Do Go On - 374 - Tetris

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

This week we are joined by Tommy Dassalo and Karl Chandler from the Little Dum Dum Club, to hear about the surprising history of one of the world's best sellign video game... Tetris!Matt brings up the names of the blocks from the original Nintendo game but these are fake, he fell for a meme/listicle! Disappointing!This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 14:41 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report). Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodLive show tickets: https://dogoonpod.com/live-shows/  Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/suggest-a-topic/ Check out our new merch! : https://do-go-on-podcast.creator-spring.com/ Stream our 300th episode with extra quiz (and 16 other episodes with bonus content): https://sospresents.com/authors/dogoon Check out our AACTA nominated web series: http://bit.ly/DGOWebSeries​Listen to the Little Dum Dum Club: https://littledumdumclub.com/  Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader Thomas Do Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Just jumping in really quickly at the start of today's episode to tell you about some upcoming opportunities to see us live in the flesh. And you can see us live at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2024. We are doing three live podcasts on Sundays at 3.30 at Basement Comedy Club, April 7, 14 and 21. You can get tickets at dogo1pod.com. Matt, you're also doing some shows around the country. That's right. I'm doing shows with Saren Jayamana, who's been on the show before. We're going to be in Perth in January, Adelaide in February, Melbourne through the festival in April, and then Brisbane after that. I'm also doing Who Knew It's in Perth and Adelaide. Details for all that stuff at mattstuartcomedy.com.

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Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. We can wait for clean water solutions.

Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge indigenous cultures. Or we can learn from indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves. At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. Hello and welcome to Do Go On. My name is Matt Stewart and this is the Do Go On podcast. Is that kind of right?

It's sure. Hey Jess, why don't you take it from here? Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Jess Perkins. That's fantastic. And as always, I'm joined by Matt Stewart. Hey Jess, how's it going? I'm fine.

We are not alone in the studio though. Oh. We have some guests. I was wondering who they were. Do you want to introduce them? Why did you have Matt even have first crack at that intro? I don't know, I was being kind. Yeah, we'll take it from here, guys.

Welcome to another episode of Do Go On. Welcome to Do Go On, guys. Call in. 1-800-DO-GO-ON. Have you seen something go on? I'll show you. Listen to the show, Carl. We're in a hotline? We are, of course, joined by Carl Chandler and Tommy Dasolo of the Dumb Dumb Club.

Hello and welcome back. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. When's the other little boy? When does he get here? When does the little fella? He plays by his own rules. Okay.

He turns up when he wants to turn up, that little boy. Is the rule that you don't shit your pants before you come in? Is that what happened? I just assumed he was busy playing an elf at Kmart for a Santa Claus photo display or something. It's his busiest season. We're allowed to say this, aren't we? In the group chat this morning, he said he can't come in because he has massive diarrhea.

We're off to a hot start today. I think massive is editorialising a little bit. I mean, if you're pulling out of a podcast. Exactly. We had to drive across town. If he had just had a little bit of diarrhea, then he should be in here. Yeah. So he ate nachos at a cinema?

No, he ate fish tacos, which, yeah, is a bold choice. Now, again, you guys know this way more than me, but isn't he a guy with a delicate digestive system? Yeah. Now, why is he trying fish tacos on the eve of a very important podcast? Yeah, true. Look, I'm going to go a level above that. Why is the cinema having a cracker making the fish taco?

That's the thing. I mean, I can't. I'm cut from the same cloth as Dave. Delicate digestive system, but if I see something wild like that on a menu, I'm going, you know what? I'm going to see what Hoyt's do with this. I'm curious. Hey, honey, do you want a choc top or a fish taco?

Who's asking? So, yeah, we were meant to do a big double crossover episode of our two pods today. But instead we said, fuck your podcast. Let's just do ours instead. I've had to explain to Matt. He wasn't very happy. I said, we want the whole Rolling Stones on our episode,

on the twin recording. We can't be missing Mick or Keith or whoever you want to assign the role of Dave to. Who do you think you three are of the Rolling Stones? We haven't done the Rolling Stones. We've only done Destiny's Child and we know Dave's the Michelle. Oh, okay. I don't know about Rolling Stones.

Who's Beyonce? You are. Yeah, I'm Beyonce. Okay okay so that means you're mick then yeah i guess i'm mick jess is mick i think dave is keith okay and you are and i'm i'm probably the guy died in a pool or whatever oh really yeah right what's his brian jones so he died in a pool yeah he started he started the band and then he got real shit at it and then they kicked him out. They moved past him real quick, yeah. Yeah, that's probably about right. Should we just do the Rolling Stones today?

Because I'm covering the topic and I was talking to Dave last night kind of about some of the bullet points of it and then all of a sudden he gets up this morning, he's like, I can't be on the episode. So it hasn't really instilled a lot of faith in me about the quality of what I'm bringing to the table. It doesn hasn't really instilled a lot of faith in me about the quality of what I'm bringing to the table. It doesn't bode well, does it?

It does not bode well. Yeah, to be fair, he should be the Brian Jones, the guy who's dead. Yes, that's true. He's got his own you-know-what at the moment. What a way to go. I don't know if he specified which way I was coming out, but he did say, yeah. Well, no, he did.

No, he did. Yeah, he did. yeah well no he did no he did yeah he did it was kind of like we gradually got more information out of him as we were as we were all sort of like angrier and angrier about the fact that we're we all need this to happen we're all banking episodes for the holiday break and also this has been in the pipes for about six months that's the other part of it too yeah yeah. Do you know what movie he was seeing? I was there with him. We saw Violent Night. Oh, my God. It was awesome.

It was so good. And what were you eating instead? I didn't want to say because I was eating basically nachos. I was like, what did you order, the two-week-old milk? I have a glass of old milk. No, not out of the fridge. That one in the window sill. It's not on the carpet.

Can you scrape that off for me? It looks delicious. Because he messaged me this morning saying, hey, just to let you know, this might be coming for you as well. Oh, you got early access. I'm like, I'm feeling well. Patreon only information. I'm like, I'm feeling pretty fine. Any chance it was the fish tacos that you had?

And he said, oh, yeah. What did he think? How did he think you were going to get it through the movie? The movie made me sick. No, because we did a gig earlier and we shared the catering there, so it could have been that. But then this was post-gig. That's when we split off.

He went fish tacos. I went chips and guacamole. Right. So this truly is like a science experiment because you've got the control. We A-B tested it. Of the gig catering and then, yeah. So we can 100% level this at the fish taco. Yes, I think so.

Well, you know, I'm sort of used to it when it comes to this podcast and the members of, because it was only two weeks ago when someone pulled out of a gig I run, Comedy Explained. It starts at 8.30. I think it was 6.30 when I got the pullout. Yeah. It was the day after Meredith Music Festival. No.

From all the reports I heard, Matt Stewart was absolutely no good after that. Meredith was this weekend. That was an entirely different thing. Yeah. I need gigs at the moment. I would have thought you'd have people begging for that spot. No, because there's a lot of people like you and Dave Warnke that keep pulling out things.

Oh, really? Guys, can we pivot? This honestly is just an episode of our show. Why are we? Yeah, you're right. We could do this for another 55 minutes easily We're talking diarrhea We're talking gig beefs

We're fully in our wheelhouse now We've just taken the ship over We've Captain Phillipstedt That's why we need Dave here We need to outnumber guests Or we lose control very quickly Yeah, yeah, yeah Hey Jess, why don't you

Or maybe We normally get one of us to explain how this show works Tommy, do you reckon you could have a crack At explaining what Do Go On is? Oh, yeah, sure. Well, three people of varying levels of reliability come together and they ask someone else who's not affiliated with the show to spend a few days putting together research on a topic

and then one of the hosts pulls out at the last minute. Yeah. Is that what this show is? That's what this show is, yeah. Yeah, for about seven years now. It's exciting. And we normally get on a topic with a question. I don't know if you've written a question here, Tommy.

No. Okay, fantastic, because you've already let slip what the topic is anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My question for the listeners is, what is the most famous Russian video game? Oh, wow. That's a tough question because surely there's no definitive answer.

It's like saying, who is the most famous person in the world? You can't have a litmus test to find that out. Okay, well, name another Russian video game. Another one? I can't even name a first one. What's the first one? Am I even right saying it's Russian? No, 100 even name it. What's the first one? Am I even right

saying it's Russian? No, 100% you are. Well done. Yeah. What is a Russian game? The video game Super Gorbachev

Brothers. Miss Yeltsin Man. Now, just because somebody, one of our listeners is keeping tally Of which of us gets Guesses it right I'm just going to jump in there to get a point Is it Tetris?

It sure is Oh That's a point for me That's a fucking point for me That's Russian Well done Actually I'm looking at a book that you've brought in That's clearly a book about Tetris

And now I'm going Oh okay I should have probably guessed that one too Yeah You guys Now to the best of my knowledge, the three of you aren't gamers, but you surely have interacted with Tetris at some point. I've been playing Tetris recently. I like the way that question should go.

Now, you guys, I don't think you're gamers, so maybe you don't know what Tetris is. Some of us hardcore gamers wouldn't really understand. I'll explain it. You probably don't know the rules. Please, Tommy, nerd-splain it to us. Well, my point being Tetris is ubiquitous enough that even if you're not into games, you've played it at some point.

Or you, at the very least, you know what it is. Your mum and dad would have heard of it probably. Yes. Now, Matt, you've been playing it recently? Yeah. For the first time. He's just discovered it. It's a fun new game. That. Yeah. Now, Matt, you've been playing it recently? Yeah. For the first time. He's just discovered it. It's a fun new game.

That's great. I find it very relaxing. You text Carl saying, I can't do Spleen and then just go to Tetris. You're one of those late adopters. You watched the movie and thought, I'll get into the game now. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

It was a fantastic film. I wanted to get into the source material. Apparently, I don't know if you're getting into this at all, Tommy, but I saw recently that it's just been discovered that each piece has its own name. Did you see that? What? Yeah.

Like a person's name, you mean? Yeah, yeah. I think, yeah, one of them. Well, the pieces themselves are called tetrominoes. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, we all know that. Yeah. Sorry, guys.

But, yeah, no, I didn't know that they all had, each piece had an individual name. Yeah, I think it just. Because people just call it Square, Long One. Someone found the old booklet that came with the Nintendo version of it, and there was a page with the names of the pieces. Wow. Okay.

I'll find it before we finish up. But, again, like people's names, like Gary. I think, I can't remember. But I think they are stuff like that, yeah. You know, like the ghosts in. Oh, like they've got Blinky. Blinky and. In Pac-Man.

Yeah, exactly. I think it's like that, yeah. At some point they thought everything needed to be named. Yeah, that's cool. So there's like Tetris lore. Yeah, yeah. Where the person, you know what, for the time that it is, the fact is it's probably just like the person it's but you know what for the time of like for the time that it is the fact is it's probably just like the person who wrote the instruction manual just went

i'm just going to come up with these yeah and then like you know not signed off by anyone someone that wrote the instruction books had 2 000 words to fill and he was sitting on 1500 we're naming the bricks. Here we go. The instruction manual has a word count that it has to hit. They've already booked in a 16-page print run. What are you going to put on 14 pages of it? You've got to put something on there. How much more detail can I put into push left to go left? If you're really feeling like it, it's what you could do.

Of course, you know, it's optional. You don't have to go left. One could go right. There's no rhyme or reason to the, like, some are people names anyway so you've got the is this where we should be starting in the history oh yeah no i like no i like because this doesn't come up in my thorough research oh god so you've got the l shape is orange ricky and then the orange orange ricky okay is it orange i think it must be orange because then i mean in the booklet they're all Is Orange Ricky. Orange Ricky. Okay. Is it Orange?

