Game Theory - You Are Being CORRUPTED! (My Friendly Neighborhood)

Episode Date: August 13, 2023

Join Game Theory Host MatPat as he breaks down the LORE of one of this year's indie horror standouts My Friendly Neighborhood! *Credits:* Writers: Matthew Patrick, Tom Robinson, and Mike Keenan (The Pokémon Biologist) Editors: Dan "Cybert" Seibert, Warak, Shannon (Bomb0i) and JayskiBean Sound Designer: Yosi Berman

Take a look at this scene. If I told you this was from a mascot horror game, what would you say is going on here? You'd probably think that this is a child's TV show gone wrong. These puppets came to life and got the show shut down for killing people. Maybe there's even the souls of kids trapped inside there, desperately trying to get out. Gotta be honest, that was my initial assumption when the demo for My Friendly Neighborhood first released last year. But what if I told you that none of that is true? That while this game is indeed a battle of good against evil, the good isn't that of innocent children, and the evil isn't some corporate

experiment gone wrong. Instead, it's a battle over your soul. Just not in the way that you'd typically expect. Oh, internet, welcome to game theory. It's finally time to talk about the newest neighbor to move into the crowded street of mascot horror, My Friendly Neighborhood. Despite this game's colorful, childlike appearance, to say that this is just your typical cookie cutter indie horror game would be a massive disservice, especially when Garten of Ban Pan exists. My Friendly Neighborhood has itself a real focus on nostalgic gaming element. Limited save tokens, inventory management, interesting and complicated puzzles, secret endings, cheat codes, speed running and free cam modes, and best of all, we actually get to fight back for once. Yeah, your eyes don't deceive you here, friends.

That right there is a gun-firing letters back at the villains who are chasing you around. Now, if only I could take this thing into Poppy Playtime, I could finally give Huggy a piece in my mind. There really is something for everyone in this game, and that includes my little corner of the internet, because you guys know that where there's mascot horror, there's also bound to be some deep and rich, The basic premise is that my friendly neighborhood was a children's TV program back in the day that featured happy-go-lucky puppets living in a fictional city block learning lessons about what it meant to be a good neighbor. In short, it was a mash-up of Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. Sadly, the show got canceled and eventually disappeared from the airwaves. However, one night the TV tower on top of the studio begins broadcasting episodes again,

interrupting your normal TV lineup. And so it's up to us. Plan is disgruntled repairman Gordon to climb to the top of the tower and shut off the broadcast once and for all before it interrupts any of our precious TV time. But, as you'd expect, exploring an old abandoned building from childhood, things are never quite that simple. Gordon has to survive an onslaught of living puppets that try to stop him. At which point, my friendly neighborhood actually flips the script.

Typically, I'd expect these characters to be possessed. Maybe children have been stuffed inside of them, and now they linger on inside of the studio, but it doesn't actually seem to be the case at all. There's no missing kids, no possessed entities, no Erple, serial killers and mascot costumes, nothing. What is going on in the studio then? Well, grab your alphabet blocks, theorists.

It's time to spell out a story of philosophy, humanity, and the nature of good and evil. Um, that might be too long to spell out. Maybe just stick with L-O-R-E. Our first port of call are the various newspaper clippings and articles that we find throughout the studio. By collecting these, we can start to put together a timeline of the show and what happened to lead to its cancellation. As soon as you enter Studio 4, you're met with a newspaper clipping from when the show first launched back in 1968. Again, pulling on that Sesame Street influence, which first launched in 1969. In both cases, you've got yourself fabricated urban neighborhoods,

a mix of animal puppets and human actors, and even some of the same character types. Well, Sesame Street today is meant to be any city USA, its original vibe was meant to be a reflection of the real New York City back in the 60s and 70s. Well, today we might think of old NYC as a mostly safe and touristy metropolis. That was not true just a couple of decades ago. The late 20th century of the U.S.'s biggest city was more known for its ramped, in crime, drugs, and debauchery. Sesame Street was meant to be for city kids growing up in that time

to learn not just the alphabet and basic math, but moral lessons they otherwise might not be receiving. Sesame Street was never afraid to tackle more sensitive topics like racism. Tully, there's just some really stupid people in the world who can't stand to see it when people of different races are friends. What Sesame Street was really good at was taking those issues that the children were experiencing and then turning them into teachable moments about friendship and caring for one's neighbor.

