative distance of the glove depending on how much time it took the sound to reach the microphone. That's a big dog. Side tackled the TV in your spot. Yeah, right. With that data, the CPU could triangulate the glove's location and translate it into on-screen action.

From a distance of five feet, that's one and a half meters, the system had an accuracy to within a quarter of an inch. That's a little more than a half a centimeter. It worked quickly, updating the gloves position about 30 times per second. I feel like both worked and quickly are overstated here. Not sure. Yeah. It continues. Why do you prefer matric like you're selling me drugs, Eli?

Why do you do that? I always feel like it's a little treat, right? If someone wants the metrics, I'm always like, ooh, you want the metrics, I'm always like, ooh, you want the metrics to you. All right, you saw C-Man, C-Go. Here's the millimeters like you need them. And continuous quote. The glove also tracked finger movements.

Fiber optic tubes were laced into the first four fingers of the glove. The pinky finger was considered redundant and thus left sensorless and lonely. As you flexed your fingers, light through the fiber optic tube became more constricted. A light sensor at the base of the glove detected the loss of light and determined where and how far the left tube was bent. And quote, yeah, and given my experience, I can tell you which of those fiber optic tubes got bent the least often. It feels like a lot more thought went into this than popularizing face recognition

unlock technology the same year as a mask wearing global pain. Yeah. So for comparison, the only product slightly comparable to this level of technology was the industry designed data glove, which cost $10,000. And the power glove retailed for just a hundred bucks. Kids went wild for it. And Mattel, the company that actually produced it in the United States sold 600,000 power gloves in the first six weeks of release alone.

Now, don't get me wrong, 100 bucks was a lot of money in 1989. That's like $240 in today's money, or if one prefers 57 boxes of eight. But that low price point and need for high volume would actually be the power gloves downfall. See, the product wasn't made by Nintendo. It was made by a company called Abrams Gentile Entertainment, or AGE. And in the US, it was manufactured, as I said, by the toy giant Mattel. Again, back to how stuff works.

Quote, AGE, one of the product prototype and manufactured as quickly as possible. They worked with Mattel to complete hardware and software simultaneously so they could cash in on the NES's phenomenal popularity. They finished the power glove in less than five months. Seems like a short amount of time, but that could span almost four British prime ministers. See, so, so this is America. Here we use the Skara Mucci. Thank you. And you have to whisper the metric version, the price. Exactly. Oh, you want a little trust to you? On top of that speedy

estimate, to keep the price down on their end, Mattel stripped the power glove down and bought the cheapest components for the system they could find with shitty microphones and shitty speakers. The accuracy of position detection was disastrously lowered. The shitty speakers couldn't track tiny movements like the ideal power glove could. So you had to make large sweeping gestures to have any control over your character. Yeah. A child hopped up on sugar making large sweeping gestures with a glove that has a wire running. Yeah. So, yeah, not go well. And again, I feel like I can tell you which large sweeping gestures got made most often, man. But the glove in the mics weren't the only problem. Remember that L bar?

I mentioned that you had to mount above your TV. Well, turns out dads in the 80s weren't exactly lining up to mount a video game controller receiver to the front of their entertainment centers. So the goddamn manual for the power glove recommends stacking quote books, boxes or other stackable things on top of your TV to lift up the L bar and quote, alternatively, the manual suggested resting the L bar in front of the TV on a quote, chair, a table or even a large box. I know this sounds weird to people who've only seen flat screens, but TVs used to have a 17 inch screen and a box the size and weight of a kitchen island.