I think it must be Orange because then, I mean, in the booklet they're all grey. Right, yeah. Then, you know, the backwards L, that's Blue Ricky. Okay. Someone's taking the piss here. Then that sort of, that Z-ish looking one. What would you call that? The like. The zig-zaggy one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's called Cleveland Z. And then the opposite of that is Rhode Island Zed. Okay. So they've gone from names to placement. This is worse than what's in Dave Warnocky's pants at the moment. No, you've hit the nail on the head, Carl. This is someone who's getting paid by the word.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The stick one is Hero. No, but it is. That's the Hero piece. When you're, like, banking it up and you're making sure you've got like a nice bit for it to slot into. And you get that full, the full Tetris of like all of them. That is the hero. That's the hero.

Yeah, okay, well there's a reason to go, oh, that's the hero. Is there a need in the game to go, oh, Orange Ricky. Rhode Island. You need, the Zed's like probably like useless, you know, because it's like it's more difficult to work with. So that, yeah, I reckon it feels like that's a slide against Cleveland and Rhode Island, right? Surely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right. Right. It's not helpful. Someone's got an ex-girlfriend in each place. I'll show them. I'm going to burn them in the Tetris instruction manual. Then the T shape is Tee-wee. Okay.

Tee-wee. That. Tee-wee. That's the easiest one to come up with a name for. Yeah, just stop at T. You had it. Yeah. And then finally the square is Smash Boy. I don't mind that. Smash Boy and Hero are the only ones that I'm on board with.

All the rest of them, shit ass. How did Tetris become such a big part of culture with dog shit like that? Yeah. In the instructions. I wonder if there was anyone back in the day, you know, they get their Game Boy, they break it open, they're like, I'm just going to have a read of this instruction manual before I start the game.

And then they've just seen all the names and gone, fuck this. This game sounds stupid. I'm out. I reckon this is the game that stopped everyone from reading the instructions before they played the games. Because who reads the instructions before they play the game? Yeah. Do you?

Well, now they don't come with instructions. reads the instructions before they play the game? Yeah. Do you? Well, now they don't come with instructions. It's all, like, built into the game. Yeah. They'll be, like, two hours of just, like, some **** coming up. Sorry, do you say that word on this podcast? It's been coming up more. Surely with Warnocky pulling out every two seconds, it'll come up a bit.

We did it early, and dave at one point went apparently in america it's offensive oh right so we stopped saying it for a while and then we started bleeping when it comes up occasionally i think in our first 50 100 episodes we used to i used to be pretty hard on even tommy and the other guests like don't swear let's try not to swear because what if we got our own radio show and then about two episodes later we went, that's never fucking happening. Well, on the video games podcast that I do, Filthy Casuals, we do videos on YouTube and they started getting demonetized for ads because they changed their standards. And the C-bomb got put in the category of like slurs along with like the N-word.

And it's like just having that leveled at you, it's like you've said some, you've said the equivalent of the N word. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're Australian. Your system should be detecting the accent. This is international anthem. Like, come now. All right. Do you guys want to hear about the history of Tetris?

Is there more to come than just naming the blocks? Blue Ricky. Yeah. There once was a man called Hero. What was the square again? Big Smashy? Smash Boy. Smash Boy.

That's so sick. Love Smash Boy. That's awesome. Yeah. Okay. So 1985, Alexey Pachitnov. He's a computer scientist at the Moscow Academy of Science His main job was creating artificial intelligence

And voice recognition software He's fascinated by puzzles and games And how much they reveal about psychology and behaviour So in his spare time He starts messing around Trying to make versions of his favourite puzzles On his computer So he's like getting the Rubik's Cube

And being like yeah this But it's on a screen Okay So he's animating So, you know, whatever, like the Rubik's Cube and being like, yeah, this, but it's on a screen. Okay. So he's, oh, right. That kind of makes sense. Like imagine if Rubik's Cube was busted apart and on a screen. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Well, his main, his inspiration for Tetris came from this puzzle game called Pentominoes. Do you guys know this game? It's like a, so you've got like a wooden box and then you've got all these shapes that are like the Tetris shapes and you have to, it's like a puzzle.'ve got like a wooden box and then you've got all these shapes that are like the tetris shapes and you have to it's like a puzzle and what are their names uh simon mick keith dave beyonce it's just all in ringo so he was kind of obsessed with that game that specific like little puzzle game which you could play alone or with a friend and then one day he starts thinking, like, oh, yeah, what if all these little shapes were falling from the sky into a glass

and you were having to, like, you know, manipulate them and, you know, get them to, like, all, like, do the puzzle kind of the other way around. Which, you know, sounds to me like someone in the dorm room at the Moscow Academy of Science. Just what I'm saying. Oh, man. Someone at Moscow TAFE. Studying the effects of mad bongs on the human mind. Yeah, man.

Artificial intelligence. It's for science. What if the bong smoked you? Just with posters of Boris Yeltsin but with dreadlocks on his wall. So, yeah, he starts – he's obsessed with that. He's toying around with the idea. The Pentominos, the blocks, were made up of, like, four little units. He changes it to five and – oh, no, wait, sorry.

He changed it from five to four. So he's working on this computer That's like Obviously like very old Very rudimentary Didn't have any graphics capabilities So he makes this version of it That's just text Like so the blocks are coming down And they're just like

The text says Orange Ricky Yeah I mean when I read it That's what I thought I was like You're typing in Rotate to the left

And then the game's going Good one But no It's like It's scrolling from the sky But it's just The pieces are made up Of just like little brackets yeah to kind of like you know fill it in that way um so he uh he gets obsessed with it he starts sharing it around the moscow

academy of science and all his friends get hooked on it even though it's like very basic very rudimentary everyone that he works with gets super into it. And what year is this? This is 85. So where are we in like computer games? Is Atari around and stuff like that? Atari's around. There's like arcade machines are around. They're well and truly around.

What would be number one on the hit parade in 85? Like Pac-Man's like 70s or early 80s, is it? I reckon it's atari i don't reckon nintendo have quite launched yet i think mario brothers is like 86 right so they're like yeah they're not quite in the field yet i think maybe the video game crash may have just happened or be about to happen we did an episode about that back in the day i think that might have been yeah 83 or something the video game crash what does that mean uh so uh crash bandicoot so they're like atari they have like there's just everyone's buying these video games like the home consoles yeah the cartridges it was

sort of irreg uh not regulated or whatever yeah and it just meant that all like supermarkets were putting out consoles and yeah everyone was doing it and it just ruined the market. Flooded the market and then people got over it. So when it came time for Nintendo to put out their console, they had to really battle to get it in shops because all the department stores were like, no, we just got burned by this a few years ago. We've still got all this old stock.

You're not tricking us. Was it an E.T. game? Or there was some game and they had to bury a million cartridges or something yeah so yeah that's kind of yeah that's where things are at at the moment so in terms of i think home computer stuff is still like pretty big but consoles yeah atari would have been the last kind of like big one but it would have so it's not like this would have been blowing their minds this would have looked pretty primitive i was gonna say how bad were these old video games if tetris came along and everyone was like oh finally a good looking video game but yeah so everyone that he's working with

gets into this kind of very basic version of it that he's that he's made because you know it does it taps into the book i read about it goes like goes into the sort of psychology of why people love tetris because it it taps into this thing in the human brain where it's like the dopamine rush of like finishing a task because it's like you- It's like crossing something off the to-do list. Yeah, but then the to-do list just reappears again instantly because it's like you get a line- It's like life, man.

Guys, that's the only point I wanted to come in here is that Tetris is like life itself. It never stops. It's like the mail coming into the mail room, and that's why I had to shoot up a school. It's like the shit coming out of an arsehole after you've eaten a fish taco. It's endless. It just keeps repeating.

All morning. You wipe, you flush, and then guess what? You're back in there three minutes later. And then your mates are back in the chat going, can't you just come and do the podcast? And you're like, no, fuck off. You prescribed him a pie, didn't you, Carl? Just eat a pie, mate.

You'll be good. Is that the thing? He's finally eating something that isn't a pie and it's just absolutely blown his guts off. I think that might have been what it is. I'm starting to think as well that even if he wants to, Dave won't be able to edit out this thread. No, there's no way.

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Guys, now here's your challenge. For the rest of this story that I've got that's quite dry, I have to be honest, if we can just relate every bullet point back to Dave having diarrhea, then I think we're in for an all-time top five episode of Do Go On hosted by Tommy Dasol. Why don't we name all of Dave's shits while we're at it?

Smash boys. Smash Boy. Smash Boy. Splash Boy. So, yeah, the game's a viral hit at the Moscow Computer Centre. A friend of Alexei's named Dmitry Pavlovsky, who was very well versed in MS-DOS, which is like the big operating system of the time, they get together and they make like a proper graphical version

of the game that's not just like text-based, like it looks kind of more like what Tetris looks like now. They get it kind of popping. They come up together with the name Tetris, named for the four blocks that make up each piece, which is a Tetra plus Tennis. That's where the name comes from. Block Tennis.

I don't really like Tennis at all. No. I guess it's a little bit like the old T from. Oh. Yeah. Block tennis. Not really like tennis at all. No. I guess it's a little bit like the old tennis game, though. People like pong. Yeah, like pong. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's got a bit of pong about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I guess pong. Speaking of Warnakee this morning. There we go. You asked for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That one was always too easy. I'm just picturing, how's tennis played over there? It's like you lob the ball at someone and then they just disappear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like always too easy. I was picturing how's tennis played over there? It's like you lob the ball at someone and then they just disappear.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like that's what's happening in... If they're not good enough in Russia, yeah. Yeah, in Russia, yeah. The protégés, they don't quite make it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They don't quite make it.

Yeah. And by the way, if you're making up these names, I think you're being borderline racist. Dmitry Povilovsky. If I'm making them up. Okay, yeah. An opportunity to be borderline racist. Yeah, I jumped on that.

That's the underlying subject with this. Yes. Not Tetris itself. Because normally when people come in to do a report, they've written it down, and you've just been closing your eyes and looking upwards. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've just been Googling pictures of ugly Russian people and and they've been like looks like a dimitri and you've

been making a note of every time he has a five second delay of going um what else can i say this is gonna be a brutal edit yeah yeah i assume dave's done a wonderful job that uh yeah so uh it's that version of tetris that makes its way outside of the computer center so people are people are copying it. They're giving it off to their friends. Oh, they're bootlegging. Yeah, they're bootlegging it. Yeah, yeah.

But the guy who made it, he's like, he's just made this as a lark. Like, he doesn't care. So it makes... This is the 85 version of the... What was the... The crazy frog. No. The viral hit.

No. The body. The thing that the New York. Dave Mouth's doing an impression of Dave Mouth. Yeah, yeah. The game that the New York Times bought. Oh, Wordle. Wordle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah, kind of. Yeah, just a little fun thing. No one wanted any money out of it. So within two weeks, Tetris is on every computer in Moscow. It's copied around to give an example of its popularity at a psychology institute in moscow a manager loved tetris so much that he's given it to his entire staff he's like you got to check this out guys and then like a week or two later he has to come around and confiscate all the copies

back off them because no work is getting done guys i tried to be cool boss backfired i now have to be arsehole boss yeah i have to take the game away like dave is certainly not the arsehole boss today yeah if only he was a bit more of a boss we could be the arseholes running the show there we could be doing an episode of little dunman oh my god i'm i'm just imagining the listener of this who's like, loves video game history, always wanted to hear this story. But there are some people who are severely put off by anything. I'm one of those people.

Oh, really? Well, you're doing a valiant job here. I'm blocking it out. I think David and I have had an influence because he's starting to be the one to make shit jokes now. And I'm like, oh, come on. I reckon if I was listening to this, I wouldn't be listening to it anymore. But being in the room, I don't know, somehow it's, I'm not eating.