Just look at our black on Sesame Street. There are brown people. There are pink people, not to mention every other color, right? There are monsters. There are penguins. There are grouching. And an eight foot tall yellow bird who's friends with everyone. We are friends forever, right?

Little purple monster? Friends forever, big pink girl. And that was exactly what My Friendly Neighborhood was designed to do in the game. That initial report talks about these old age lessons of caring and sharing, as well as learning letters, numbers, and how to be a friendly neighbor. For those reasons, My Friendly Neighborhood became an instant hit with children and adults alike, just like the show that it's inspired by. And with the sudden rise in popularity, there was only one thing left to do,

take it to the silver screen. He had movies like Puppet Pirate Cove, a puppet Winter Song, Puppet Space Quest, all clear parodies of the real-world Muppet movies from the 80s and 90s, Muppet Treasure Island, the Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppets from Space. And while everything was wholesome in the friendly neighborhood, turns out the show started broadcasting during a very not-so-nice time out in the real world. As we see from a newspaper article given to us very early on in the game, in 1972, this city was coming out of a two decades-long war.

Four years after the start of the My Friendly Neighborhood show, the quote, city government withdrew their forces from the northern continent. Now, considering this article doesn't frame it like, city government has won the war, it suggests to us that this was more of a strategic retreat rather than a glorious victory. In the same article, we're told quite explicitly how much the war was just like the absolute worst. It was a quote,

War of Horrors, featuring guerrilla-style fighting in a rainforest with a whopping 100,000 casualties along the way. The war is even described as the first war fought in the living room, as televised news programs gave civilians their first look at the real horrors of war. This caused the public to turn strongly against the fight. They opposed it so much that when soldiers returned home, they weren't celebrated or lauded, but instead were booed and hissed. In fact, our main character Gordon seems intimately familiar with all this.

Or maybe a G. Give you a chance to rampage through some small defense. Don't say that, Ricky. Say what? Don't talk about the war. Why not? Just saying, seems like exactly the sort of place you got. Needless to say, it seems like he never really properly dealt with those issues.

And, just like my friendly neighborhood mirrored the real-life show of Sesame Street, sadly, this fictional war also reflects a very real and very tragic war from that exact same time period, the Vietnam War. Just like the war in the game, the Vietnam War was also around two decades long. It also became known as the Living Room War, thanks to news footage coming in from the front lines that was now being delivered to every home in the country via the television. This gave the American public its first ever view into the ugly side of war, which led to backlash, protests, and the rise of the flower power movement, especially amongst teenagers and college students.

That disdain for the Vietnam War only grew stronger with the release of the Pentagon Papers, 7,000 pages that were revealed to the public in 1971 via the New York Times. It showed that the military and the federal government, over several presidential administrations had misled the public and Congress about how the Vietnam War was going and how much the U.S. had escalated the conflict. It is almost impossible to properly describe how this fundamentally shook the Americans' trust in the government. Prior to this, the public was pretty much keen to accept anything the government said as being truthful and honest. But then the Vietnam War happened and put an end to that trust. If you've ever wondered why people are skeptical about government

action, it comes from this, the Pentagon Papers and the Vietnam War. And that same negative impact to the public psyche is seen all throughout my friendly neighborhood. We see the immediate effects when Goblet watches some of the footage and breaks down crying in the theater. But the long-term effects are the ones that really stick out. One article that you find in a display room tells us, quote, I think across the whole city, the war has left us feeling troubled. We were called to service for the sake of righteousness, love for one city and protecting others.

But in the end, we found that those calls were just noble lies. We left home as heroes and came home as murderers. And it's important to note that this is coming from. from the commander-in-chief of the city army. Even they felt lied to and disgusted by what they were forced to do, which leads him to finish off with these words, quote again, this tension leads to a question why we should care about right and wrong or friendliness, as the children's show puts it.

Perhaps it's time to put aside those old ideas. Perhaps the wise man is the one who lives for himself. And he's not alone feeling this way. Another article in one of the outside trailers discusses the tragedy of someone sacrificing themselves for this pointless war. Quote, To lay down your life for someone else, to lose everything? How can anyone ask someone to do that?

