Retronauts - 527: South Park Games

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

Oh my god! They recorded a podcast about South Park! Stuart Gipp, Bob Mackey, and Henry Gilbert unite as What A Cartoon! meets Retronauts in sweary effect. All together now! Weeeelllll… Kyle's mom's a b— Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts

This week's episode of Retronauts is brought to you by Factor. This week in Retronauts, we think of us on games that are really fucking bad. Hello, welcome to Retronauts, the RetroGames podcast. It is called Retronauts, and I'm Stuart Jip, and I'm hosting yet another hopefully fairly rambunctious episode about a fairly rambunctious topic. And given that it's about a cartoon, I had to get the What a Cartoon guys to come and join me on it, who else could? So I'm joined by, well, Retronauts regulars, of course, a co-host, Bob Mackey, and Henry Gilbert. Hello, Bob. Hello, Henry. How are you? Hello, hey, everybody.

it's Bob Mackey and I'm wearing my oversized Respect My Authority T-shirt I got at the county fair It's stained with Kool-Aid And screw you guys, I'm going home Oh wait, I'm already there Hey, it's Henry I have a feeling there's going to be quite a lot of that In this episode

It's interesting when you mentioned the county fair Because I was actually going to ask if that was a thing over there Because over here we'd go There was that period where you go to the fair And it would just be only South Park stuff Waterwall Just like posters Plushies

awful like bootleg t-shirts and things. Great fun. But yeah, South Park and South Park games, I don't think I need to put too fine a point on it that most of the South Park games in the sort of more retro era weren't exactly world-class experiences. But before we get started, I think we should do a very, very brief discussion of what South Park even is,

even though everybody pretty much obviously already knows. It's an animated series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone based on a short film that they made. Well, I think it was a couple of short films, actually. A couple of versions of The Spirit of Christmas slash Jesus versus Santa, which bizarrely, this is a fun piece of gaming trivia. For some reason, it was on the disc for the first like 100,000 copies of Tiger Woods 99, so they had to recall it eventually, which is bizarre.

I don't know how that even happens, but... It was an early viral video and then you had to buy a PlayStation game to watch it. Yeah. It really, yeah, it was something. when it's spread around like it it's not a small thing to say that it influenced pretty much all of internet comedy

from then on like how much it spread around like everybody shared it and it's why every YouTube video reviewer does a sketch where they fight Jesus and Satan at the same time and then Santa is a character it's because just if all they did was Spirit of Christmas

they would be some of the most influential comedians of their age. Yeah, before that, of course, I'm not, they did things like Cannibal and Musical for Tremor, I want to say, or Tremor picked that up, which was quite a sort of cult movie, which I have to admit, I've never seen, because I feel like I get the joke just from the title, but is it actually good. It's better than that.

It is, okay. Yeah, but it's still also a movie made by college kids. Yeah. Yeah, we did a history of them for a what a cartoon show, and they, it's funny, by the time South Park came out, they had kind of been doing things for about five years. Yeah. At a certain point, they had to deal with Fox. to do a kid show.

So there are two pilots for a kid show with Matt and Trey in them, full of songs and sketches and things like that. So they could have done their Fox Kids live action show before South Park if that was picked up. It's a Cannibal, the musical is essentially a very good student film. Actually, an extremely good student film that they kind of tricked their local government into partially paying for. And then Troma picked it up. and Troma was extremely lucky to get the rights to one of their movies when it started. Like, there wouldn't, I highly doubt Tromel would exist as a company now if they didn't have all their Cannibal the musical DVD sales.

And, but yeah, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, especially Trey Parker, they were marked early as like, these guys are, they're going to be something. Yeah, the second South Park hit it big, you could walk into your video store and see Orgasmo and Cannibal the musical right now. to the South Park VHS tapes. Like, where did these guys come from? Basketball was post South Park, wasn't it? I'm fairly sure it was. See, that was another one. They got extremely the, by they, I mean the shitty Zucker brothers.

Oh, yes. They did some all right stuff a long time ago, but they got extremely lucky that Matt and Trey work with them. And that movie like is shit, except for the parts that are clearly Matt and Trey making up something funny on the set that's way better than the shit. We're talking about basketball, right? Yeah, that's right. I have to admit, I do really quite like basketball

because there is just some really world-class dumb humor in there, like the little fellow getting attacked by the Rockwell. That's just always funny to me. I think you also got... I think you also have real big fish covering Take On Me, which is always a classic. I just remember the posters for basketball were so great because the first one is it's both of them,

like this was theatrical release, both of them like holding the basketball in front of their crotches like their two large testicles. But then when the D, when the VHS comes out, they were like, wait, we got Jenny McCarthy in this airbrush Jenny McCarthy in between the two of them

to sell this to the horny kids out there too. It's, I mean, I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone or admit to liking it, but I guess I just have on a podcast. So, yeah, it's a bit late for that, isn't it? But South Park, of course, right out of the gate in my experience. It was huge

straight from Cartman gets an anal probe the first one which I believe was the only I want to say was the only one they stopped motion

but I'm not sure if they actually did they might have because I think they've gone back and remade them all sense so I don't know if it still is

stop motion or yeah that's the only episode that is still stop motion although they later went back and added some scenes with computers

but the big thing about and I'm going to be repeating a lot of what I did on that what a cartoon episode but it was like three years ago I figured that

But the reason why it was so popular is like nobody had seen anything like it before. That was one reason. But the other reason was it burned through the six episodes quickly. And then after that, every month there was a new special. So the anticipation to that was immense. And every time a new special aired like Halloween, Thanksgiving and then Christmas, they like, the ratings increased exponentially. That was event television in 1997. I know there was a lot of talk about the cliffhanger of season one with Cartman's mom is a dirty slot.

I think it was called. Hey, I didn't name it. I didn't name it. In fact, I should probably lay this out there. There's probably going to be some stuff in this episode that's not, like, acceptable, but that was the show. So I'm doing my best to sanitize it without raising the meaning of it. I remember that summer of its debut, like, I watched it day one. I'm going to play that card of like, but that's because I was a comedy central addicted, addicted mega nerd.

Me too. I was the one who told all my school chums about it. it's at the age of 15. And man, when they were promoting the Halloween special to go and they went on the Daily Show for it, it was like they were, they were still getting used to being rock stars. They're like, oh, wait, everyone loves us. We're giant stars. This is amazing.

I hate to say, I wasn't allowed to watch it. It was 10 years old. So I was going over to a friend's house who was allowed to watch it and then sneaking it at like midnight, watching it on VHS. And when you're not allowed to watch it is the funniest thing that has ever been made. like every single line is crack up, sides hurt, hilarious, because you're not, you're like, he said, that kid just said, bitch, you know, it was the Simpsons for a new generation of kids. It was new, it was a new form of forbidden television.

And it really played well with people who grew up with the Simpsons and then now they were a little older and so they're like, oh, well, we graduate into South Park. Like, Simpsons, which is our main Baileywick, uh, that we, uh, the Simpsons. Simpsons was feeling the heat. They're like, oh, we're not the, we're not the cool guys anymore. Like, we're now the old establishment thing and we're not as rude and crude as South Park. I mean, the impact that it had, like, I've been trying to think of there's been anything that's come out of the gate since then with that much impact. And the only thing I can think of is Rick and Morty, because yeah, there is family guy, but that kind of had a couple of full starts before it got real big, I think. Well, I feel like Rick and Morty, not to talk about another uncomfortable thing now, but, but, yeah. But, I did feel like Rick and Morty it took till season two to really be, like not in its first six months. Was it a giant thing like South? Yeah, that's true. Because there wasn't even, I mean, now look around, walk into any, any store within 10 feet, there's a pickle rickle rick somewhere.

But season one of that show, which I did enjoy, I remember there was no merch to be found and Henry was at Comic-Con. And I was like, oh, you have to get me one Rick and Morty shirts. It's the only, there's only one Rick and Morty T-shirt, and you have to go to Comic-Con to get it. Can you imagine a world in which there was only one Rick and Morty T-shirt? By the way, I threw that t-shirt away a long time. But I liked walking around with it. Yeah, a friend of mine bun. It's the gerbil asshole one.

I liked walking around with that one back in a different time before we knew what a bad person. Justin Royal it is. But, yes, I remember going up to their table at Comic-Con. And there is something I really prize is being early on something and being like the guy who tells people about something that's funny. and remembering going up to the table, like, oh, nobody else gives a shit about Rick and Morty at Comic-Con but me. I feel so special.