If there was any food coming up for me, I wouldn't be able to. Sure. If we were sitting down for lunch, I would have pushed the plate away from me at the best point, I reckon. Interesting. Wow. I didn't know you were that delicate. I'm very delicate. Yeah. Can't believe, I didn't know you were that delicate. I'm very delicate.

Yeah. Can't believe that that doesn't just come out of me. A guy with a Merv Hughes moustache and an old St Kilda jumper. Like, you look like you could probably eat this table, let alone fucking be weird about talking about poo for a second. I don't like that word, Carl. Sorry. Let's just be delicate around Matt.

Let's just call it a whoopsie for now. Thank you. Yeah, that's nice. Dave's at home having a bit of a whoopsie. Having frequent whoopsies. Doing some whoops boys. Liquid whoops boys. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, no. We're in too deep now as well. We can't go back. Okay, so, yeah, so no money's changing hands for any of these copies of Tetris. Everyone in Moscow just has it because, yeah, Russia's 1985 communist country. So the guy who made it, Alexei, he could have been arrested and jailed for even trying to sell it. But he also doesn't care.

He just likes puzzles. He likes what they kind of have to say about the human mind and everything. So he's just happy that people have their hands on it and they're having a good time. Imagine going to jail for inventing Tetris. So eventually a colleague of his suggests that he sends the game to a friend of his in Hungary who publishes games. So at the Hungarian Institute of Technology,

they hold an exhibition of software that they've developed. A called robert stein who's the owner of a uk company called andromeda software he's come to the exhibition looking for games that he can sell in foreign markets he has a go of tetris he gets hooked and he decides that he wants to license it in the uk he wants to get the rights to be able to like give this game out game out worldwide. At the Hungarian Expo. At the Hungarian Institute of. Famous capitalist sort of utopia, Hungary. Yeah, yeah. That is, I mean, that is a roll of the dice, isn't it? It's like, yeah, just pop over here, have a look,

probably find a big, I'll probably find the next Pong over there. Yeah. You know, I'll probably find the next Pac-Man. And he's kind of right. Packing your Dax-Man. Yes. There we go. There we go.

Very nice. So he. Talking about Dave there. Oh, yeah, no, I got it. Oh, yeah, that's right.ax, man. Yes. There we go. Very nice. Talking about Dave there. Oh, yeah, no, I got it. Oh, yeah, that's right. I forgot about him shitting himself for about three seconds there. Oh, you're from before. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's why he's not here. Right. Is he not here? Yeah. Oh, man. It's all starting to make sense now. So once this guy, Robert Stein, gets home, he contacts the Moscow Computer Centre using a thing called the Telex,

which predates the fax machine. Okay. Never heard of one of these. Telex. But it's pre-fax. So it's kind of like you're typing it out and then it's appearing. It's basically a fax machine, but I guess it took a little bit longer. Name was too long.

Had to get it shorter. Fax. Telex sounds awful. Yeah. Yeah, true. It's like the telephone. Yeah, but does fax sound good? Yeah get it shorter. Fax. Telex sounds awful. Yeah, true. It's like the telephone. Yeah, but does fax sound good? Yeah.

You reckon? Fax. Is it only just because you're used to it, though? It's a bit of a weird name, I reckon. Telex sounds like what the 80s thought the future sounded like. Yeah. That's true, yeah. It also sounds like an antihistamine or something.

Yeah. You know? I like it. Telex. Can I use it? Yeah. Is anyone using it now? I think it's back in public domain by now. Yeah, you can have that. Yeah, I know? I like it. Telex. Can I use it? Yeah. Is anyone using it now? I think it's back in public domain by now.

Yeah, you can have that. Yeah, I wonder if you can find one. Yeah, Telex. There used to be like some TVs used to have, I thought it was the Telex button. Teletext. Or Teletext. Right.

Which was just subtitles, right? Yeah. And maybe there was a news service. It was a very primitive internet, wasn't it? Yeah. Because you could watch TV and then you could just flip over and it would have like some two-week-old news. It was like written like a Commodore 64 style.

Yeah, like maybe a blue screen with yellow writing or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could get the football scores on it. Yeah. Pretty sick, actually. That's actually pretty cool. Bring it back. Okay, so Robert's signed.

He opens up his Teletext and he gets the footy scores and he sends them to the Moscow Computer Centre to try and get permission to take Tetris to the rest of the world. So Alexei gets the message at the Moscow Computer Centre. He then has to type out his response in Russian. He has to get that message approved by someone and then he has to get someone else to translate the message and send it back to this guy in the UK.

So because of that, there's this big communication breakdown. By the time all of that happens, he's basically said, yeah, yeah, I don't think you're allowed to use that term anymore, Carl. Okay, right. I think you're meant to say beep, whispers. Oriental whispers. Okay, okay. I think you're getting colder there, Carl.

Let's just give Dave a little gimme to edit out. You know, just an easy one that doesn't affect anything else in the show. They call it in America, they call it telephone. That feels like that must be so confusing. Yeah. That's already a thing. Because telephone's like one-for-one audio. Yeah.

There's really no room for misinterpretation there. I think they came up with telephone because it started as Chinese whispers and by the time it got to there, it made no sense. You guys should do an ep on the history of Chinese whispers. The concept, the term, there's a lot to dig into there. But so basically, Alexei, what he's gone to say is, yeah, I'm interested. This sounds cool.

Let's have a talk about this. Like we'll work out a deal. Hopefully we'll work out a deal. You know, we'll get a contract going. So it sounds, you know, sounds pretty good to me. Happy to chat. And Stein has just read, but by the time it's been translated and everything, Stein's just read this as we're on.

You've got a deal. So he's like, bang, we are off to the races here on you've got a deal so he's like bang we are off to the races here i've got the worldwide rights to tetris oh i'm gonna you know this game is so addictive this is gonna make me like tons of money so he he just starts giving off the rights basically willy-nilly so he gives off the rights to selling or giving yeah well selling okay yeah selling uh what is selling if not giving? Oh, that's so true. Yeah, exactly.

With money involved. Yeah. Yeah. A transaction involved. Yeah. It's like you've given me a pie. Yeah. And then I've given you money.

That's right. But they're two separate events. We've both given- If only that transaction had happened last night with Warner, instead of what actually happened. Would have been safe with the pie. That's the other thing is how much were, you got the fish tacos at a cinema.

I'm guessing they're like 25 bucks or something like that. They were $27. $27? What? For that three? I know that because as we were leaving, he was saying they weren't that good. And he said, so where,

because we went to a movie to kill time, went for a flight and he's gone,'s gone 20 so i can't help but think what i could have bought for 27 dollars yeah but he doesn't realize he bought a whole lot more than he realized new plunger for one probably cost about 27 bucks adult nappies whatever do you reckon you could actually get i reckon you could get child nappies. How big do they go? Like a big child. A big child. Do you reckon, I mean, look, I'm not saying he should be here right now,

but do you reckon you could operate, do you reckon you could be on a podcast while you're struggling with that affliction? Do you think you could actually do it or not? Do you think personally you could get through it? I mean, it depends on how severe it is, I suppose. And yeah, I mean, do you want to be around that? I'm just asking. There's quite a few doors to get through out of the podcast.

That's true. It's a fair walk to the loo. I guess so. I have done that many times. Right. Yeah. But you record in your lounge room sometimes, don't you? I have a very vivid

memory of the time we had grant denyer on and we went and did it at his uh his hotel and i had no i had like a week but like week-long full-on food poisoning like i just had straight up been in bed and it was like well you can't cancel on this guy you know it's like this has to happen and just turning up and it was like, I think it had been, like it had been nearly a week. I'd been so sick. So it wasn't like it was coming on. It was like I was pretty, I was like, I can get through this.

I know what I'm dealing with. We're on the mend a little bit. I can regulate this. You knew what the rhythms were. Absolutely. Warning signs the time you had between the first warning signs. You're an old hand. You've got like a callus down there.

Yeah, exactly. But not my favorite experience that's for damn sure you also yeah your problem would be your guests it's hard to organize your guests but this i guess you know for dave today this was one of the rare times where we had guests coming in oh obviously doesn't respect you like you respect yeah that's it do you think he would have pushed through if it was just you two? Yeah. No. Even less so. Certainly not. No. And I wouldn't have either. Yeah.

If it wasn't we were trying to get this done just before we have a bit of a break. True. I think we would have all loved the late cancel. I love a late cancel. Love that. Love a late cancel. Oh, the plans I had for the day. Yeah, yeah.

Sadly, here we are. I know. I'm going to say I'm glad we're doing this. I'm having a great time. I am now, but, like, when it looked like it wasn't going to happen, I was like, fuck yeah. We all had a day off. Yeah, I didn't have anything in the planner.

I was on my way, and I'm like, I'm already doing this. We know. That's the only reason it happened, because every five minutes in the chat you kept popping up, no, I reckon actually, like, I'm already doing this. We know. That's the only reason it happened because every five minutes in the chat you kept popping up, no, I reckon actually morally we should be doing this. It's just got anything to do with the fact you're already there. I was already looking forward to heading home, honestly,

but I'm like, but then I'm just going to have to come back when? Next week or something? See, I rode the waves of it. First up with it being cancelled, I was, like, very annoyed because I'd, like, based my whole day around it and we need to bank an epivash. And then once it set in, I was like, no, this is actually cool. I just got the morning to, like, chill around the house,

take the dog for a walk, get some other stuff done. And then all of a sudden it's like we're back on. So it's like I really felt every emotion that it's possible to feel about. Yeah, that's even worse. You're sort of starting to go, oh, how good is this? It was all up and down all over the place. Our heads were like Warnocky's bum. Stuff spewing out of it.

Okay, so Robert Stein, he's convinced he has the go-ahead to license Tetris around the world. He sells the rights to two software companies, to begin with Spectrum Holobyte in the US and Mirrorsoft in the UK. So he claims that he's, like, you know, licensed to do this even though he doesn't. King Tetris. Yeah, he doesn't have any form of contract or anything.

Yeah, it's only a vocal. He's not even vocal. He's got, like, a mistranslated Russian to English. It's not a full knit, but it's. Exactly. Would I have heard of these brands? I don't know if they still exist, but I think they were both pretty big players at the time.

So, yeah, maybe just in relation to other stuff. They didn't make Battletoads or something that I would have heard of. Is that the one video game you've played outside of Tetris? No, Solitaire on Microsoft. Microsoft Golf. Oh, yeah. You've played Microsoft Looks like you hit the tree Jim

Yeah I've played Windows I played Word I typed out all the letters I clocked it I beat the final boss The paperclip Told him to fuck off I beat the squiggle

I spelled something right So around this time There's a growing fascination in the US about what life was like in Russia. Gorbachev and Reagan, they have a- And who? Reagan. Brian Reagan.

Brian Reagan. Great comedian. Dave, edit out the bit where I say Reagan. No, leave it in, please. Reagan. President Reagan. They've scheduled a nuclear summit together in Iceland. Iceland.

Iceland. It's fine. God, I'm butchering this. Neither are they. I think Iceland is a department store in the UK. Is it really? No, it's a supermarket, isn't it? A supermarket.

Isn't that weird? Yeah, it wouldn't be a department store. Really? Yeah, in the UK, when you say Iceland, when you go, oh, I'm just going to Iceland, it's like holiday. No, milk. It's weird. Naming it after like one very small bit of one department of the supermarket.

Yeah. Yeah. And also a country that neighbours them, basically. Yeah. Yeah. It's very weird, especially when you're in Europe already. So Iceland's not that far away. It's quite accessible.

Yeah, that must be super confusing. Very confusing. Yeah. What? Yeah, it'd be like us calling a supermarket New Zealand. Yes. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm just popping to New Zealand. Do you need anything? Yeah. Some Kiwi fruit? Oh, yeah. Works either way. That one works, yeah. So Spectrum Hollowbyte tap into this kind of US fascination with Russia

by taking out a full-page ad in USA Today showing like a- And this is still like old mates back home in Russia not knowing anything about this. Yeah. He has no idea about this. He's agreed to having a chat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's it.