And those racing and shooting games that were promised in the wizard, they never happened. Actually, to get full 3D motion, the power glove needed games program specifically to its capabilities. And the problem was only two titles were ever released for those features. Bad Street brawler, a repetitive and clunky double dragon ripoff, and super glove ball. I want to break out many clones. Oh, okay. So as hard as it is to undersell super glove ball, you're totally underselling super glove ball. I feel like they had five months

to come up with the controller. They could have spent some of that time workshopping the name for super glove ball. Sounds like something the pedophile told you you were going to be playing. Exactly. Wait, do we have the same pedophile? So for all other games, assuming you hadn't lost connection with the system because there was any noise anywhere ever. And assuming you could remember all of it, I should you not 14 program motion codes, which were different for every game. And so counterintuitive that Mattel eventually released a separate illustrated guide for

all of them. You could kind of play Nintendo games, sort of. That said, because there was just a regular NES controller on the back of the glove, what most kids ended up doing was just taking the glove off and playing it on the controller. They're not shape controllers. Or they'd end up just holding their arm out in front of them

and getting super tired while they use like a regular controller and they'd be like, fuck you, it's awesome. This is awesome. I just want to use the regular controller for a minute, my arm. One-handed. In spite of stellar initial sales, when the chorus of disappointed children's voices grew loud enough, sales tanked. And in spite of those huge initial sales, the product and the company, AGE, bombed. Side note, the power glove entirely explains Gen X to me, right? You all got a power glove for Christmas. It didn't work.

And now you're all transphobes. Like I get it now. I actually. So goddamn much better than the virtual boy. But as with so many failures, So God damn much better than the virtual boy. But as with so many failures, it wasn't all bad. The idea of the power glove lived on and lives on. It's been depicted in TV and movies. It's been worn by nerdoms, superstars and Freddie Krueger.

There's a speed metal band named power glove that plays retro gaming tunes. And it was without a question, the inspiration for the Nintendo Wii, the most important console in the history of video games. But that's a fight for another day. And if you had to summarize what you learned in one sense, what would it be? I feel a lot better by my blog now. I don't think the Wii is the most important console in the history. No, it's it.

It's not. It's not. After listening to the next No, it's it. It's not. It's not. After listening to the next episode, I'm ready. All right, Eli, got a question for you. What other sweet treat had to change their name because of a stupid disease? Oh, no. Hey, sugar rabies.

Yellow fever. See, Merse bar. Jardiali. Jardiali. Hello yellow fever. See, Merse bar. Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. Three. Fundip theory. Fundip theory.

I gotta go with sugar rabies. Sugar rabies is correct. Nice. All right, Eli, most of this essay was devoted to the Nintendo power glove, but which real Nintendo accessory controller was even more absurd. Hey, the R.O.B. Rob robot thing. Be have any of you guys seen this thing? I see this is what it looked like. I'm sure a picture of this thing. What the fuck for real? D I had one and it might have inspired my disinteresting games from a very early age. Doesn't have record players or the most important thing to keep in mind

is all it does is press a and B. That's all it does. It does it badly. Yeah. Yeah. And often misses. Yeah. I'm going to go with D. You had wanted it inspired you to just a string game. I believe it on something. Let's go with it. There you go. All right. I have one for you as well. You like what was the best fisting based game on Nintendo? A punch in load stunner. C Braccio vagina fantasy

D and this one is I'll admit this one's a bit of a deep cut, but that is a common problem with fisting Fisters quest I gotta go with punch in No, I'm sorry. No, it was D. It was fisters quest. Oh Who I don't care what the answer was you won with that with that question All right, so I think it'll like because of all the flattery we should get a message Cecil Max. All right. All right. Well for Noah Heath Eli and Tom. I'm Cecil. Thank you Nifraing and now let's say we'll be back next weekend By then I will be an expert on something else between now and then wait next week and by then I will be an expert on something else between now and then wait. Patience is virtue.

And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod or you can leave us a five star view every you can. If you like, give it a touch with us. Check out past episodes connected to this on social media or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citation pod dotcom. What about Choco Diet? I mean, it's not a diet, though. That's the whole thing. Yeah.

What do you mean you have no disease naming, guys? Someone came up with the name. What about candy slim? Man, it's more of a chocolate, so... Well, that just put that guy on the phone. This isn't fucking hard. Hello, hello, help, dammit. Seriously, you're gonna be a good one.

You gotta let this go, man. Seriously, Steve, you're gonna be fine. Relax. I gotta let you go off the top of this fucking building. Okay. Yikes. Diet delights. Ooh, see, I like that.

I also like diet delights. Ooh, see how I like that. I also like diet tilites.