And then by a year later, they basically ruled Comic-Con from that on, the Rick and Morton. I think it back then, I stand corrected. Maybe it's because of the UK delay or something that I just perceived it that way. But, no, South Park's the last one I can think of that went to the moon like this.

I mean, I guess Family Guy, when it came back for, like, season four, it was huge. but uh now i mean overnight successes it i can't think of a bigger one than south park it really did feel like within five within two months it was huge in my middle school yeah and not to go on about family guy but that was a show i think fox thought would be a huge hit initially but it really wasn't and that was a show where they had merchandise ready on day one and i remember seeing it like right after the show aired like do i want a brian t-shirt i don't even know brian and seth macfarlane is one of many people who got job

then and big deals because they're like they were marketed to networks as this is the next mat and tray a cheap guy who just got out of college who will make a profane cartoon for you that'll be a big hit set macfarlane has to be the most successful of those guys and it's funny knowing how south park and family guy would be at odd yeah very much so yeah that set mcfarlane would not have his career if not for tray parker and matt stone success It's springtime, things are heating up, and the lack of horrible winter weather means it's time, ditch the comfort food and instead opt for nutritious, convenient meals to help you achieve all the lack of horrible winter weather means it's time to move around a lot more than usual. For this season, ditch the comfort food and instead opt for nutritious, convenient meals to help you achieve all. your goals during these active days.

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that was that that's a really wild concept to have a two-part prime time cartoon about basically shitting on another cartoon like that's wild stuff and you know a lot of people really took that manatee ball and run with it you know because there's a lot of people who i who really hate family guy and i do wonder if i mean they're one within a right to do so but i do wonder how much of it did how much of the family guy hate came from that show you know they i didn't like family guy to begin with i was hearing Cartman say it why he didn't like it. I was like, finally someone speaking truth though. Yeah, but it's common. He's the correct character. You should emulate it. If South Park taught me anything is that they love having their cake and eating it too. So if Carmen says a thing they agree with, but it's Cartman and it's like, well, Cartman said it though. I don't agree with that. But no, they, Cartman is their dark side. But when he said like, I am nothing like family guy, when I make a joke, it has a point. It is relevant to the stories. just a bunch of jokes. And Seth McFrawley's defense on that was like, oh, no, I'm so sorry. I

tell jokes. Oh, oh, I'm so awful. I try to tell jokes. Poor me. You know, after that whole dust up, I think I've come down on the side of family guy more. It's like, well, they at least try to tell more than one kind of joke per episode. That's where I thought off of South Park. I mean, some of the messages they were sending out I didn't agree with. But I, like, comedically, it was just becoming a very redundant show. And that's what happens when a show has to be produced so fast in which a lot of episodes that were all over on them finding one joke and there's just beating it to death. Oh yeah, absolutely.

And there was some hero to be found in that concept, but it just kept happening so much that I got, frankly, bored with the show by the late odds. It has a I would say there's a spate like I don't know which seasons exactly, but probably around like 12, 13. There's just this dip that

doesn't, it doesn't come back from for me. The current season that's airing now has been surprisingly good, I think. But, I definitely think they switched up their creative process a little bit to actually, I think it was like five, six years ago. They said, oh, we actually wrote the whole season before we started animating it. And it turns out that's actually a good way to do something. Like, no, I mean, the most reason stuff I watched to them, the post-COVID special two-partners, you know, there

were some stuff in it that I was like, oh, here's some good jokes in it. I actually liked how everybody would say like, well, of course now, in the future, we all do this. Now, I guess I know I'm in the future too. And I like seeing the boys all aged naturally to be the age they would be if they did age from the first appearance of the series. I did watch one of those future episodes and I thought I was sitting down to watch a complete movie. Then I found out there were three more that were continuing the story.

And I said, I don't care. I don't really care anymore. I'll admit, I didn't watch more than either. For me, like, the movies that they've done, like, subsequently to the actual movie, Big, or Longer and Uncut, which I have to say I still love. I think it's one of the funniest, like, animated movies or comedy movies I've ever seen. I don't know about that now. I've not seen it for a while, so I'm sure there's some stuff in there that may, make me kind of grind my teeth now. But there's so many things from that movie that I just think about them, I start giggling.

So, it was Peak South Park for me. We revisited that movie on our podcast about a year ago, and we were, kind of worried like, well, this still be good and we both loved it. It's like the songs are great. Even from the early era of the show, the comedy is, it's like the best that it was in that era. It's like it does hold up. And I honestly think they never did another movie or another real movie because they can't top what they had there, the energy and the momentum going behind that movie. And it's a perfect capstone to the end of original South Park popularity. It wraps up so many running jokes that were in the first run of episodes. And,

And it is them reflecting on their own success and the reaction to it that the world had. And it also is their way of saying, like, you were, this came up in so many of the interviews I went doing the research for it that they kept saying like, everybody was telling them like, well, once this comes out and makes no money at all and is a huge failure, then you guys are gone forever. And it was their way of saying like, no, we can still be successful creative guys. this was not a fad and and it wasn't and it wasn't but yeah I mean I'm not saying I agree with everything Matt and Trey have done especially their trans stuff has made me really turn on them in that regard for sure but the movie was a nice joke on a lot of their homophobic teenage fans where they didn't know they were sitting down to watch a musical yes that was a nice joke on them I mean you mentioned their sort of stance on sort of trans issues the thing that

gets me about that is I watched one recently that I hadn't seen before where Cartman wants a toilet just for himself and it's a take on the whole issue. Well, I say, I'm doing, you can't see me doing air quotes, but it's only an issue if you're a piece of shit, to be honest.

But you know what I'm talking about, the trans bathroom issue, basically. And they came down in the end on what seemed like a, I mean, it was centrist as you'd expect, you know, but it seems down on the more sort of, no, just let people go and use what a bit of a bathroom they want. Why is this to have to be such a big deal? And I thought, well, that's surprisingly acceptable. And then you look forward and you see the

latest stuff they've done on the issue. And it's just like, well, what happened? You know? Well, yeah. I mean, the most frustrating thing, and I'm going to have to admit this, they did that episode where it was about the fake trans women in sports issue, where they had a matriman Randy Savage come in sort of substituting for that position of a trans woman in sports

and it was so absurd that I was thinking God if this wasn't so vile I would find this funny but it's vile it's just so propaganda it's just propaganda at this point and that's not what I expect from them

it's shot like for guys who have been writing comedy for a long time who I respect on some level it's very strange when some episodes feel like a Babylon B tweet yeah it's weird I will say that you know

20 years ago or whatever maybe like 17 16 years ago when they were doing a lot of their early anti-trans stuff their alarmist commentary with like Mr. Garrison transitioning and all that stuff I'll admit that I was not enlightened

I knew as much about trans people as comedies told me in which the reaction was like ew gross you know but even at the time I was like what is their deal with this like I thought like I didn't know any trans people. I didn't know anything about the issue. I was like 23 or 24, but I was like, what the fuck is their problem? Like, why are they so upset about this? This is not even

anything that affects them in any way, but they're just in other people's business. And I think that was what led me to fall off of South Park. Like, even as a late teen, I first got into the show thinking like, these guys are so right about everything. You know, fuck authority, fuck the man. They're the truth tellers. And then gradually over time, when they will get to their morals, I'd be like, well, that doesn't make any sense. Or, you know, No, that's bullshit. Or like, this is very shallow. Like, over time, I outgrew them as I got more life experience.