They take out an ad in USA Today. They do like a mock-up, like a fake thing of Reagan and Gorbachev playing Tetris together. That's awesome. And they've got it as like, this is the game that escaped the USSR. And like in that ad, it's like, here's what's really happening behind. Because everyone was like, what are they going to talk about in this meeting and everything?

It's like, here's what they're actually doing. Sick strategy. Honestly, great ad. Back then, they used to, I mean, I'm old enough to remember that in the 80s when there used to be a real thing about, yeah, America versus Russia. And imagine Russia coming to blow everything up or whatever. It's like that was a real.

I mean, look, Rocky IV. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. No, Rocky III? Three. No, IV. IV. Yeah, IV. Yeah, Rocky IV.

Yeah, and just even being able to use the phrase, the Iron Curtain. Yes. It's like that just adds to the myth, what's going on behind the Iron Curtain? Yeah, yeah. Did that ad get Dimitri killed? I'm just picturing him back at home and the word gets back. Who's made this game? Well, so this Robert Stein guy, the guy who's like thinks he's got the,

you know, he's like. The English guy. He knows he's, yeah, he knows he's taken the piss a little bit because he's also, he's, yeah, it's a combination of like it's sort of mistranslated, but he's also reading into it what he wants to read in. Like his attitude has just been, I'll sell this off and I'll just deal with this later because I can make so much money and by the time I've got the money I can pay people off or whatever.

So anyway, but he sees that ad, that big USA Today ad, and he starts to realise this is like. He sees it. Yeah, he sees it. He's like, this train is getting away from me. I've got to get back to Russia and I've got to actually get these rights. Otherwise, I've got to make sure I've actually got them because otherwise I'm in big shit.

Russian news agency are stocking USA Today? Yeah, like eight months later. The big orange direct freight sticker on it. A lot of it's redacted. Yeah, totally. I just guess they're like leafing through and ripping that page out. So around this time... Garfield's like censored.

It's like he doesn't hate Mondays, he hates America. So around this time, the Russian government has created a new agency called ELOG to oversee and control the importing and exporting of hardware and software. God, there's a lot of terrible names in this story. Yeah. So this organisation, ELOG, they take over negotiations of the deal with Stein. So he goes in for a meeting with them in Moscow, which lasts for four days.

And eventually they draft up a contract which says that ELOG has to approve any and all versions of Tetris. And Stein has to just basically agree to whatever they propose because he's in so deep with Mirrorsoft and Spectrum Holobite. Like they've already started putting the game out. So whatever, you know, whatever conditions Elog want in the contract, he just basically has to go like, yeah, sure, sounds great. Like you're sort of not telling them that he's done the dodgy on them. Right.

So they're in a strong spot here. They're in a strong spot. So they finally, after months, they get the contract worked out. They're good. You know, he's now, he's got it in writing. He's good to go. So 1987 and 1988, Mirosoft publishes Tetris in the UK and Spectrum Holobite publish it in the US.

And both of them become the best-selling games in their respective countries. So, yeah, they come out on, I think, like home computer and they're both like massive in both those countries immediately. It really feels, I was sure this would have come before so many, there's games that look more advanced than this are already out by many years. It feels like this, I was assuming this came out in 1978 or something.

But this is like a very, I guess the strength is it's very playable, this game, isn't it? Yeah, I mean there was when he was like shopping it around originally, a lot of people were like, exactly what you're saying, a lot of people were like, ah, exactly what you're saying. A lot of people were like, nah, we want stuff with, like, violence and, like, graphics have gotten better. Like, you can show someone, like, killing a demon on a screen. We want stuff like that.

We don't want this. What about Smash Man rather than Smash Boy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fiddling around with it. The industry's matured. It's not just for children anymore. Guys, it's 1986. Games's not just for children anymore, guys. It's 1986.

Games aren't just for kids anymore. So there's already, there starts to be a bit of tension with the Russians. In 1987, a German pilot named Matthias Rust landed a plane in the middle of the Red Square in the middle of the day as like a political protest. He was aiming to create an imaginary bridge between Russia and its Cold War enemies. He was arrested two hours later and named a radical by the government. So then the UK and the US publishers of Tetris, in an attempt to make the game kind of look more sort of visually interesting on the screen because you've just got that grid.

I don't know if you remember in any of the versions you've played, there's just like a bit of flavour around like the side of the grid. Yeah. So they just chuck a bunch of stereotypical Russian shit on there, including this Rust guy's plane that had landed in the Red Square. So they put that in there. That gets back to Alexei, the guy who made the game, and he's like, you've got to take this out

because that could be seen as glorifying a radical and people know I made this game so that could get me in deep shit. So, yeah, already a bit of tension is going on there. So then 1988, a developer called Hank Rogers, he has powerful contacts in the Japanese video games market. He discovers Tetris at a Las Vegas game show and he falls in love with it. He's like, this is awesome.

So he decides- What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Leave Tetris there. Yeah, he cheats on his wife with Connecticut or whatever the place is called. He and Tetris get married by Elvis. It's actually beautiful. Beautiful ceremony. He decides that he wants to pursue the Japanese rights to the game

because he's got a lot of contacts over there and he thinks like, this will be huge for them. I want to kind of facilitate that happening. So, yeah, the rights are all over the place. The company, the UK company Mirasoft, they've assumed that they have the rights to make an arcade machine version of it because old mates just told them, go for your life. I'm sure it'll be all good.

There's nothing about it in the contract. So it's like it's already, it's a complete mess. It's just like people are just, people are putting putting versions out being told they're good to go they're selling the rights on they're on selling the rights to other people uh so he so this guy hank he contacts mirasoft who can't give him the japanese rights because they've already given them to atari but after some negotiation mirasoft gives hank the rights to japan on the home computer and the rights on all of the other formats, including like arcade home consoles to Atari.

But Hank takes the head of Atari out for dinner and he leaves with the console rights. Whoa. So he just goes, I'm going to whine and die. That's a powerful dinner. Atari MF. Great conversationalist. More powerful dinner than Warnock had last night.

There we go. Yes. I wonder if it was just like if this all just did happen at Vegas and it's like they just go out for a wild night, head of Atari does something he shouldn't have. Yeah. Hank's like, I've got you. I've got you.

Got you over a barrel here. So Hank gets the rights to Japan. Tetris comes out on the Nintendo over there, sweeps the country just like it had everywhere else. The Nintendo version sells 2 million units. So back to the Russian government's e-log agency, their only deal was with Stein. And as far as they were concerned,

it was for the home computer only. They didn't know that he'd been doling out the rights to other people. But what he's been doing is he's sending them royalty checks to placate them, to just be like, hey, yeah, money's flowing in. It's all good. it's all good, it's all above board, and they're completely unaware.

They're getting money, so they're just like, oh, this all seems above board, but they're completely unaware that the game is massive in the US, massive in Japan, and that there's an arcade version of it that's massive as well. So they're not sending as much as they should be? No, not at all. He's just going like, yeah, you know, some people are buying it. He's like 50 bucks. It's doing at all. He's just going like, yeah, you know, some people are buying it. He's like 50 bucks.

It's doing all right. It's doing all right. It's so funny to think that so recently you could get away with that. Yeah. And someone in another country just be unaware. Yeah. This is what I love about this story is just that there's no precedent for this stuff yet.

Yeah. So it's just truly like, yeah, Wild West, people doing whatever the fuck they want. Like it really is great. So Alexei, the guy who made the game he's had no compensation because all the money's just coming and going to the to the to the state so he this game is like yeah two million in japan massive best-selling game in the uk and the us the year before it's just like the money's coming towards him but just as it gets just

disappears there's a bit of other money on the side of it that just slots in there. All of a sudden, no money. So at Nintendo in Japan, they're getting ready to reveal their latest innovation, the Game Boy, portable handheld gaming device that people could take anywhere with them, the first device of its kind. And I think fair to say the Game Boy is probably where most people are familiar with Tetris.

It's synonymous with the Game Boy. I where most people are familiar with Tetris. Yeah. It was the, like, it's synonymous with the Game Boy. I'll be honest. I wasn't down at the pinny parlor as a kid playing Tetris on the console. That surprised me reading this. I was like, there's an arcade version? That just seems like, that just seems crazy. It just seems like the sort of thing where it's like, Donkey Kong? Nah, Tetris?

Yeah, that's more my spirit. That's the jam. I want to get wedged in the pinball parlor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And having someone over your shoulder be like, that's more my spirit. That's the jam. I want to get wedged in the pinball parlor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And having someone over your shoulder be like, rotate it to the left. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like backseat drivers while you're trying to play Tetris.

It is a very solitary experience. So the president of Nintendo at the time, he was a huge fan of Tetris. He thought it would be perfect for the Game Boy. The rights are still a mess. So Hank Rogers, he attempts to go and get the worldwide handheld rights from Stein. Stein doesn't have the rights.

He gives him the runaround. He wants to get the rights from the Russians himself. It's a great term, by the way, the handheld rights. Yeah, the handheld rights. Anything about that? No. Bit hard, bit hard. So this guy, Hank, he senses that he's getting dicked around by Stein.

So he just goes over to Moscow. He goes, I'm just going to go to the Russians direct to get the rights from them because this British guy is giving him the runaround. He just rolls into town. He has no idea where the ELOG agency is. He doesn't speak any Russian. He doesn't know anyone there.

He just gets there, hires a translator, and he's just walking around the streets asking people if they know where this government agency is That's so funny He just bumbles his way into the office Do you know where Mr Tetris is? He gets in there He's like, I'm here to see this guy

Who's like the head of ELOG And it's like not It's illegal at the time to take a meeting with a foreigner Without it being cleared by the department. Right. So that, so then like, you know, downstairs, the reception, they're calling up and they're like, Hey, this guy's here to see you. And the superiors are hearing this going like, like he nearly gets this guy killed by basically

just showing up and saying like, yeah, I'm here to see whoever. Yeah. So he gets the meeting. He starts pitching them about how much they'll make on the Game Boy based on the Nintendo version that sold so well in Japan. And Elog go, what Nintendo version? You didn't have the rights to do this. We didn't give them out. You know, what you've been selling is essentially a bootlegged copy. So he, you know, he realizes in hot water, he gives them a royalty check for, you know, product they've already sold. That smooths it over with them.

They kind of go, all right. They take a liking to him. They sign off on the deal. So he now has the rights to Tetris on the Game Boy. He's gotten it. Holy shit. And an open invitation to come back and bid on global console rights for like all the rest of it, like outbid other people.

What? So they take such a liking to him that they're like, you can put it out on the Game Boy and if you want to come back in and just maybe sweet talk us, maybe we'll tell these other clowns to take a hike. He's got a good start of cult. He's charismatic as hell. He sounds really cool.

Wow. So he goes back to Nintendo and he tells them this. He's like, got the rights to the Game Boy. We're good to go there. We can put Tetris on the Game Boy. But also, yeah, they gave me an invite to come in and bid on the worldwide console rights, which at that time they're owned by Atari. And Nintendo go, this sounds awesome because Atari is their biggest competitor.

And the presidents of both companies, they hate each other. They have like longstanding beef, which was apparently just like the real breaking point was the head of Atari had a dinner party at his house in Seattle. And the head of Atari had a dinner party at his house in Seattle and the head of Nintendo was there. And after the dinner, the head of Nintendo went for a nap and the head of Atari went, this is a sign of ultimate disrespect. Fuck you and fuck Nintendo. That's good. That's just, I mean, I don't know.

If I'm having you guys around for dinner and one of you is having a little snooze afterwards, I'm really not thinking anything of it. I'm not saying, Carl, we're having nothing to do with Dugo whenever again. We got a bit of a sign of disrespect this morning. That's what we got. We got the Atari Nintendo. That's what's happening right now. The ultimate sign.