The city even begins to reflect this mindset, quote again, life in the city doesn't seem as enjoyable as it once was. On the subway, people's elbows jab into your personal space. Angry pedestrians yell at you on the street. When everyone looks out for themselves and trusts no one, crime becomes rampant. The city becomes a dark and scary place, with employees of the show having to coordinate walking home together just to be safe.

The only relief people have from this horrible world is television. For a few moments, I can escape the anxiousness and become lost in a world of pleasant dreams. Which sounds like good news for a lighthearted, good moral show like My Friendly Neighborhood, after all, Sesame Street pushed through all those dark times and is still going to day out here in the real world. However, this is where the parallels to Sesame Street end, because by 1975, three years after this fictional war, the show My Friendly Neighborhood's ratings begin to fall. Parents start complaining that these moral messages inside the My Friendly Neighborhood show were bad for their children. frightened by the tone of the morals of that show. Just yesterday one of the characters said,

you always think of others before yourself, even when it's uncomfortable. But what if somebody takes advantage of you for doing that? What if doing what's uncomfortable ends up exposing you to hurt and danger? Is it really a good idea to teach children to be so reckless with their own well-being? This is an alternate universe where Sesame Street's messaging falls on deaf ears. We're told instead that people prefer to watch Crime City, Drama Daily, shows that focus on the darker and sadly more realistic side of Because of this, when my friendly neighborhood continued to preach the message of being a good neighbor, they're called out of touch They even tried to add new formats to the show to try to save their ratings with Arnold and his cardboard Penthouse being identical to a segment added to Sesame Street

Elmo's world aimed at an even younger audience to help keep their attention with bright colors basic design and simplified messaging But not even that worked by 1983 just after their final movie Puppet Winter song bombed at the box office the show got canceled the creator gives one five final message to the children. It's like another famous neighborhood show, Mr. Rogers. Quote, have faith in light. Sometimes it might be scary, sometimes it may hurt. Sometimes it's hard to know what's right and wrong because good and bad are all jumbled up and confusing. And when that happens, it can hurt a lot. But have faith in light because the light will rescue you from darkness. And I know how tough it is some days to look with hope and confidence on the months and years ahead.

But I would like to tell you what I often told you when you were much younger. I like you just the way you are. Great message for great show. I'm not crying, you are. And with that, my friendly neighborhood and all its puppet friends fall to obscurity. Ten years pass, until suddenly in 1993, it appears on the airwaves, and Gordon is sent to take it down once again. When Gordon meets them, he isn't surprised that all the puppets are alive,

or that Ricky doesn't have a hand controlling him. It's just another day on the job. There's no secret kidnappings. experimentation, no possessions. It was just some friendly living puppet people putting on a wholesome show. A show that was shut down by a world that was ugly and cynical and selfish. However, if these puppets aren't evil, then why are they attacking us? Why are they so messed up by the time we get to them? Not only did they actively try to hurt us, but if you stop and listen to them, you hear some pretty bizarre things. Now put a circle right beneath it. See? You made the international hazard sign. Tape that to whatever door your thermonuclear waste is in. Let's try again, but make the bio-o-line.

hazard simple instead. Let me tell you about the time my friend, Leonard, got me all upset at him. First, I, uh, I beat him to the ground. Then, then, I, uh, I stumped, I stumped his face. These aren't the sort of messages I want my kid hearing while watching a kid's show, but their original scripts, they don't reflect this sort of behavior. Something has to have happened between their cancellation and today, but what exactly is it? Well, our main puppet pal, Ricky, gives us a bit of a hint during the game's climactic ending. We wanted to know what other shows had. But we didn't. We'd never been allowed to watch television before, but after we got canceled, no one was around to stop us. So we turned on one of the old sets, expecting to see something amazing.

But it wasn't amazing. It was mean. It felt like we were dying, Gordon. We all got a little twisted then. So the message is TV bad? No, there has to be something more than that. And it turns out there is. I did a second play-through and took a closer look at some of the background elements, And right at the start of Studio 4, where you get the first newspaper about the show launching, you'll notice that there are some other pieces of paper on the board right behind it. This piece of paper is repeated three times on this board alone, and it's tucked away behind the other posters and boards throughout the map, so you know that it's going to have to be important.