And then I eventually learned that, like, oh, often they will tell you a something they don't believe in just to make you mad. Yeah, I mean, they are trolls. And that way they have a very libertarian streak. No, I mean, it was disappointing to me, too, is like, you know, I was a gay teen watching their show at the start and but closeted. And they do a whole episode, the first big gay Al episode. which basically is saying like fuck homophobia yeah and they they usually were so strongly against homophobes and pro gay but then they'd have shitty episodes about how the f slur is cool to say and it doesn't mean gay people and or they'd have an episode about how well

and of course there's all their climate change thing which is like ridiculous and that one they actually did uh they did literally an episode apologizing to algor and They were like, oh, you're right about, quote, unquote, man, bear pig. And it makes me think that perhaps someday they will apologize for this trans stuff, too, and they'll realize they listen to a bunch of alarmist bullshit and jump to conclusions. And I think the biggest problem for Matt and Trey, other than that, they are very rich guys who are insulated from so many things. I think it is also that they assume that they are the middle of the road, normal guys, and basically the Homer quote of everybody's stupid except me and it makes them blind to some things and they don't listen when

people tell them they're wrong. I feel like also every five years they sell South Park again for $300 million. Those guys must have like a combined wealth of a billion dollars at this point. Yeah. This is something else that came up in my research too that they they made fun of and deservedly so that Barbara Streisand is very out of touch and extremely wealthy and is trying to tell middle america what to do when it like they brought class into it so much and i was like yeah you know what that was fair back then they are worth i'd say five barbara stricands now i believe their combined worth well they had the deal with paramount plus was like insane wasn't it it was like a billion or something for the whole thing like 20 specials or some absurd number

of episodes i forget i believe it was half it was half a billion for hbio max and then 900 million for the Paramount plus movies, which are just episodes of the show. And they're boring as hell. I have to say, I mean, the movies were just like, along with the previous like three seasons, it was just like,

hey guys, tag really weird. Laugh. Laugh now. We're going to keep doing this. This is going to be like the next 10 hours. So we laugh. And hoo-boy.

Well, it's also the Randy show now because they aged into being Randy. Like, yeah. I mean, this will come up in the game discussion too, but it is funny. if you check into like every five years of South Park, it's like a different show because I feel like

they become obsessed with a new thing and that's all the show was about and then once they're done with it, they move on, the show is a completely new thing. So like all the things that we see in these early games, you will never see them again after the movie. Yeah.

Just write them off completely. I mean like characters that are just like mainstays like barbraid you just disappear for like 10 years, 12 years. Yeah, even like Mr. Mackey, who's a very funny character, a big part of the movie, I feel like he disappeared for a very long time. Yeah, he very rarely shows up.

He intentionally wrote him off of the show and brought in Miss Chokes on Dick. Right, right. More like Miss Makes Me Sick. I hate myself for laughing at that name. I hate myself. This is what bothers me. They do this incredibly pure old stuff and it makes me laugh even though I know it's horrible. You know?

I, this is what sucks. It's a problematic faith. No, for it is the definition of that. You could laugh at lowbrow things. It's fine. Yeah. Yeah. But, well, I mean, the reason I love that joke is because her name is Miss Chokes on.

Dick, and they make up the more like Miss Makes Me Sick. They don't jump on the obvious joke of her name. That's, uh, yeah. Can't read my, carry my, no, he can't read my poker fame.

She's got her like nobody. Can't read my, carry my, no, he can't read my poker face. She's got me like nobody. Carry my, carry my, no, he can't read this poker face. Got me like nobody

Oh God Sort of moving away from the show I suppose I'm actually staying with it We need to talk about The game episodes That are in the show Because they have quite a lot

More than anything I can think of previously That isn't dedicated to video games They handled video games In a way that wasn't Completely wrong Like completely wrong And just Atari noises

Over an N64 game controller Which they're waving in the air They were like youngish guys in their late 20s starting South Park and I feel like they were gamers and I tried to dig this up Internet Archive did not have this but in PC Gamer

their January 99 issue it's a South Park cover inside was an interview with Matt and Trey the creators of the show and I wish I could have dug it up but I do remember them saying in that interview like

oh man license games are so shitty we guarantee you our South Park game is not going to be about finding keys or anything like that and then the N64 game comes out and it kind of is that but I wish I could dig that up because they they stay like

we play video games and we know the license games are always shitty we don't want our games to be shitty yeah I mean there's a quote from game informer when they were making fractured but hole where uh like matt says the old n64 games yeah those weren't good we had nothing to do with it they just weren't good games and then trey adds uh that's when we were told okay you ever hit show so now what we do what we do is we take your thing and we give it to a company and they make a game and we were like oh cool and we're like the game's done and we played it and we're like well this is dog shit so they we finally said we're not doing that anymore and they were like you don't have to do anything and we're like no that's the point we don't do anything that's when we really said until we do the game ourselves we're not going to do another game and that's why it took so long for stick of truth to happen although that remark does belie the Xbox games which are i think they've just pretend don't exist but we'll get to those eventually yeah that was a slow uh thawing i think those games but you know i it was one of those special things where it felt like like, I love The Simpsons, but The Simpsons was written by people who didn't game.

They weren't gamers. They were guys who, they were like the last generation of comedy writers who were like, oh, video games. I guess I played that like in college in a bar or something. The South Park guys and then on, they were all gamers for good and ill. They were gamers and they bring that to their things. And so they would have the novelty of just watching characters. sit on a couch with controllers on their hands and talking to each other while playing a game.

I was like, oh, this is, nobody portrays this. Finally, my life on TV of being lazy and saying bullshit while playing a video game. Earlier in the series, earlier in the series, when they were covering games, it would be, it wouldn't be named stuff necessarily if my memory serves. It would be like they have the Ocama Game Sphere, which was like their version of the GameCube, presumably. But then after a while, I guess they kind of just went, why are we not just saying Nintendo a wee because there was that episode where

Cartman freezes himself so he can wait for the I think it's for the Wii to come out. I might be wrong about this or maybe it's some of the system. That sounds correct and then in other episodes they name check like the PSP and the Sega Dreamcast. Right, right. So that would be earlier than the Wii then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We would name them all. Yeah, the Ocama Gamesphere episode,

which was the first Tauley episode. Oh, gosh, so stupid. That was right after, I love Talley because he sucks. Yeah, yeah. I just love, you're the worst character ever Talley. I know. But, like, it actually was in the run-up to the Xbox and GameCube coming out because I remember it was one of the last ones before 9-11 because the first one after 9-11 has a joke about like, oh, no, is there a towely band? Right.

And a terrible, terrible, towely joke. And also, you know, Ocama GameSphere is more of their naughty words jokes because just like the Chinpocomod episode, they are met. Trey Parker is fluent in Japanese. And he puts in dirty Japanese words. Okama is a rude way to refer to a gay person. It's, yeah, similar to the slur we mentioned earlier. I believe Chinpoko is jerking off. I think Chinpo's penis.

Chinpo's penis, that's right, yeah. I forgot all about Chinpochaun. That wouldn't have been a really obvious one to bring up. I've done a terrible job for making this episode. I apologize. It's so obvious. Because I think the most famous gaming episode they did was the Make Love, not Warcraft. Because that was real, like, got a lot of attention at the time.

because I think they used the actual sort of in-engine They made cutscenes with the engine They were allowed to sort of show the game exactly as it was Of course, after that, every single other adult animated series like did a Warcraft episode But this was the first one And it was pretty surprising this watch, I thought It really captured the phenomenon

I know The Simpsons did one a few years later And it really just felt like They just were doing it because it was popular No one truly understood Warcraft Yeah, and same way that the future one where Cartman freezes himself to get to the Nintendo Wii sooner

He's never going to get it I mean That's in my darker moments Or when I identify with Eric Cartman Because I was like I It was the GameCube before it Not the Wii I was a little older then

But when it was a GameCube I was like if only a week Would pass right now God I can't wait Now you're holding on it that week For dear life Yes And they've covered it

laterish in the series although now probably about 10 years ago which makes me feel kind of old they had the sort of Black Friday episodes which led into The Stick of Truth and they literally ended with a commercial for The Stick of Truth The whole three part it was leading up to that

which I have to say I thought were kind of sort of as you mentioned Bob the kind of one joke having into the ground for three episodes long basically because I think they were actually putting all their attention into the game the Stick of Truth at that point that's sort of how it comes across to me

because the Stick of Truth is quite good and funny and the episodes around that point really weren't to me. I think they admitted, which is funny because then they even did a sequel, they admitted that the Stick of Truth was far more work than they thought it would be and the work equivalent to like two or three, more than one season of the show.