Yeah, this is the modern day dinner party. A podcast. I feel like I'd take it as a subtle hint that maybe you should head off if the host is having a nap. No, no, no, it was his guest. Oh, the guest had a nap. That is a weird, I mean, it feels like a weird thing to do at someone's house. You come to my house, I stuff you full of food,

then you get sleepy and go have a little lie down. How dare you eat my fish tacos and then disappear? It's not disrespect. What I was about to do was disrespect your lounge room if I hadn't disappeared. Yeah, that wasn't a nap. It was a strategic disappear. Yeah, yeah.

He's been napping in the bathroom for three hours. He's snoring. It's a very strange sound. He's not wailing. He's splashing. So, Hank goes back to Moscow, makes a big bid for the rights. E-Log are keen, but they have to give Atari like a day to respond, you know, if they want to like counterbid, you know, outbid them.

So in response to this, Atari sues Nintendo. They go, this is bullshit. We're taking you to court. We had the rights. You started putting this out anyway. Yeah, isn't that – that's a strange thing. So the rights that are being bought can be somehow outbidded or you've got it 12 months at a time.

Can I guess who's going to win this given how often I see Nintendo around and how often I see Atari around these days? But I do. It's just it is so cool. It's like it's so funny this era of time where it's like contracts were like half a page. You know what I mean? When you get sent anything now and it's like even if just if you're doing

a gig for like some kind of official party and it's like, even if just if you're doing a gig for like some kind of official party and it's like this 80-page document that you have to wade through and you're like, I'm going to do the gig. Don't worry about it. I want the money. It's like, no, someone fucked us over once before. Are you saying that this is a nanny state now?

Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I mean, I'm unvaccinated, but whatever. So, yeah, the judge ends up ruling that Nintendo wins the trial, grants their injunction against Atari, so Nintendo go into production. They make the Game Boy version, and they make a Nintendo version for the US. The game comes out with every copy of the Game Boy. Sales record-breaking.

Game becomes cultural phenomenon. People have these – have you heard of this? When people start hallucinating when they're playing Tetris so much that they have hallucinations that they're seeing the that they're kind of seeing i did i once when i was at tafe i once played pac-man so much that i did get a bit of like walking around feeling like there were ghosts like you know like i was moving yeah right pac-man style i i had that same experience i got very light-headed but that's because i was playing ms pac-man and I just really turned on. Saw the blood had gone to another part of the body.

That was like me when I was playing Leisure Suit Larry so much and just constantly trying to find dingers. It was quite weird. But have you ever had the Tetris effect? Oh, yeah, because I play at night and, yeah, definitely. I close my eyes, go into sleep, and my brain continues the... night and uh yeah definitely i close my eyes going to sleep and my brain continues the and the shapes dropping down i'm saying cleveland i'm saying orange ricky yeah there's a vr version of it that i played a little bit of and it's like it's too much yeah

that's knowing that this already can trigger like a psychiatric effect in people it's like i don't need the fuck i don't need the helmet on yeah when did the song come in the game boy version i'm pretty sure right i think so yeah i think they i think that's the one that coined this it's winter and you can get anything you need delivered with uber eats well almost almost anything so no you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes.

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Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge indigenous cultures. Or we can learn from indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves. At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. So, yeah, massive, massive cultural phenomenon.

Hank Rogers becomes incredibly wealthy. Alexi, the developer, he's still absolutely zero money off of this worldwide Smash game. He just still, he's just working away. And, you know, by all accounts is like, you know, I mean, he's like he's chill with it. You know, it's just not in their society or culture at the time to feel like, oh, I've been hard done by here.

It's like, yes, just how things go. That's cool. It's great. My thing got out there. Yeah. Yeah, interesting. Is he still alive now? He, I think he might be, yeah.

I believe so. Has he made any money? Well, so him and Hank, they stay good friends. And then in 1991, Hank helps Alexei move his family over to the United States. He gets a job at Microsoft, where he continues making games. And then E-Log falls- I know his work then. Microsoft Golf.

Golf, yep. Microsoft, what was the other one I said? The Calculator. Solitaire. The Calculator. The Calculator. Writing a diagnostics report on your modem. Sleep.

Yeah, that was his. Shut down. Sleep art. E-Log falls apart Alexei gets a letter Informing him That the rights to Tetris Are going to revert

Back to him But because Elog's A government organisation He gets a feeling That the Yeltsin government Is going to step in And contest this So he calls Hank

For advice And Hank This is Rocky IV All over again No totally Yeah Because Hank goes You know what

You've made me An incredibly wealthy man. He sees this as a way to repay his friend, so he gets on the horn. I thought of a way to repay you. With money. But not with my money. No, no, no. I'm incredibly wealthy.

I've now thought of a reason, a way to pay you back. But I put in a small amount of effort to see if I can get you some money. We could go 50-50, but, you know, you're Russian, and I felt like that might have been offensive to even suggest because it's just not your way. It's just not what you're used to. I've only got dollars. I don't have any Russian.

Drug money or whatever you use. So Henk heads over to Moscow, and he renegotiates the rights to Tetris, and he gets Alexei the rights. And the two of them together start up a company called the Tetris Company that is basically- I like it. Snappy. Yeah. On the nose.

No beating around the bush. No glob-norb or whatever the fuck was going on. Exactly. This company still exists and they've got a rule book of how anyone who's making a new version of Tetris, it's like here's the things that have to be in it. Smash Boy. Smash Boy. Orange Ricky.

Cleveland. Yeah. Blue Ricky. Yeah. Reverse Cleveland. Cleveland Steamer. Up the bum, no babies. The best brick of all.

That's great. Going into the Tetris company and being like, all right, so, you know, we're going to make a version of it, but here's some changes. I don't know how many times we have to tell you. That's why this company exists is so that people like you can't do this. You can't have a piece called the rusty trombone that fills up the whole screen. How many times do we have to tell you? All right, all right, back to the drawing board.

No, no, drawing board. There is no drawing board. Okay, so we put the golden shower in here. Then what? Then what do we do? So, yeah, that's basically the history of Tetris. Now, I don't know if you guys ever have people who, you know, who know a lot about the subject that you've covered on an episode that then call, you know, like, ride in and go,

oh, you've gotten this bit wrong or you've left this bit out. Does that ever happen? Do you have people, like, fact check you? On a almost weekly basis. Yeah, okay. So I should point out, just for the sake of accuracy and transparency, there was a guy that Alexei was mates with with that he was kind of like is is riding kind of like side saddle with him the whole time throughout this journey they were kind of working

on the game together they were workshopping it together he moved to the states with him he did all that stuff and i'm sure there's been some people listening being like you've left out his little mate you haven't you've gotten this little ricky little orange yeah you've got the story all wrong you know you've left this guy this guy's you, little Warren Ricky. Yeah, you've got the story all wrong. You know, you've left this guy, this guy's, you know, he's butchered the story of Tetris. And just to be clear, the reason that I've left him out of the story, it's not human error. It's the fact that at the very end of the story,

in like I think 98 or something, he went insane and murdered his whole family and then killed himself. So, all right, guys, I've editorialized and I've left him out for the sake of comedy. Why the fuck didn't we just hear that story instead of all this fucking franchise bullshit for an hour? So, yeah, that's Tetris, folks. Wow.

Yeah. I guess that answered all the questions I had about Tetris. I was wondering how you were. How were they negotiated? You could have done Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, but you did the prequels, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all about the trade routes and the...

Oh, okay. You know what I'm saying? I recently learned about why people hate the prequels. I get you. It's a lot of business, a lot of politics. Admin. Admin. Admin more than lightsaber fighting.

Yeah. So, yeah, Dave got a bit of a look in last night to what I was cooking up there. And then what do you guys think? You think he faked this? No. I was surprised. Yeah, I was thinking, how is this going to be an episode? And by Jingo, you did it.

By Jingo. By Jingo. As we always say. Like I said, it's just such an of-its-time story that just could never happen today. Oh, yeah. With how things get made. Fascinating. The fact that it has to escape the USSR.

And, yeah, I got all this from a book by a guy called Box Brown, which is – that's the other thing is like I remember – There's got to be something there. Box Brown. Box Brown. Oh, my God. I remembered reading this book and I was like, oh, that would be good for Dugo and it's very colourful, you know, very silly story.

And then as I was reading it, I remembered probably the reason I think that is because it's like an it's like a graphic novel yeah so it's like it's actually not very silly or light at all it's just the fact that like the book about it is like literally a comic that's cool oh sick so box brown is that like the the brown box that was on warner key's flight to the toilet last night instead of a sort of a black box I really think you're overthinking this. I really think you're overthinking this. I think I would just lean into the brown side of it. Why didn't they make all of Warnakee out of the brown box?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. We're getting further away. If that's possible. I don't know. Do we have time? I've just found an article about the history of the Tetris theme music. I could read you quickly.

For sure. Because I was just thinking when you said, do you have any people who come in and contact you about wrong info and how I asked you a question about the music and you had an educated guess about it coming in with the game board? Yeah, I took a stab. I'm like, oh, let me just double check. And I haven't read this, so this could be as exciting.

I was trying to browse through it then. Wait, so you've implied that I'm wrong, but then you'm like, oh, let me just double check. And I haven't read this. So this could be, so I was trying to browse through it then. Wait, so you, you've implied that I'm wrong, but then you're like, I actually haven't read this information. So you might have found out. Everyone shut up while I possibly agree with you.

Well, I just, all I saw was this weird line that it, or I, it comes from a poem and I don't really understand how that makes sense. But anyway, it says, this is from Tetris.com. There once was a man from Nantucket.

The original Tetris theme song is almost as iconic as the game itself, so much so that it's easy to forget where the music originated from and just how much it evolved over the years. First and foremost, the true name of the Tetris theme is korobiniki the russian word for peddlers and it was initially created as a poem by nikolay nekrasov in 1861 okay this is thrilling yes fuck i always go somewhere if you pay a visit to Russia... Fuck, my story feels like The Matrix now. A thrill ride. There's currently a museum that contains several archived documents pertaining to Nekrasov, including a copy of the infamous

Korobniki itself. Oh, my God. Historian Patricia Kennedy Grimstead notes that the museum opened its doors in 1946. They're padding this out now to mark the 125th. I know he's padding it out. Warnock his pants? Yes.

Okay. Upon reading the poem. It's a poem now. Yeah, this is where it was based on. In 1989. How is the theme music based on a poem? That's what I don't quite understand. I'm like, oh, this might be interesting, but it turns out it wasn't.

Right, yeah. In 1989, Hirokazu Tanaka, did that name come up at all? No. Remade the song for the Nintendo Game Boy version of Tetris. So you were right. Okay, great. Yeah, so it's an existing thing that's out there, but in terms of its usage in Tetris.

Yes. The Game Boy is the first version to use it. So, yeah, I'm glad I got you there. So I just want to say gotcha, Tommy. Yeah, I'm going to go back and re-answer again. No, we don't have time to hear that. We can just edit that out. Real nice.

Yeah. Thank you for coming On Do Go On Once again And for preparing the report Really took it off my plate So I appreciate that Very much

That's the second official episode In the crossover The first one was about Mike Patton Yeah For people who love this That's right I assume we talked Actually we did talk about shit in a hairdryer.