This page is actually an excerpt from an autobiography of a 4th and 5th century Catholic theologian, bishop, and eventual Saint Augustine of Hippo. St. Augustine's autobiography is a multi-book series chronicling his journey back to God. This particular passage found in my friendly neighborhood actually comes from the seventh book, specifically chapters 12 and 15, which go through Augustine understanding what the true meaning of good and evil is. Now, it's an old book, so it's pretty darn philosophical, so I'm going to do my best to just summarize two of the key points that are relevant to what we're talking about today. First, the idea that corruption can only exist if things are inherently good, arguing that if everything wasn't good at a fundamental level, then nothing could be corrupted. Everything would just be inherently evil.

The second point is that corruption itself isn't a tangible thing. It is just the absence of goodness. How does that relate to our silly sock puppet video game? Well, the puppets, the characters that used to dazzle children the world over, were always good and mostly still are. They were living the message of being a friendly neighborhood. It's why when they see us and start chasing us, they're not saying horrible things. Their arms are stretched out wide for a hug.

They're not trying to hurt us. They're happy to see us. They want to be friendly. It's only after the show was canceled and they were, exposed to the evils of the world via television, did corruption start to seep in. And those good things, like a hug or a child-friendly message, became twisted, corrupted, hurtful. And those were the lucky ones. Eventually, the puppets that became too exposed to the horrors of the world transformed and morphed

into the amalgamation of evil that we see during the game's final battle. And the connection to this random theological text isn't just the story of the puppets, the game is trying to tell us that we humans are also inherently good. Throughout the game, we repeatedly see this corruption sneaking into not just the puppets, but to the adults of this world. You have your parents writing in to say that the show's selfless messaging might be bad. General Rogers argues that a wise man is a selfish man, and the actor who left the show after becoming more concerned with his future than that of the show. All of these characters have let things like the war and television corrupt them,

make them selfish, capitalistic. And thanks to that, the good morals of my friendly neighborhood, the light that the creators mentioned in his farewell message, has been snuffed out. And just like St. Augustine said, corruption is the absence of good. And so with that good gone, the world becomes worse. Gordon, look at this city! The buildings are dark and the streets are empty! No one knows how to be a friendly neighbor.

It's a city of shuttered up hearts, and they need someone to let in the light! Even Gordon, after going through this studio and seeing all the wonderful puppets and themes of the show, at the very end of it all, he's still worried. worried about how the show's pure messaging is going to hurt the children. I don't want you broadcasting. Rikki, you're gonna hurt kids. Humanities turned away from the goodness and the light that the show tried to pass on to children. The game makes one point very clear.

Even though the adults questioned what the show was doing, even though the bigwigs were always focused on the bottom line, the show always remained beloved by the pre-6 age demographic. The children, born pure and uncorrupted, continued to enjoy and find value in the show. The kids weren't the ones who lost their way. It was the adults who became so corrupt by the evil and negativity around them that they turned into the very thing that they were fighting to avoid.

I mean, there's plenty to be said about the level of trash content that just exists these days. We're more interested in watching things like real housewives or the Kardashians, stuff that focuses on drama and negativity. The most popular podcast genre is true crime, with 50% of Americans saying that they listen to it, a genre that's focused on the bloody and the gruesome. You even see it here on this platform. Negative titles and thumbnails commenting on the latest drama.

Those are the ones that get the clicks, Not the positive skewing stories, the uplifting bits, the educational bits. That is the world that we've built and the world that we're choosing to focus on. But at the very end of the game, if you complete the game's best ending, we can see that there is hope. If you choose to save all the puppets and agree to help Ricky reboot the show, you get this little gem prior to the credits. It's like you've been lost in a tunnel until suddenly a voice calls your name. And you turn around and you see the rising sun.

And it's so bright. Maybe it hurts a little to look at. But you don't care because it's leading you home. By remembering the good, by focusing on the positive, it shines a spotlight on us. And sure, it highlights our issues, and yeah, that's super uncomfortable. But it's way better than just falling into darkness. This game is a warning for us not to shut our hearts to the needs of others,

to focus on the good of the world. We too can have Gordon's journey back to the light, because at the end of the day, we all started from a place that was good. And sure, while the world tries to strip that away from us, we have to stand up to that. We have to face it. We have to remember that the most important, thing is to love our neighbor. And sometimes all it takes to remember that is an abandoned studio full of living puppets.

But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.