It's probably why we haven't had a new game in like six years. I think 2017 was the fractured by hole. What a title. My God. The last thing I was, I want to cover just real briefly in terms of gaming episodes. They did the episode Freemiumism 3, which was about gambling mechanics and sort of addiction into phone games. I think very specifically, without naming it, going after Simpsons tapped out and things like that,

where you can spend donuts to make things go faster, but there's really no actual kind of gameplay there. I mean, I recall that there's a scene where Satan appears for the first time in like 15 years of the show, and all he does is sit there and painstakingly explain how, uh, gotcha mechanics work which is funny once I don't think this is the kind of show where you can really go back to the last like 20 years of it and go I'm going to watch

a classic South Park and you're about Tiger Woods having sex with people who aren't his wife sit down and rub your hands together here we go a classic Tiger Woods episode nobody remembers that episode now that you'd tell me that Tiger Wood one it starts with their parody that episode has the recurring joke of the

newest version of the EA Tiger game that year is all them doing scenes of his divorce or his life smashing up his car. Yeah. If you just go on HBO Max and look at all the episode listings, it is such a time capsule. You're like, oh, that's what was happening in 2006. But if you weren't there or if you don't remember, you might need Wikipedia to refresh your memory. Like, why is this funny?

Oh, yeah. I mean, even with that, sometimes it's not. But go on. Sorry, Harry. Go on. No, there's two other. This now has reminded me of two other video game ones. I was like, oh, yeah.

Those, they've done so many, but it's the, their guitar hero episode at the height of guitar hero, like just capturing it and that there's the chasing the dragon game of just you jam the heroin needle and you can never, you never catch the dragon. And same with the, and also it's, it's more of a side story in the wailing episode, but Cartman singing poker face in rock band, that became, I believe it's either a guitar hero or rocket, it became a down-low. Yeah, yeah. That's wild.

See, they've done it, they've done so much gaming stuff that I couldn't even remember all of them. I thought to myself, like, I can just remember all of these. You know, I did a little bit of sort of looking into it, but I can remember them. But no, there've been so many. I mean, thinking about what you said about going back through it like a time capsule, I mean, wondering which episode is the most dated of all of them. And it's got to be one of the Trump ones, surely.

Because they were completely, like, surprised by Trump winning. They were just convinced he wasn't going to win. And then they basically had to redo their entire, like, uh, half of the season if memory serves, something like that. That's, that's a high up there, but there's, they, honestly, that is a impossible that I can, you'd have to look at 70 ones like these. You need to look at all 300 and say, like, uh, what has not aged well? I'll go back and watch all 300. No, I'm not doing that. Um, I mean, the one that occurs to me the most is the one where they go and sitting a waiting room with internet memes and the memes met the meme people do the memes around them. for like minutes on end and if you are even like a fully grown like 20 year old man now you will be like what the hell's going on in any who are these people what are the noises they're making

what's chocolate rain why is that panda there what's i don't understand i think the point of that episode was to be mad at the people striking uh the writer strike people because their point was there's no money in the internet and then they immediately sell their show for the billi for like the first of several times to have it to be online i think yeah i mean they're billionaires because they got they one of the many success stories of them is that they got a great deal no one would get after them for a comedy show for a cable show and they got internet streaming rights because they were smart and you're like showing these episodes on the internet uh probably be worth money and they were told no it's not no it's not

you guys can just have it and they got crazy rich from that and no cartoon creator after them ever would get to be that rich. Yeah, it's very savvy because before the age of everybody having their own streaming network, I think at this point Netflix was doing streaming, but they basically had every episode to date on South Park Studios.com. I think they also realize, like, everybody's pirating these. Let's just give them a place to watch them all. And that was very, very savvy. Yeah, you should remind me of speepisodes.net, where I used to get my episodes from in tiny poster stamp style, real video versions of them. My God. Well, it was better than buying the VHS tapes, which had two episodes.

episodes to a tape. Oh yeah, we weren't going to do that. Anime-ass tape. Unless you bought the box set, which cost a million pounds. I re-watched many an episode of South Park on Real Player. And that's how I, from the thing I downloaded. One of the tapes in the UK was one episode plus the documentary going down to South Park. You didn't even get two episodes.

It was just like, man. They can get away with it, though. They even did these special little custom intros for the episodes. And some of them were actually quite funny while being. fiercely racist in places. Although I think it was that kind of ironic racism. So it's then. It's considered fine.

If you're a fan of anyone from the 90s, they probably are in blackface or wearing a headdress or making their eyes squinty in some sketch somewhere. It was of the time. I've noticed that they've stopped doing quite so much of the ridiculous, like, Chinese, Japanese accent that I want to say Matt does. I can remember which one is which. Oh, that's definitely Trey, because he's a big fan of doing that voice, and it's even in, like, one of the games when I was, I never played the, the tower defense game, and I loaded it up, and I was like, oh, he's doing it here, too. Yeah, it's all over that. Yeah, yeah. Maybe not so much these days, for obvious reasons. Not as much. So I, not to, this is going to sound like I'm defending indefensible voice acting, but I will say back then, they would surprise you by hiring people who actually were like native speakers. of something. Like I, in, for example, in the 9-11, their first post-9-11 episode where they go to Afghanistan, they definitely went to the trouble of hiring people who could speak in a at least, you know, Arabic dialect that sounded legitimate. I cannot say that it is like how a native speaker in Afghanistan would speak. But they definitely, they were putting in way more work than any other show was back then.

when showing the evil Middle East and stuff. now we've got a fairly decent grounding in this show and its relationship to sort of gaming culture but it needs to be understood and I'll read another quote because I do find it quite funny which is back on the old South Park Studios site a while back they would answer questions that like fans wrote in and someone asked

since the claim no longer makes South Park games who does and what type of games are we going to see in the future and Matt replies we currently don't have a game developer a claim did such a good job of fucking up the games that now no one is really that interested in the license And, you know, it's difficult to argue that point when you play them, though. The first South Park game, well, it's what I think is the first South Park game, was the

1998 Nintendo 64 cartridge South Park, which was later ported to Windows and PlayStation in 1999. It was made by Aguana Entertainment, and it's this, well, it's a first-person shooter, where you have kind of all your classic sort of South Park characters, Stan Carl Carm McKenney, but you can unlock a bunch of other characters like Mr. Mackey, Mr. Garrison, etc., etc., mostly season one and two kind of characters, maybe just season one at this point, but every level you'd beat, you'd get a new password to enter, and they would unlock a new multiplayer character, or, if you were clever, you would just get the password to unlock all the characters, enter that, and save your game to a memory card, and then you would have all of them. You know, to say this game is Rush, we'll be putting it lightly. It's always fun to look at the release dates, and I see the release date as December 21. 21st, 1998. This was down to the wire getting this out. And I watched, I play this back in the day, like a friend bought it.

It was a huge mistake. He shouldn't have done this. And I think he admitted that. But I was watching the footage, I was bringing me back to that time. And it's like, oh, this is like an FPS game, but the mechanics are so arcadian. And that's just like, it swarms of the same enemy. It's almost like a prototype for like a left for dead or something. And like you will just only, I think like I only played the first level because I just didn't have the patient.

So I only saw turkeys. Yeah. Oh no, you will only see Tuggies for another good six levels after that. It was a rental for me and my bros as well back in 1998. And we definitely, rental was the right amount of time for it because we could chuckle at occasional things like, I peed in the snowball and then through it or, oh, the cow, I'm inside a cow's anus. Isn't that funny? And that'll sustain you for like a sleepover, like one sleepover of laughing. But, and I mean, seeing the opening on an N64 was pretty impressive for the time. Yeah, they read it the whole thing in three, didn't they?

With the song and everything. Yeah. You look at it now and you're just like, Christ. I mean. There's original voice acting. There's very short cutscenes between each level and its original stuff from Matt and Trey and Isaac Hayes, too. Yeah. I got to give compliments to a claim for business savvy.

Like they made some shit games and they were doing even. worst by the end of the 90s. But they saw South Park new. Like they, for example, a claim made a shitload of money off being first with Mortal Kombat and Simpsons. And they see South Park. They're like, this is the next thing.

We get on this right now. Don't wait for a better publisher to come in and offer him something. We'll give them their first big check and we're getting it. And they got, they were very lucky and smart in that way. It does not lead to good games. and in fact actually like poisons the well on good games. But if their

job was to sell a bunch of things for maximum profit, then boy, did they succeed with that. As you say, as you do, all you do in this game, I've played I've seen and played through a fair amount of this, mostly as a kid, also quite recently when I was prepping for this.

It controls like crap, like the stick movement is so weird and awkward and bad and unsuttle. And all you are doing essentially is back, peddling, trying and desperately remember where the walls are because they're quite well hidden, because it's all snow everywhere, and some of it you can walk up and some you can't.