Absolutely. Oh, yes. So there was a bit of a thread there. Yeah. I wonder what is going to complete the shit trilogy. Oh, yeah. Well, we, I mean, I felt like, yeah, because you did Mike Patton, which is a big interest to you when we came on and I thought, I'll do something video games, you know, into video

games. So maybe like, maybe to complete the shit trilogy, we have to come together and do a joint report of something that we're. A Voltron part. Shit. The history of feces. Warnocky's pants. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. We could do a report. Let's go to Warnocky's house now and just watch what's going on. Yeah, just see. Yeah. And then come back with a story of what we saw. You know how before we were all like, oh, man,

we were so excited to have the day to ourselves now, and you want to go and spend the rest of your afternoon at Dave's house watching him have food poisoning. Peering through the bathroom window. What's going on in there? A lot of groaning. I'm hearing stuff, but I don't believe it. I've got to see it.

No, in all seriousness, Dave, there but for the grace of God, no, I am. You know, I'm really feeling like I could be heading to that place, you know, within the next 24 hours of myself. A lot of karma. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. You've learned a lesson though, right? Absolutely not.

If you hit my gold class, you still might test yourself on the fish tacos? No, no, what I'd probably do is not eat the fish tacos, get home late from the movie, have not had dinner, order like a big creamy carbonara at 11 p.m., eat that right before bed and then just write off the entire rest of the day. That's how I do it. And weird dreams and weird shits.

So same result but just different pathways to get there. Different methodology, I like it. So for people, but just different pathways to get there. Different methodology. I like it. So for people who don't know the Little Dumb Dumb Club, it's a very long-running Australian comedy podcast. It must be one of the longest, I assume, is it? I think so, yeah. Been running for 10-plus years?

Yeah, it must be. You guys have been on it. We took you to Koh Samui with us. If people listen and remember that, there'll be an episode coming up with you guys on it again soon who else who else has been on it recently i list the last one i listened to had sean mccarliff on it oh yeah which is pretty sick and tony martin yeah oh yeah they're on the same episode together um yeah look heaps of people who are all the big names who who have we had on there kamal nanj. I'm just trying to think of big American people.

You had Kamal. I've been watching his series on- Chippendales. Chippendales, yeah. I didn't know about that story at all. We had Bill Burr on. You had- Fucking hell.

You're going to do that with every name Carl says? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been watching The Mandalorian. What? He turned up to a podcast? Oh. We had Russell Peters on once. Oh, yeah?

That was pretty cool. Oh, I remember when I was at a- Yeah, he's going to comment on that. Was it at a- What is it? Comics Land? Not the Comics Land. The Perth Comic Sounds?

Whatever that's called. Comedy Lounge. Comedy Lounge. And Kappa was meant to be on, and he got bumped for Russell Peters. Oh, that's awesome. I'd be all right with that, I think. Yeah. That makes sense, but I would have said that makes sense

with anyone but me. Yeah, heaps of people have been on. Yeah, there's like 600 and something episodes in the back catalogue. The idea of it, right, is that it's sort of like a theatre of the mind. You're in the green room at a comedy club. Is that kind of what it is? I guess, yeah. Because it's that old as a podcast that like you guys have have got into podcasting late enough

where it was like oh you can't just sit around and talk shit like two fucking idiots like that's on channel you've got to have a concept now yeah yeah you're the reason why everyone has like these very niche concepts or a reason to exist. We got in at the time where it was like, just be funny with your mates on the air. We'll do this for like maybe two months and then we'll get a radio job and that'll be that. That was what the landscape was like at the time. Yeah, so it was you and Hamish and Andy were probably there.

Yeah, very comparable. Whatever happened to those guys? No, they've been on. They've been on. They've been on the pod. All the big names in Australia and beyond have been on, get roped into doing it. So, yeah.

And it's a similar vibe to our show. It's all very positive. Everyone's nice to each other. We've talked about this before, but your audience is very, very well-mannered and very polite and very nice and a little bit different to ours. There is crossover, though. There's definitely people who come to... There's people who listen to everything, but it is like, you know,

it's like we're in the state penitentiary just, like, looking out the window and it's like an ice cream truck's pulled out. There's all these kids having a fun time out in the street and we're like, God, that'd be nice. I know. I mean, I've really made a life for myself on the inside. You know, I've got like, I've got a guy that like smuggles stuff in for me. So I'm really, I don't know how I'd go in the real world.

I'd probably just re-offend and be sent back here. Just one day out there would be nice. We're looking at all their fans that are just like cherry-cheeked little blossoms eating ice cream. Meanwhile, we turn around and have to play to San Quentin over here. Throwing fucking knives at us. That's what it's like. That's the difference. If any of you

lovely listeners of Do Go On Ever want to come to our live show, try and average out the fucking Hell's Angels that are at our show. Please, we've got a gig coming up at Altamont. That's going to be fun. And hey, if anyone listening does listen to video games as well, check out Filthy Casuals because that's a show that I do about video games.

But, yeah, lots of comedy you can get your hands on. Lots of free content out there. Absolutely. Get around it. Well, thanks, guys. We appreciate it. Is this coming out now? When's this coming out?

I'm not sure. Who knows? Because we were going to do it at the same time as the Dumb Dumb episode next week. You want my advice? Spin it. Absolute waste of everyone's time. We'll just have a week off instead. Do a Wannakee and flush it.

I'd love it. You guys are like, yeah, this will come out next week and we log on next week. The best of Do Go On. Summer series. Do Go On's having a little holiday, guys. Hosted by Glenn Ridge. What is this? I was asking because I was going to be like,

have a good New Year's, but who cares? No, you're right. I think it will just come out this week. So have a good New Year's. Okay. Listen out for all three of the Do Go On hosts, hopefully on the little dum-dum club in the new year. And you're both doing festival shows?

I am. You're not doing one? No, I'm not. My name's Carl and I'm not. This is your first year off at all? No, no, I didn't do last year either. But Tommy, you are. Yeah, I'm doing a show called Scam Artist

about how I had my identity stolen. Yeah, right. Fuck. So called Scam Artist about how I had my identity stolen. Yeah, right. Fuck. So lucky. I know. Isn't it funny when you're like, shit, that's sick. Oh, you had an awful thing happen to you. Congrats.

Well done. That's a show. That's a show. Yeah, exactly. Love that. I've had a really great year. You know what would be great? That's the subject of your show, and then you rock up to your show,

and it's not you there. That is good. I have thought about stuff like that. I did think about calling it The Talented Mr. Dassolo. I was like, it's a bit, it just does,

if you don't know that film, it's like, oh, I do like it though. I do like it. Yeah, I really, yeah,

I don't think I got, I don't think I ended up with a great title, but I just could not think of anything that, you know, what's annoying is that I kept coming back to the idea of calling it imposter syndrome, but my friends in chimp cop,

Ben and Adam, they caught that was their show last year. So I keep saying, I'm like, this is so fucking annoying that this title that would be perfect for a thing that I'm doing, you guys use it as a title last year. And they're like,

you know what the best bit is. It didn't really even have anything to do with what our show was. Dogs. Also, one of my favorite stories, and we've told this on and we've had this on the podcast about 10 years ago, but a friend of ours, a comedian called Pete Sharkey, once he used to drink a lot and he once got so blackout drunk he was at a pub and then he blacked out and he woke up in a different town in a cinema

halfway through The Talented Mr. Richard. Aiding Fish Tarker. That wasn't a blackout. That was a brownie. What a beautiful spot to end. Thanks and sorry, everyone. Miss you, Dave. What a pleasure to have both Tommy and Carl from the Little Dumb Dumb Club.

Is that who that was? That, yes. Do we ever introduce them? I don't think we ever said their names. I did, I did. Oh, okay, great. Fantastic. I tried to get you to do it and remembered you can't talk.

No, no, it was a little joke that I do, a little character. Yeah. You know how I'm wearing these headphones? Yeah. And I've got one off my ear. Yeah. But also these headphones, only one side of them works. One.

And it's not the one I've got off my ear. Yeah. But also these headphones, only one side of them works. Fun. And it's not the one I've got on my ear. Cool. I was wearing headphones and I couldn't hear anything. But anyway, I'll fix that now. Okay. Just to keep you in the loop. Thank you. And the listeners.

Yeah, the listeners cared. More importantly. Aw. Even more importantly. The listeners are more important than me. Yeah. God, you're a dog. Oh, you are one person.

Our listeners number millions. Okay, it's not the trolley problem. It's not either I die or our millions of listeners die. I'm just saying who's more important to you in your day-to-day life, and it's obviously the listeners because you're all about money and fame. You fucking sell out. The listeners aren't money and fame. They're people who are here for me.

They're people who have thoughts and dreams and, you know, heads. I hate it when Dave's away. They've got torsos. Okay. You know what I mean? They're flesh and blood, Jess. What am I? Fucking chopped liver.

Is that true? I hate fighting with you. Let's never do it again. And we're back in the room. What a loose episode. So good. But we've said goodbye to Tommy and Carl. They've moved on with their lives.

Tommy's gone off to record an episode of Filthy Casuals. Yeah. And I assume it's once again going to be about Tetris. I assume so. I mean, he's just done all that work. May as well. May as well. But do you reckon, I mean, Filthy Casuals has been around for a long time.

Have they not covered Tetris? Surely. Surely. Surely. Surely. Unless they're a new game podcast, which maybe they are. I don't know. So I think they do a spin-off called Nintendo 69,

which is maybe a retro one. That is good. That is good. That stuff writes itself. So go check it out. If you enjoyed this and you love video games, you probably already listen to Filthy Casuals and it's pointless us giving you this plug.

But if you're new to video games, go check it out. Go check out video games. Go check them out. They're fun. Yeah, just a bit of fun. A bit of fun. You know, and if you've been checking them out too much, why don't you go outside?

Read a book. Touch some grass. Yeah, you need to touch some grass. So we're up to the section of the show, which is my favourite, and I believe everyone's favourite section of the show, where we thank a few of our great supporters. And I should say, because I didn't say it before, how good is it to be alive?

Now, the way this works is people go to patreon.com slash do go on pod and they can support us on all sorts of levels. Up to you. There's a list. You pick one based on how much you want to pay or what things you want to get or whatever. And you certainly don't have to do that. No.

Don't get me wrong. You don't have to. Just listening makes me feel so good. Yeah. That you, Geraldine, are listening right now. Oh, my God. That's going to be crazy. Can I do one?

Yeah. That you, James, are listening. That one might even work better. Do you reckon we've got more Jameses than Geraldines? I reckon. Yeah. I'd say that quite confidently, actually. James is such a basic bitch name.

It's yours and Dave's middle names. Yes. And Andy Matthews. And Brendan Fraser. Really? So it's, yeah. Holy moly. Yeah. I think it's nearly everyone, every boy's middle's, yeah. Holy moly. Yeah.

I think it's nearly everyone, every boy's middle name, every girl's middle name is Marie. No, yeah, Marie and or Louise. Yeah. It's one of the big three. Or Anne. I said Anne. Okay.

Just now? So, yeah, if you. I literally said two extra names and you lost one of them. If you get involved, I think I thought you said and. Anyway, so if you, which would not have made sense. Jessica and Perkins. So you said and and Louise and I thought you said and and Louise. Double and.

Gotcha. So one of the rewards people can get, I mean, there's all sorts of things, bonus episodes, shout outs, access to an exclusive Facebook club. Yep. The nicest corner of the internet. Beautiful place. But one of the things is if you sign up to the Sydney Schoenberg level,

you get to give us a fact or quote or a question in a section we call fact, quote, or question, which has a little jingle, goes something like this. Fact, quote or question. Ding. She always remembers the ding. She always remembers the sing. And the way this section works is if you're on that level, Sydney Schoenberg, you get to give us a fact, quote or question. You also get to give yourself a title. And I'll read out four each week. I'll read them out when I read them out. That makes sense. The first one comes from Ryan Butterfield, a.k.a. Senior Chief Submariner. Okay. And Ryan is asking us a question.

All right. We'll see if I feel like answering. Because you do not like submarines. But do you like submariners? I think so. Yeah. But we'll find out. Ryan writes, hey, guys, let me try writing in English again

since last time it was really bad. I'm headed to Disney World for a five-day trip. First question, when are you doing a US tour? Second question, where can I get tickets? Wow. First question, we're hoping for 2023. Yeah, hopefully. I mean, we were in the sort of planning stage for 2020.