The level designs have almost nothing in the way of secrets or alternate anything. It's pretty much just long corridors that have right angles in them. And occasionally you'll see like a thing from South Park, like you'll see Jimbo's Store and you'll go, hey, it's Jimbo Store, that's, I remember that from the show. But yeah, just turkey after turkey for like level after level. and all you'll hear is go over and over again for just an hour straight

I had a headache this morning that was not helping it Yeah I also I want to say like especially looking at these early games It's interesting to see just what a repetitive show South Park was in its first season

in parts of season two where Matt and Trey had never written a sitcom before so much of those first shows are like all the running jokes in everyone where it's like Stan will throw up in Wendy's face the episode will end with Kyle saying

I learned something today. Cartman will freak out about something. Kenny will die. Chef will appear. He'll make an inappropriate analogy and then sing a song. Eventually, they got tired of doing all of that, but they had to do it. It was like the formula for the early episodes, and that's why you see it so much here, especially the character of chef who disappeared for, you know, non-law reasons. But he was like such a big guy in these early episodes.

Yeah. I mean, he, I mean, I don't know. how much of this traveled, but in the UK, you couldn't get away from that fucking chocolate salty bulls song that they put out. You know, you'd hear it some here, but that definitely seemed like one of those things like, oh, the novelty songs from American shows seem to get bigger in the UK than they do in America. Like, do the Bartman was certainly around in our childhoods, but it was not number one on

the charts, like it was top of the pops in the UK. I own six final records, and one of them is that. Is it the chef, the chef aide, the whole chef aide album? Yeah, chef'sade, chef chocolate, salty balls, that. And I don't know, some other novels, yeah, I can't even tell you. Crazy frog. Crazy frog, yeah, why not? With the penis.

Axel F, yeah, with his little wang, yeah. I keep forgetting, yeah, South Park did their own Simpson sing the blues. It's so stupid. Yeah, well, because every businessman is in their ear. They're just kids, and they say, like that quote. They all say like, well, okay, you're successful with this demographic of kids. You have to have an album, you have to have a movie, and you have to have a video game. If you don't have those things, like, you will be committed to an asylum because you will be deemed crazy.

Because those are the things you have to do to make everybody richer. Also, I think Trey Parker was like 30 when that album came out. He wasn't that naive. No, that's true. That's true. These guys, they were not like as young as Seth McFarland starting South Park. They, like we said, they had like five years of established trying to get work in Hollywood before South Park propelled them in their late 20s. I wish you hadn't mentioned Simpsons Sing the Blues, because now I've got that Mr. Burns song stuck on my head.

I look at all those idiots. It's one of the best songs. It is. It is pretty great. I mean, to be honest with you, I've had all those songs stuck on my head since I was a child. They're never going away anywhere. I think they had two South Buck albums. There was a Mr. Hanky Christmas classics album as well.

The boy was there, yeah. And that's better because it's just a bunch of funny songs. songs. They're not trying to fit in every music star who's like, oh, let's get everybody on this. Even, even Ike Turner. Yeah, that was a mistake. Yeah, you know, but yeah, when this South Park game came out, I will say I had other slight affection for it because I was an N64 freak.

Yeah. Like, that was my main system during that time. And so any new thing on the N64 for four-player split-screen action, We had some affinity for that in my household. And I bet you're like, see, they can do voice acting on N64. Yeah. Oh, look at this opening. They can do it.

They can do it. I bet it'll look worse on PlayStation. In the UK, for God knows what reason, the magazines were so kind to this. They loved this. They were all about this. They got all the cover of this. I mean, the reason is probably that they got a big bag of money. Like, I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

I don't want to cast aspersions. And I'm sure there were great people working. But if you were at the UK It's been such a long time My sense is that if you worked at an official magazine Especially in the UK You knew what your job was And your job was to like something

A skill of good to excellence Yes yeah and and that's what goods for And but especially I would certainly assume that if it wasn't a payoff That every magazine of UK of Nintendo official magazine had multiple South Park and other acclaimed game ads all over it and you don't give a bad review to that kind of game

if they've got all your ads. No, back at that time in particular, I mean, that time and earlier there was very, very, like, well known that there were things were getting paid for. That sort of came to a head with the whole Driver 3 thing, which maybe that will come up in some other episode if we ever do controversies.

I heard of the thing after Driver 3 with the British magazine. I won't say on the mic. Oh, what? Yeah, it's, I, look, I, American, American magazines did this stuff too, but in my experience, the British side was more used to it being a request or honorary than American side. That's all I'll say. I've been looking at EGM issues lately, like old ones from scans, because there are scans of like the first like 200 or something. And I look at it and I'm just like, why aren't all magazines like this? All it is is just hype.

Like, it's 200, like, sometimes 400 pages of just like, oh my God, this game's coming out called Lester They Unlikely. Look how weird and amazing it looks. It's going to be so good. Look, it's rolling Ronnie. What is rolling? What's going on? What's going on? Well, guys, I'm sorry to say this. After all this slander, we're never going to work in magazines again. It's over for us. Say everybody, have I seen my balls. They're big and salty and brown. If you ever need a click, pick me up. Just take my balls in your mind. Suck all my chocolate salted balls Put them in your mouth and suck them Oh, shit You'll see

Suck all my chocolate salted balls You're back full of goodness High in fibre Suck my balls Now Now the South Park The next game was due to be a Game Boy Color game with the title, let me just check.

South Park in 1999, it made by Acclaim Entertainment. And it didn't come out. It never hit the shelves, but you can get a wrong of it, which of course you must delete within 24 hours of downloading it. And I have played this,

and it is a reasonably simplistic kind of platform and ladders game, which reminded me, and I'm going to say it, kind of reminded me of like Chuck Eagg or like some old Spectrum game. So I was fully on board. I was like, hello. just just looking at the um the footage of this uh it looks like not obviously not as good as these games

but it's like the lost vikings because presumably the four characters each have their own abilities that's what it seemed like to me they didn't seem that way when i played it but yeah okay they may be based on whoever was playing it it seemed like well you're supposed to throw cartman of course yeah and then donkey kong 94 because it's like very much like donkey kong style girders and ladders and switches and things like that dare i say that i liked it better than donkey kore 94 no i don't because i didn't at all. I was pulling out my call.

I had my pitchfork out. Obviously, it's complete dog share compared to that, but so are most games. So, I mean, looking at the footage of it, I did like how it, it was fun seeing the boys

in the Game Boy Color aesthetic, which is, you know, basically trying to make an NES game in 1999. Like, there's something interesting about that look to it.

It reminded me a little bit of the Game Boy. Bill and Ted game, which I feel like I have to bring up in almost every single podcast they do, but it really is a good game. This South Park game was not as good as a Bill and Ted game, which Retronauts fans, you can now buy on the Switch. They've released a stupid Bill & Ted collection, and you can buy

that game right now on your Switch. Really? Yeah, along with the Nes game, which you must ignore completely and never play it. But the South Park game, I think, sanity prevailed, and someone looked at it and went, hang on a minute, this is for kids, no one's going to buy this. Because the

Game by Color was very much considered at least, but from my perspective, as the sort of the thing you gave your kid brother. It was like your little kid's system with all your colorful 2D platform games and such. We hadn't had the retro renaissance yet. But the game was eventually released, repackaged

and the graphics were redone and it was released as Maya the Bee and her friends in Europe. Why are there so many Maya the B games? What the hell is Maya the B? Never mind. Oh, you don't know? You should know more than we do. I don't know. I don't know. Nothing about Miami, no B. I only saw the anime on Nickelodeon in the late 80s.

Yeah, I was reminded of it because the very cool video channel, Nick Nax, Pop Arena, did a history on Maya the B. I barely even watch Maya the B as a kid on Nickelodeon in the U.S. of that 80s version of it, but it's a German kid's book that has some, I think, more popularity overseas or outside of America. America. And of course, watch the paparina video to know about the, you know, the background of the writer of My and the Bee. And it's, you know, as a man who wrote a book, I believe, in the 1920s in Germany, you know, you can make this other book. This other book was called Mind Kampf. Oh, God. No, no, not that. The only thing I know about My Other Bee is that there's a My Other Bee game on the Game Boy Advance, which looks like Yoshi's Island. And it keeps throwing me off because I expect it to be good, but it's not. um it was all this all this south park game was released in the u.s as the new adventures of mary kate and ashley and i was hoping that you could explain what mary kate and ashley

because i do not know well wow you see mary kate and ashley uh they were babies picked to be on a sitcom and then they were expected to act when they started talking and that was a big mistake but for some reason they became very popular after full house with their own set of like direct to video movies and specials are they were in full house uh yeah they were they were the Well, the twins were played one child on Full House. Gotcha. Yeah. And they were Michelle Tanner. And, yeah, then they very, very smartly were like, you know, we're not going to just go to a new sitcom. We're going to make direct-to-video things that we fully own and a bunch of video games that we fully own. And then, of course, the aughts were as well, early-a-toss were a disgusting time of the countdown to them turning 18 stuff on the Internet.

Yeah. A lot of bad jokes there. And their little sister is Wanda Vision herself. Which I can't watch any movie with her because I'm like, that's an Olson twin. Where's Uncle Jesse? Where is Joey going to show up and do bullwinkle impressions? I want to see it. She got all of the good acting ability, yes.

I don't get like any of the references you just made, but that's fine because they're not for me. You guys didn't get a full house over there? The only thing I know about Fuller House is they made a thing called Fuller House and Carly Jepson did the theme song because I love Carly. I style. That is the only thing about Full House I know. You know, Full House was short, like South Park is currently, what, in its 25th, 26 season, something like that? Full House, the ABC was short-sighted. They're like, eight seasons.

This is too expensive. Get off the air. If that show started when South Park did, it'd still be running. There would be no need for a Fuller House. Was it, like, good? Was it funny? No, absolutely not. But it was fun to watch ironically.

They should have called it Shet House. I agree. We interviewed a Simpsons writer who got some of her first jobs on. there, and she, she was being very nice and diplomatic, but I, there was definitely a sense of like, look, it was full house. We weren't trying hard. So was it the kind of sitcom, like, horsing around from Bojack Horseman, like that kind of lameness? Okay. That's exactly what horse and around is parodying full house. Okay, good, good. Now I get it. Okay, man, I love Bojack. I wish there were games with an excuse to talk about it. Um, South Park continued, unfortunately.

They decided to make another South Park game the following year, uh, for N64 again, Dreamcast, was now out. This is 1999. PlayStation and Windows, and it was called South Park Chef's Love Shack, made by Acclaim Austin, and it's a sort of, you don't know Jack's style game show kind of thing, where you have to answer quiz questions, but there are also minigames in the manner of something like Mario Party that you'll play as it goes on. And the visuals are shocking, like really faithful to the show for the time. They did not deviate from the look of the show at all. I don't think you had like any sort of horrible polygon things in the mini-games it was all just straight up south part looking 2d unfortunately from

my experience the game itself is not particularly enjoyable uh mostly because there really aren't that many questions or mini games that was the problem yeah i we this was another rental uh and we played the dreamcast version the disc accessing is so bad on that version like that also for ever. Yeah. Every question would be like, okay, next question. But yeah, we rented it. But yeah, we rented it. And I swear it was by like the fifth game we played. We're like, wait, we heard that question before. And so we then turned it into a meta game of who can recognize the question first and hit the button before the finishes saying it. Well, it was impressive that they got Isaac Hayes to read all

the questions. And by the way, the fact that he was on the show was just by happenstance because they were developing South Park for Comedy Central and they're just like, Isaac Hayes is available. And they kind of pushed Isaac Hayes on them and they wrote him into the show. So it's not like they started this, this show with like, oh, and the chef character will be the centerpiece. He's going to tie everything together. No, they're like, take Isaac Hayes, please. He's a known quantity. Can I may bring up now briefly because it's relevant. The way that chef exited the show was simultaneously, like, sad and also incredibly funny in its pure meanness to me, to have him get, like, impaled on this, like, rock or something, and then, like, a Jaguar

eats his face, and then you get a call back to the Walmart episode of Cartman being like, no, he might not, he might still be alive. And then just the massive, like, cartoonish shit noise, it's just diarrhea flies out of the corpse. It was just like, my God, how you cannot, tell someone to fuck off any harder than that can you I love when

they're saying like oh no I'm out lying and then and then Carby goes a greasy bear just the way

he says a grizzy bear they start fighting each other and then they both decide no we're going to rip him apart

it's horrible you could tell it they were mad but also they were like you know feeling conflicted about losing

somebody who was a part of the show yeah well there's that sad like eulogy at the end

which is very obviously just them speaking to Isaac A's or about I-Ks. Blame the fruity little club that scrambled his brain. I mean, I have to give, I mean,

other than what they've done subsequently that has put me off them, I do think putting up the Scientology story with a caption that says, this is what Scientologists actually believe is genuinely quite transgressive. They destroyed Scientology with that. Very, very funny to me. And then when they

later did the Super Adventure Club and they did the exact same, this is what the Super Adventure Club, like they could not have made it any clearer, but while still legally being distinct from it. Oh, man. Well, and it's thanks to your country's government that they have, they are uncredited in that episode on Scientology. Yeah.

Yeah, it's like, um, Jando Jando or something, isn't I? I forget how they did it. That's why they have, uh, the Miskavage character in it saying, I'm going to sue you in England. Because they knew the, that he could. Like, they could get him reliable on that. And here we're truly free. Yeah.

Yeah. Sorry about that. And for, you know, everything else that we've done. We're seeing that already with any time somebody says something about J.K. Rowling, we get to say, if they love it. If they live in England, they have to, they can be forced to apologize by the barristers. Yeah. But not here, baby. Land of the free. This is turning me into an American asshole now. That's my wife. I just say to Jake Rowling. For all of the bad messages they put out, they did. I mean, Scientology is still going strong in its own way, but they still discredited it like completely. And. really cut down the amount of new people that would enter that world.

It just makes me think about when this show really was just I don't like using this word because the connotations now but it really was edgy like that's in genuinely edgy and like you didn't know what they were going to do

what they were going to say like the whole Mohammed thing as well I won't get into it but he's talking about the games but man I could talk about South Park a lot yeah it was this was happening like these big episodes

were happening at a time the Daily show was running and this is when we were all very naive and we were thinking yes comedy is a weapon. We can take down fascism with our comedy. And then Donald Trump is elected. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

No amount of jokes. Stopped him. We all laughed at him all the way until November 2016. I, you know, one other memory I have of Chef's Love Shack was when the questions were new to us, they had, there was a real edge one of our friends had

because he was the biggest cure fan and there was an entire section of questions that were about cure and Robert Smith. That's really funny. Why? Yeah. Oh, I do like that.

Why on earth would they do that? Well, because it's a very, it's the season one thing. Robert Smith was the first guest they ever had on the show for real. I didn't know that. Well, if you had George Clooney, George Clooney barks as a dog, fine. But Robert Smith played himself. That was in season two in Mecca's d' end. Oh, damn.

You're right. But I still, their love of Robert Smith went into the Love Shack game. That's wild. I mean, I have to say, yeah, this just doesn't seem like a very good game, but the thing is, if it actually ran well and had more questions, I can see this being all right. I can see this being a decent expression of South Park. The idea of chefing having a game show isn't a bad one. I don't know if it ever came up in any episodes or anything, because I know it opens with him doing a song that you've already heard from the series, the simultaneous loving song. It's funny that a few, like, as soon as Mario Party came out, if there were like swift responses to it like this and Sonic.

shuffle and those just went nowhere. God's sake. Sorry, go on. And then Mario Party is still going strong, I guess. There's like 18 games so far, I guess, something like that. The last one I played Mario Party superstars, I thought it was excellent. I don't even like Mario Party. I think it's the most annoying thing in the

world, but I thought, yeah, I've got a given props. This is real good. I guess that's how to get to that point, you know? I mean, it's not as good as Asterix Sees' Challenge on the Archimedes a Mac, but you know, that's for my asterix, this challenge episode that's coming up

at some point. It's no Fortune Street. I bought that on the Wii because someone made me and I haven't played it yet. I bet I'm going to have a time with that one. It's a board game that can take hours that doesn't let you save. Wow. That's it. Huge mistake in that game. Salt. Good Lord.

All I know is someone on Twitter basically says you have to buy this game now. I was like, fine, fine. It's not very expensive. I'll buy it. And it comes and I'm like, it's Mario and like Cloud or something. And like, Dragon Quest Hero, what have I bought? What is this? And it appears to be some kind of monopoly-style thing.