I'd say we're advanced planning stage. Do you reckon? Yeah. I'm so glad we didn't spend the multi, multi thousands of dollars for that visa, which we were getting very close to doing. We were about to write that check. And just to stress again, multi, multi thousand dollar. It's, yeah.

It's expensive to come to your country and perform for you. It's almost like they don't think of us as Americans. Crazy, isn't it? American citizens. Wild. They see us as foreigners. I don't understand. When we go to the UK, they welcome us with a big hug.

Come on in. Have a walk. Oh, I've made you a cuppa. That's what they say. It's crazy. They're like too nice. It's almost too nice. No, no, no.

Yeah, so we're hoping, look, don't take our word too strongly on that. It's, I just, and I'm just worried. I don't want to, you like to sort of, you and I are chalk and cheese. You're always like, you're a dreamer. I'm a dreamer. And I'm terrified of getting people's hopes up and them taking it as concrete. Yes.

I just want them to know that we are trying. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're planning it. We're really hoping to do some more live tours and stuff in various places next year. New Zealand. We'd love to come to New Zealand.

Geez, we've been saying that for a long time. Yeah, we're sort of looking at, we're keeping our eye on cheap flights because for three of us it can be expensive. And even, you know, some other shows in other cities in Australia that we haven't been to for a while. So it's on the cards. We don't have concrete dates yet, but when we do, you'll, of course, in other cities in Australia that we haven't been to for a while. So it's on the cards. We don't have concrete dates yet, but when we do, you'll, of course,

like Patreons will be the first to know and the first to get access to tickets as well to answer your second question, which I think was probably being a little bit tongue-in-cheek. But part of the perk of being a Patreon is early access to tickets. Yes. I think our first UK tour was basically sold out by the patrons. Yeah. The first run of tickets anyway. Yeah.

And America, I'd say, would be some. Very similar. Similar, maybe. Actually, we have no idea. That's the other scary thing. Yeah. We would be going over and we would have already spent over 10 grand and it was like, oh, I hope people come.

Yeah. Might have to sell a kidney. I think you can get paid for, like, donating blood or sperm over there. Really? Maybe if you wouldn't mind taking one from the team. Finally. I got a lot of blood. Dave has got a lot of spunk, if you know what I mean.

Blood. A lot of spunk. Blood. He's got a lot of blood also. Yeah. I also have blood. You got blood? I'm not allowed to donate blood.

Oh. Yeah. Why is that? I kept fainting. Oh, right. I only fainted once and then I was anemic and they're like, you have to take a break. So I will drive you guys to and from your appointments.

Oh, getaway car That's how We're doing a heist at the sperm bank Anyway, so yes, hopefully very soon But we will keep you updated, of course It's not going to be a surprise That's nice I don't think anyone's really been asking

They used to ask a lot Now I think people are like You know, I think they're almost like Nah, let's not let's give up let's don't give up hope we get a lot on twitter and uh and instagram still very very keen i'm so keen absolutely i want to go over and and see a game of nfl football yes that is national football league football i wouldn't mind seeing some hockey oh Ooh. I think that could be fun. Who are you going to go see? Penguins?

Probably. I'd love to see Penguins versus Flames, my two teams clashing. Who do you go for though? That's the trick. Who do you go? Oh, Sophie's choice. I know. You know?

And I reckon Sophie would go with the Flames. Okay. Wow. Sophie had a favourite. All right. Well, it's the problem with giving it up to Sophie. I don't know where that phrase comes from. All right.

And really appreciate that, Ryan. Thank you, Ryan. The next one comes from Amy C. And Amy has the title of Chief Embalmer Sons Arse Packing no matter how many rear orifices I find. Okay. I wonder how many Amy's found in the past. Just on the street.

Yeah. Found another rear end. Yeah, I guess, you know, it's sort of like the donut hole, right? You know that joke? We sell donut holes. I don't know if that's a joke, but basically you're not selling anything there. Yeah, okay. Would that be the same with orifices?

Look at all that. There's a pile of orifices in the corner. We've got to move some units here. Yeah, right. I'm not sure I understand. Are we running out of gas? I think I am.. Yeah, right. I'm not sure I understand. Are we running out of gas? I think I am. Oh, big time.

I'm hungry. Running out of steam. And Dave's running out of gas. Poor Dave. Poor Dave. Hopefully when he's listening back to this, he's on the mend. If you aren't on an episode, are you listening back to it? No, but he's editing this one.

True. Sorry, Dave. Amy C. has a fact writing, I humbly submit for Jess's consideration. This is a potentially fun fact. We'll see. Though weird to WTF. Okay, well, I don't deal in weird or WTF facts.

She says weird to WTF seems more accurate. Yeah, so I. That's closer to my purview. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we'll see. We'll see what we do in this fact. Do I use purview right there? I don't think so.

In medieval times, monks documented that you could tell the age of a rabbit by how many anuses it had. Okay, now we're. Okay. This is fun because I don't know why. Normally we go, well, that seems like a real non sequitur. Yeah. Or however you say that word.

Like that. In the title. And then it, you know, this is where the orifice thing came from. Do you connect those two dots? No. Do you connect those two dates? The belief was that due to its alleged promiscuous nature, a rabbit developed one anus for every year it lived.

What? It is so bizarre and absurd I have no idea how this conclusion could ever be drawn. Rabbits can live a while, can't they? Yeah. So at some point you'd be more anus than body than anything else. Imagine if humans did that. Are they thinking they've-

I'd have 32 anuses. That's yuck. That's double the amount you have. But why would they- Surely this is something that could have easily been checked. Yeah, just have a look. I have no idea how this conclusion ever could have been drawn, but I heard it on an episode of You're Dead to Me,

a BBC radio podcast, so it must be fairly reliable, right? Thanks all. Keep up the, as always, great work. Would you say that's a fun fact? I know it's my call to make. I think that's pretty fun. I think it's pretty fun. It's interesting.

I think it's going to start a conversation if you bring it up. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, all right, Amy, I'll say it's a fun fact. Fantastic. The next one comes from Sky, double exclamation mark, aka official commercial driver, sorry, official commercial diver. That's quite different. I was like finally I can have a rest from driving us around.

Nope, it's a diver. Also, Matt's non-binary parent. Skye, thank you so much. Everything I am today was from the lessons you taught me, Skye. Thank you, Skye. Skye's got a brag writing, I just graduated commercial diving school in the top of my class. Yes.

And I already have a job diving. I want to say driving every time. Every time. This is my dream job and I'm genuinely so. Dream job. That's all it says. No. Oh, no.

No, no, no. It's just. Just chucking R's in everywhere. Yeah. I'm like a rabbit. I got too many R's. On my stomach. That's not bad.

I'm genuinely so, so excited to start working i've made a few really good friends out here and i'm moving back to the middle of the country to work on dams and stuff oh wow sky congratulations that's huge sky well done and also just nice that i love hearing people's enthusiasm for stuff they're doing and being excited for yourself. That's huge. Oh, it's so great. Good on you. Great to hear people live in the dream. Love that.

And, yeah, because you did dive recently and it didn't go that well. Yeah, it was. Not your dream, I'm guessing. No, because I threw up in the ocean. Yeah. I got seasick in the ocean. Under the sea? I was honestly impressed with myself.

Yeah, because I would have thought there would almost be a positive pressure there. Yeah, because we were on a little boat and the skipper was like, if you're feeling a bit seasick, don't worry. Once you're in the water, you'll be fine. That'll just go away. And I was like, I just have to, it's a short boat ride. I just have to get through this without throwing up. And I did and I was so proud of myself.

And I get in the water and I'm bobbling around too much and I threw up in the ocean. Wouldn't that be similar to chum? Yeah, fish loved it. Fish did? Sharks? It brought a lot of fish, no sharks. Okay, that's good.

But I saw a lot of turtles. I mean, was the day worth it? I guess. I also just saw turtles at the beach. Today Dave saw a lot of turtles. I mean, was the day worth it? I guess. I also just saw turtles at the beach. Today Dave saw a lot of turtles. Thank you so much, Sky. Loved that fact. Sorry, brag.

So good. We don't get a lot of brags. I love a brag. Bring them on. We love a brag. Good on you, Sky. The last one this week comes from Angelo Del Guducci. Okay, don't blame me.

I voted for Kodos. That's a Simpsons reference. That is a Simpsons reference. And I got it. I understand this reference. Only I may dance. That's what I say all the time. I think that all the time, Conan.

Yeah. Only I may dance. I say it so much. On the I didn't do it episode. Yeah. I say it so much. On the I Didn't Do It episode. Yeah.

So Angelo's got a fact writing, the abbreviation OMG can be traced back to 1917 in a letter from British Navy Admiral John Arbonaut Fisher to Winston Churchill about rumours of new titles that would soon be bestowed. The letter read, I hear that a new order of knighthood is on the tapas, he wrote. OMG, bracket, oh my God. Shower it on the Admiralty.

Can you believe that? Wow. That's the origin of OMG. 1917. Wow. Any thought? If you could break down a response to this in maybe three letters, how would you respond?

Lol. That's fantastic stuff. What were you going to say, mom? I was going to say, huh. I went for lol. I guess I just find more joy in life than you do. You do. I'm more joyful. Thank you so just find more joy in life than you do. You do. I'm more joyful.

Thank you so much, Angelo, Skye, Amy and Ryan. The next thing we'd like to do is shout out to a few of our other fantastic supporters. Jess, you normally come up with a bit of a game for this section, normally based on the topic. Yeah, we're not going to give you the whole plot or anything, like look it up yourselves, but we're going to just tell you the name of the game that they invented.

What is the name of the game? Thank you so much. That's great. You think so? I think that's so good. I think we could have some fun with it if you just loosened up a little bit. Yes. That's my only note.

I was thinking you were going to say we would give them an orange Ricky type name. But this is better because there's more scope here. Yeah. Or it would have ended up being red Ricky. Yeah. Brown Ricky. Orange.

No, damn it. Right. If I can kick us off. Please. Do you want to go one for one? That's what I did with Dave last week. Yeah. Fantastic.

I reckon. I'll read a name. You give a game. You give a game. You give a game. I read a name. Wait, no. I did a bit of a I win, you lose. Yeah.

Heads, I win, tails, you lose. All right. Bit of fun. All right. I asked him to loosen up, to be fair, and he's done it. First up, I'd love to thank from Glasgow in Scotland, scotland it's onk onk obviously invented the game tree plugger oh tree plugger and uh oh we're not going to explain how it works no we don't you did say that i mean because i knew we just get bogged down too much oh really because i

i mean i'm picturing a whole world and And you're wrong. Tree plugger. Really? It's the opposite of what you expect. No kidding. I was picturing it that you had to put the world was full of holes and the oceans were draining. So the game is sort of like a whack-a-mole style game, only you're plugging holes with trees. Right. No.

Way off. It's about demolishing forests. It's really bad. Thank you so much for all your support, Onk. Thank you, Onk. I would love to thank from Stanmore, New South Wales, Jeff Hammett. Violin Hero. Violin Hero, yes.

The heavily anticipated follow-up. Love that. Thank you, Jeff. My pitch has improved since playing Violin Hero. Oh, yeah. I'm very good at it. Yeah, you're a great baseballer now. Now your turn.

No, it's back to you. No, I just read that one. No, it's back to me. It's not that hard. I found this equally confusing last week with Dave. I did it every time. Okay. We were also sharing my computer, so I kept turning around him to read

and he's like just does like a twirling motion with his finger. I'm like, oh, yep, right. Well, I would love to take from Halifax in Canada, it's Rebecca Dubois. And Rebecca Dubois invented the game Airplane Race. Oh, yeah. I saw an air conditioner. Oh. Airplane Race.