Okay, talking about Fortune Street. Yeah, let's talk about Fortune Street. And that E3, where they announced it, I was the only person who would walk up to play the game when I was there. It was empty. I was like, because I was the guy going like, wow, Fortune Street. I've always heard about the series and it's finally coming here. And the person who worked for Nintendo seemed very pleased.

They're like, wow, you've actually heard of this. I don't have to explain this to you. That's great. We got one. We found one nerd here. This is what you're going to get in this two episodes. This is what you're going to get in this two episodes. There are going to be tangents.

But speaking of tangents, self-part rally. in 2000. Unless we got more to say about Chef's Love Shack. No, no. No, no, whatever does. I love the era of people complaining about cart games, and now I wish there were more. And it's funny, we're seeing a resurgence of this because recently, within the past year on mobile devices, there's basically a Fox cart racer that has like King of the Hill, an American Dad, and Bob's

Burger's characters in there. No Simpsons, of course. But they're making, like, new cart games with licensed characters in them. And I heard that one is actually pretty good for what it is. Yeah, they've got Garfield Cart Furious Racing, which I'm sure is... That one's not good for what it is. Take control of Garfield, normal. It's a meme, but it's not good.

People only play it as a joke. Yeah. But what else is like Nicktoons Race a 3 or something? Because they keep throwing back to, like, put in all the old Nicktons in there so that people like me will buy it. And then you're buying it. Wait a minute, this is just a re-skinned Garfield Furious Racing. But cart games, I mean, South Park rarely had as good a chance of anything of being good, honestly. It came out in 2000 on Drinkast, PlayStation, N64 Windows, made by Tantalist Interactive.

And at the time, again, the N64 magazine in the UK, the official one, did like this game. It got the cover. They said, yeah, this is great, loads of unlockable characters, loads of fun. I played it for the first time this week to research for this episode. And I have to say, I hate it. It's very, very bad. Now, it does have this system where you're driving two checkpoints rather than a straight sort of course. You have a reasonably open, like, South Park, I don't know what to call it.

It's not an open world, but it's a big, like, it's like Carmageddon or something, or twisted metal. But when you race, you're going from checkpoint to checkpoint, which, of course, eventually does take you around a circuit. But if you are familiar with the tracks, you could take shortcuts and things. And that's quite interesting. However, the problem is, from what I could tell, and I did try quite extensively, I did read the manual, I did look at things to see if I figure out if I was just playing it wrong. It turns like I wasn't. If you make like a mistake, you can never recover, ever. The AI will not give you a second to recover.

You know, it's funny that people, I don't think they do it anymore, but for the longest time they complain about the rubber banding effect in Mario Car games in which you're always kind of about to be caught up to by the AI. but that also was working for you as well. And I don't think people really realize it until they played games like this where it's like, oh, no, the rubber band thing gave me a chance to recover. See, that's just like how people think that Jesus wasn't with them on the beach the whole time. They're like, no, the rubber band was there when it's only one set of trier tracks. Exactly. I mean, I can see why Mario Kart, I mean, I'm not, I'm going to just, I know it's not about that again,

but I'm not really a fan of Mario Kart since the SNAS one because I'm just that salty about the blue shell. Barrio Car 8 I think is the best one they've done since the Super Nintendo Like it's really great but I still hate the blue shell So no thanks But I can see why people like it because of that rubber banding Because of that feeling you're always in the race Trash Nitro what's it called Crash Team Racing Nitrifield I love Crash Team Racing I think Nitrofield is an excellent remake

But the fact is if you make a mistake you're screwed It's not got any kind of It's not what's the word It's competitive but it's not like fun competitive You're not, whoa, getting closer, getting closer, I'm catching you up. There's none of that sense of fun. And South Park Rowdy kind of has the same thing,

except there's a little kid saying ass, basically. And you know, you're picking up a Terrence and Philip Dole that makes you do a big fart and go flying forwards. Ah. You know, I think as far as obvious games to make, a cart racer was the obvious one. They'd have gotten to it anyway, but they picked up on the synergy of the

Respect My Authoritae episode. You know, like, oh, okay. This game, we have to make it now. This is the cover of the game right here. Yeah, Carmen on his big wheel or whatever it was. It was, I mean, for as funny as it wasn't, how much we enjoyed it back then, it was like such a catchphrase loaded show. It was like giving t-shirt makers instructions every episode. And that respect my authorita, I swear to God, that was like a three-month bubble we lived in where you saw the t-shirts everywhere that I referenced up front.

And you saw like little policeman cartman stuffed animals. But then, like, it was just gone. and they forgot about that all completely. The only surprising thing is it's from one of the worst episodes of the series, like the chicken lover episode. I thought it was just like almost no laughs at all. So I'm surprised that's what got on. No one remembers the loving of the chickens.

They just remember the authoritative. And that chicken lover guy, he's in one of the mini games of Chef's Love Shack when I was watching the play through. Just like, oh my God, this guy? Was he in more than one episode? South Park Really not much to say about it Because it really is just licensed

Tie and Drivel There doesn't feel like there's been effort put into it It does have your four-player racing And the thing is On the PlayStation, not to mention the NCC4 You know, PS1 you've got Speed Freaks Or what was called Speed Punks in the US, I think You've got Reckon crew

You've got Crash Team racing You've got Muppets racing There is no shortage of cart racing games, Micromaniacs, all that sort of thing. Oh, Chocobo Racing. Yeah, Chocobo racing,

the best one. I never actually played Chocobo racing. I have no idea if it's good or not. I'm assuming it's at least pretty good. The original one is fine for that kind of game, yeah. I wanted to try the new one, but I found out that it's got like

Battle Pass or something, and you now can't get most of the characters. And I was like, well, why did they implement that? South Park Rally, though, no, don't play it. Not even out of curiosity. I really think it will frustrate you. you get hit by a weapon you're going to go flying off course

your little Kyle's going to say like you bastard or something and then you will laugh because that's very funny obviously but then you will be very frustrated when you now can't win the race I think it did much the same sort of thing as the shooter which is almost every time you achieve anything you can unlock a new character there are hidden items in the courses as well that you have to find to unlock other new characters and there's quite a large roster but the problem is you don't really

want to be any of them in the game this bad. It's not, you know, it's like the Simpsons wrestling. You really want to play as Ned Flanders, but you really don't want to play the Simpsons wrestling enough to unlock Ned Flanders. You guys have done the Simpsons games. You must have done the Simpsons games before on, because I know you talked about, yeah, you interviewed someone from Bart versus the World or Space Meets or something. I vaguely remember. Yeah, yeah, that was in early days on our Patreon. He worked at a claim before the South Park era of the he left for Fox

Interactive but he even he had to admit like look those games were good we and when I went to the next we went to Fox Interactive to try to make Simpsons games there our plan was to actually make good ones yeah but that when it this is like the end of classic

South Park games here in this era and it's it's funny too because the gulf between them this is being older nine years is not much to me now But the nine years in between those two games was like, I was a fucking teen when Raleigh came out. And when the next game came out, I was working at my video game online job. Like, I had my real job and I was an adult.