I like how you put it into North American parlance as well. Exactly, not aeroplane. Airplane. Or do Canadians? Canadians often speak like us, don't they? Sometimes. I'm not sure if they say airplane or aeroplane. I love cultural differences.

Isn't it fun? It is so much fun. It's crazy that like you go to a different place and it's different. I love little quirks. I love it. Bucks party, stag night. Yeah, bachelor party. Same thing.

I mean, come on. But very different language. So beautiful. So beautiful. So beautiful. I would love to thank also from Canada, from Nanamo, definitely said that wrong, apologies, Matt Leinecker. Matt Leinecker.

Do you remember the game he invented? It's called Stubbies. Stubbies? Yeah. You walk around trying not to stub your toe. Oh, my God. You could not be further from the truth. Why? You go around trying to stub your toe. Oh, my God. You could not be further from the truth. Why?

You go around trying to stub your toe. But there are no obstacles. No obstacles. You must search in the barren desert for an obstacle to stub your toe on. You know, in the original Mario Brothers, or maybe the original, I don't know, I think it was the first one where there's a secret brick that you've got to headbutt to get a mushroom early. It's like that.

Right. But they're all invisible. So you'll go around kicking the air hoping you find a brick to stub your toe. Wow. But you don't even get a mushroom out of it. You get pain. No, but, yeah, but that.

Makes you bigger. Yeah. We weren't explaining the games. We're not. you bigger yeah we weren't explaining the games we're not okay it's your turn again okay thank you so much for doing that i'd love to thank uh from i just unknown can only assume from deep within the fortress of the moles it's mike humphrey and it's um convenient actually that's where mike is from it was sort of his muse because his game is called Mole Check. Oh, yeah.

And it's just a skin. Oh. You just check all the moles. You're a doctor. Yeah. And you have patients come in. You have to check their skin for moles. Wow.

It was put out by, like, the Cancer Council and stuff, you know, one of those educational games. Came free with your cereal box. If you don't check well, you lose patience and stuff like that. Holy shit. Yeah, it's pretty full on. Man, I feel like I'd lose patience with that game. It's a lot of high pressure.

A lot of high pressure and tedious sounding. I would also love to thank from also deep within the fortress of the moles, Cara Smith. Oh, Cara Smith. What a game that she invented.'s called jim the bin man jim the bin man such an endearing character it's such a beautiful backstory yes love that one so rich tapestry the game starts when he's knocking off his shift he's gone around you know he's been up at five he's got the rest of the day to himself yeah Yeah. And you run errands with Jim. Run errands with Jim. Pick up the kids.

Pick up the kids. You go do some shopping. Probably, you know, end up going to bed early. If you go to bed early, you've clocked the big boss. I played a game where you play a mail carrier and you just drive around a little town delivering mail. Oh, yeah. And I fucking loved it.

Postman Pat? It was beautiful. It was called lake it's gorgeous okay that's a confusing name well you drive around the lake matt okay your turn yes i knew that uh i'd also love to thank from melbourne in victoria australia it's Victoria, Australia. It's Rees. Rees invented the game Electrician. Oh, yeah. And you start off with like, you know, you're just working on a little like electrical panel

and you're putting wires together and stuff. And as you progress through the levels, you're like wiring houses and then office buildings and it's pretty full on. So this is very different to Lake. This one, it is what it sounds like it's pretty full on. So this is very different to Lake. This one, it is what it sounds like it's going to be. Oh, but also by night you're Batman. Is that better?

You've got to get through quite a few levels before the game takes a hard left turn. Because you're just trying to live your life and then you become Batman. Oh, man. I mean, isn't that the Bruce Wayne story? Nothing ever fucking makes you happy. Anyway, the next person I would. That actually made me very happy.

How dare you. The next person I would love to thank is from Avondale Heights in Victoria. It's Natalie Baker. Oh, Natalie Baker. Obviously, I think it was a bit of nominative determinism here. Determinatism. I think it was a bit of nominative determinism here. Determinatism.

Because Natalie Baker made a game called National Bank. Yeah. Or the Nat Bank. And, yeah, it's basically all these games are so dull. But there are a lot of dull games. Yeah, that's true. But this one is actually very different because it's a bank heist game. You've got to recruit a bunch of people to be in your crew. Yeah, and you're the inside.

You're the insider. So you're giving out info and then you're there going, oh, no. Like the game comes to a crescendo with you winking going, oh, no, please don't shoot me, wink, and credits roll. Oh, and so the heist never happens. You're just working at a bank. No, the ones. What's one of those games that works backwards?

Oh, I love those games. Yeah, it's one of those ones. I thought you were a gamer. No, I play like little farming games and stuff. That one's a bit too advanced for me. Where is Avondale Heights? I feel like. I went to were a gamer. No, I play like little farming games and stuff. That one's a bit too advanced for me. Where is Avondale Heights? I feel like. I went to look this up.

I feel like it's like on the way to Geelong. I could absolutely be wrong. Beautiful spot. Suburb in Melbourne, 11 kilometres northwest of Melbourne, Central Business District. No, it's not on the way to Geelong at all. Northwest. Beautiful part of the world.

Beautiful part. Beautiful part of the world. Avondale Heights. Doesn't that just sound like. Sunshine, Marib all? Northwest. Beautiful part of the world. Beautiful part. Beautiful part of the world. Avondale Heights. Doesn't that just sound like. Oh, it's like Sunshine, Maribyrnong, that kind of area. Sunshine, lollipops, love it all. Gorgeous. Beautiful neck of the woods.

Do you want to thank our last Patreon? I'd love to thank our last Patreon from Ocala in Florida in the United States. It's Tony Perez. Tony Perez. Invented the game Mule and you're a drug mule. Drug mule. You got to pick up the drugs.

You got to pack it. You got to pack it. You got to pack your own ass. You got to pack your own ass. You got to drive it across a border. And your ass is you. You're the mule. It's a bit of a Grand Theft Auto type.

Like you can sort of interact with the world and stuff, steal cars. It takes a while to get the gameplay going to walk normally because you start with quite a wide gate as you're getting used to the package. Yeah, that's right. But, yeah, that's one of the things. If you get past the levels, you start walking more naturally.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Tony, for bringing that game into the world. Thank you, Natalie, Rhys, Cara, Mike, Matt, Rebecca, Jeff, and Onk. And the last thing we need to do, nay, the last thing we want to do is welcome in a few of our fantastic friends and supporters into the Triptych Club. Now there's two people to bring in this week. Now without Dave here, he plays the very important role of the hype man.

Yep. Now are you up for playing that role? No. All right, I'll be the hype man. Okay. You be the band booker. That's his other big job. Yeah, okay, I can do that.

I'm standing on the door for new listeners. Well done for making it this far. People who have been supporting us on the shout out level or above on trip uh on patreon they get brought into the trip to club it's a bit of theater of the mind i'm the doorman i've got a clipboard with a list i'm about to lift the velvet rope read out two names uh then i'm also going to be the guy inside who's on the stage hyping you up. And Jess is behind the bar. You've normally made a cocktail for people for the after party. I have, yeah.

I've called it the Orange Randy. What's it called? Orange Ricky. Orange Ricky. That's a great name for a cocktail. Orange Ricky or Orange Randy? Both. Because I've made both.

They are very similar. And, yeah, so I've got a cocktail and I've also made finger sandwiches, but I've cut them into all the shapes of the Tetris pieces. So you've got, you know, the bomb. Hero. Exploder Boy or whatever. Jeez, it wasn't long ago that I read about it. Big old boy.

Oklahoma. Oklahoma State. Upper Midwest. Big old boy. Oklahoma. Oklahoma State. Upper Midwest. Reverse Oklahoma. Yeah. Roger Rabbit. Roger was there. I've made all of those into sandwiches.

And, yeah, Dave let me know that he booked a band. Yeah. He said I was booking the band. And you were booking the band. Yeah, because I booked it. Yeah, you booked it. Sorry I got defensive there. I was just the band. And you were booking the band. Yeah, because I booked it. Yeah, you booked it. Sorry I got defensive there. I was just like, what the fuck?

Dave told you to book a band? Because you just told me to book a band. I'm so glad you did because I was starting to sweat. I was about to check my emails. Did I book a band? But you've booked a band. I've done it and I'm pretty excited. I've been trying to get them in for a little while.

I have managed to book Human Tetris. Whoa. No relation. And so, yeah, we'll be hearing things off their memorabilia album in 2018 and Things I Don't Need in 2010. They won't be playing their biggest hit, Things I Don't Need, just because they're mad at me. And we asked them not to.

Yeah, I don't like it. Yeah. I said don't worry about that one. Can you play some of the underground hits? Yeah, I want the 2010 stuff. Yeah, we want some deep cuts, please. Thank you. Oh, that's fantastic.

So please do hang around everyone in the club to see Human Tetris and grab yourselves an Orange Randy and or an Orange Ricky. Yep, and a sandwich. And a sandwich. Can I just get props, please, that my snacks and drinks weren't fucked this week? Is that a bit of a relief for you? That is a relief. I could not make any bigger props than these.

These are the biggest props I could get. Okay. They are from Star Wars 2, whichever one that was. All right, let's just thank some people then. No, I just feel like this is. It's one of those big sort of camels that walks in the sky. I don't even like Star Wars. I mean.

Okay. It's a big prop. It's one of them, you know, those big sort of. I think I know what you mean, but like. They're horns and at some point. What did you think that would be the significance to me? I think Luke Skywalker was the first movie I could think of because it was mentioned before.

What? I'll bring people in. You hype them up, okay? Okay, fantastic. All right, here we go. Firstly, I would love to welcome into the Triptych Club from Vancouver in Canada. It is Shea Clare. Move Vancouver Canada, it is Shea Clare.

Move Vancouver and make room for Shea Clare, who's not having a mare, she's having a dream. Let's welcome her in, Shea. That's actually not bad. I think I'm starting to see what the expectation is of this role and Dave is bad at it. You're right. Okay, I'm starting to see what the expectation is of this role and Dave is bad at it. You're right. Okay, I'm sorry.

All right, and finally, thank God there's only two, I would love to thank from Royersford, Pennsylvania, Michael Maltman. We can't Royersford not to have him in. Welcome in, Michael Maltman. We can't Royersford afford. Yep. Michael Maltman, it's good to see you. Yeah.

Nailed that. Good stuff. Michael Maltman, it's good to see you. Man, it's good to see you. Maltman, it's good to see you. There it is. I think it needed the inflection. I don't want an old man. I want you, Michael Maltman. it's good to see you. There it is. I think it needed the inflection. I don't want an alt man.

I want you, Michael Malt man. That's nice. You know what I mean? I do want an alt man, though. Yeah. Oh, it'd be great, Michael, if you could bring an alt man as well. Bring an alt man. That'd be fantastic.

Thank you so much. Yeah, so thank you very much to Michael and Shay for joining us. Shay, can't wait to become O'Fay with you, Shay Clare. Shay, can't wait to become Ophé with you, Shay Clare. Move Vancouver. Yeah, you've already done it. Make some room. You've literally done it. You don't have to revisit it.

We can't Royers Ford not to. It's fucking terrible. I'm going to boot this home. We're going to treat you like a royal from Royalsford. Thank you so much for listening. If you would like to suggest a topic, you can do so over at dogoonpod.com. There's a link there. There's also a link in the show notes.

Also over at dogoonpod.com you can find information about live shows. I don't know, do other stuff. I can't find fault, man. You're the malt man. You can buy merch. Muggle malt man. You can buy merch over there. You can find us at Dukamodpod on social media.

And until next week. Don't worry about any Claires and Graces. We got Shay Claire. Until next week. She's chilled. Well, they're chilled. Thank you and goodbye. Laters.

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