I was a big boy. It's remarkable that the show did stay, sort of, I hate using this word, but it sort of stayed on the zeitgeist for that long. I think it's sort of lost it now. I think it's a bit of a relic, but but it was so, it was very current because they did make that choice to go topical. But South Park, the next game, which you've mentioned,

double six with South Park Digital Studios, because this is when the era, when they were putting their brand very heavily on these games. It's South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play, which is presumably a humorous reference to the English, or whatever it was called, phenomenon there. Because it's hosted more or less by the shitty, what's it called,

City walk. City walk the guy. So you're basically being bellowed at in a like racist Japanese voice constantly. And the annoying thing is it makes me think of the human scent iPad episode, which cracks me up and I feel very bad laughing at it because it is horrible. But no, I have to admit, I really did enjoy this when I played it up with a friend at the time. It is a, it is very much a traditional tower defense where you build walls and you build, well, turrets as swarms of South Park-style enemies come at you with you. You've got rats. You've got, you know, the ginger kids. Ha, ha, ha, ha, the ginger, you know, all that sort of thing, sort of swarming you. But crucially, what makes it fun for me is you're not just a cursor. You are one of the kids and you throw snowballs yourself so you can contribute to this. You are running around the maps, attacking the enemies, while your best laid plans are also taking place. There's nothing particularly remarkable about it, but it is a well-executed tower defence.

game, which you could play with up to four players. And that, you know, that was a big deal for me, especially with couch co-op. But I never really heard anyone talk about this game or anyone else that I knew ever played this game. It was pretty much me and my one friend Cambridge. But I've got fond memories of it, and I did buy it myself when I got an Xbox eventually, and now I never play it and probably never will again. So, yeah. Yeah, this came out at a time where it felt like one out of five games on XPLA was Tower Defense or similar. to it. And I only really liked one of these games, and it was Plants v. Zombies, and it came out this year. So to me, that is like the end of Tower Defense for me. Like, that's just like, can it get better than this? Probably not. Yeah, I loved Plants versus Zombies a ton. I did not really touch this game. Though when it came out, I was just getting started in the games press world. And my thought was like, wow, wait, South Park has video games again now? I thought that was over. And to know that it was South Park. digital studios that did show me that like they're actually invested in this one and I think

if you're thinking from like a business portfolio sense this is the right way to start like just take a tried and true genre that everybody you can just don't have to write a ton of stuff for don't have to make a ton of assets for and sell it as an XPLA game which is a nice safe bet you're not having to print a ton of copies of something or it's a much more it's an easy test. I mean, I think you can still buy this. I don't think it's been delisted you. The problem is you have to have your 360 hooked up because it is not on

Xbox cross, what's it called, backwards compatibility, which is, you know, not the biggest upset in the world. I would say it's probably not the most demanded game. But oddly enough, Ugly American's game, that's on backwards compatibility. So you can play the game based on the

forgotten two-season comedy central cartoon Ugly Americans, Apocalypse Geton. Is that also a tower defense game? No, it's a really, really bad twin stick shooter. Weird, weird. Yeah, we'll save talking about that for the inevitable ugly Americans episode, which we're doing, you know, two, three hours about ugly Americans. You might need to call somebody else for that one. I thought that show was tolerable because they got Ogenblik Studios to animate it. They were the ones who did the first season of Super Jail. So the animation is very, very good for what is essentially an animated sitcom.

Yeah, well, I loved the first, like, episode. I was like, oh my God, this is so great. This is EC comics looking thing and oh my god that zombie is talking like just kind of a bro dude that's hilarious zombies aren't like that you know zombies don't like having sex um what if your boss was literally the devil

yeah whoa yeah he was a hot girl who wanted like fuck no that was his daughter oh okay come on we're talking about the Americans Henry my bad it's an institution this is cultural like cashier man you need to be on top of this but no I guess everything got a game

but there was never any Moonbeam City game may it rest in peace That's such a great show It was a show It's sorry we're friends with the guy It's a great show It is actually a great show

I liked the two or three ones like I saw I have to admit that was quite funny It should have gotten another season Oh yeah unfair It would have found its moonbeam feat Its marketing made everybody think it was just an archer clone When it really isn't I blame the marketing

I did, like, controversially had that Rob Loachap in it, didn't it? And but also Will, Will Forte. Is it Forte? Will Forte, the funniest guy around. He was great. He was, I can't remember the name of the character he was, but he was hilarious. Chaz wasn't an advocate.

I don't know. I haven't sustained it so long. I'll watch the rest of season one at some point. Anyway, South Park. You see, this is what happens. You get distracted by other adult animated cartoons, because the fact of the matter is, a claim got The Simpsons,

and they got South Park, so they kind of were nailing it at this point. And then they were like, okay, the next big thing, Alan Gregory. Let's get that. Alan Gregory RTS. Oh, man. Yeah, really tragic show. South Park, Teneman's Revenge, 2012, a sequel to the episode.

God, what is the name of that episode? The Scott Tenement Must Die. Scott Tenement Must Die. Yeah. One of the most notorious episodes of the series, and for good reason. yeah like an early as the show seemed to be losing steam that was like an early like rejuvenation I think like oh man the show could still go places oh it's very funny I mean watching it now there really aren't that many laughs but then the ending is every single time it's just outstanding

yes I love hearing every member of radio head to tell him he's like what a loser what you're going to cry about yeah oh my god this when I when I when I so I never played this oh no and I watch videos of it and it seems fairly competent but whatever I look at at these games that look like this. I get depression because it looks just like every low to mid-budget XBLA game that at first when I was very poor and it was a novelty like, wow, a $10 game. And then I realized like, oh, a lot of them are just kind of like this where there's nothing bad about it, but it's just like a fairly middling but competent way to spend your time. It was made by Other Ocean who also made Dark Void Zero, which was the

demake of the really under, well, not underappreciated because it wasn't that good, but the unknown game, Capcom game, Dark Voie, the Jetpack game. And the PS4 Medieval, which I thought was really,

really good, incidently. But this is a pretty much bog standard four player platform game, big widescreen,

like, zoom out. So you have a lot of room to maneuver as each character. But you're just, it feels European

because you're constantly collecting shit. Like, every platform is like festooned in these, like,

atom things that you collect, like something out of Vecta Man. Everywhere you go, every single wall is a false wall that leads to more certain stuff. So you lose the sense of like, oh, cool, I found a secret, because you just know for a fact that every single wall is going to be like that after a while.

And the levels take forever if you're anything like me because you want to collect everything. So you're just jumping around slowly collecting these hundreds upon hundreds of atoms, get to the end of the level. And you're like, your time was 45 minutes. I don't know, I even did like Dark Void Zero a little, but I did not give this a chance. chance because, yeah, it just had that feel of like, eh, it's kind of cheap

and also like, this is 2012, I am a very busy games journalist at this point, and I'm not making as, if I had been sent a free copy of it, maybe I would have given it a shot, but that, that's the mental space I was in in 2012. I said it was a sequel

to Tenor Must Die, but it was kind of more of a, not a sequel, but the episode's 200 and 201, uh, which incidentally are not on the DVDs in the UK. You just cannot get them on DVD. It's because it's an

incredible, it's a very complex story about why that is. Yeah, yeah. But the general premise of those episodes was to do a huge South Park sort of continuity celebrate characters who had appeared for years like Pip turn up

in this. And one of the final sort of, I guess, reveals is Carpman's father is actually I want to say Scott Teneman. by means of some contrivance because they find Scott Tenement and they do a very direct almost shot for shot,

well panel for panel, killing joke thing with Scott Tenement being the Joker lounging around all these baby doll pieces. But that's what this game was based on that sort of visual, that episode. This is an extrapolation of that.

Although Mohammed does not turn up, you'll be pleased to hear, not even as DLC. These are not available on HBO, max either these ones they're not yes well i guess there's no way to see them then two two of five episodes uh not available i mean matt and tray like disown that episode too the that's also probably why it's not there well because of the censorship yes yeah because oddly enough out there you can get the uncensored version of it and it doesn't seem to be a fan made thing i think they swept it off

the servers or something you can hear kyle doing his full his full speech in the end of two hundred one, which is basically like the only true power is violence. If you just threaten to hurt people, you'll always get what you want. And everyone's like, yeah. But, you know, which is quite a funny message. But you can kind of, I guess, see why they didn't want it broadcast. Yeah, yeah. Not that I'm siding with the network.

It's a very complicated thing. Now nobody cares about drawing Muhammad anyway anymore. I mean, the funniest thing about that is they'd shown Muhammad in the Super Best Friends episodes of tons and tons of times. Yeah. He was even in the opening, I think, of the series for several seasons. But, yeah, not the best game, kind of flat, kind of bland. I don't hate it, but there's no reason to play it ever again, I would say.

It wasn't a million miles away from something like Bart versus the World, although it actually had OK control, so it elevates itself above that. I would say it was better than Bart versus the World, and slightly worse than Space Mutants. But then again, I'm the only person who likes Space Mutants. so you could be steward you could be well i had it on the mast system and i didn't have anything else so i kind of fell in love with it so you were being gaslit i pretty much yes gaslit my bar versus the spacemians i'm like no guys it's really cool if you blow the whistle this old guy

comes out and throws money at you that's awesome anyway i i had that same argument with a british person about them saying it was good and i was like i i had to admit to them to like i'm sure the master system version was better than the super than the nes version but that is not of a high bar. I mean, all they need to do to make that game good is, I mean, they make it so that you can run and jump without having to spray your gas that you can of aerosol all the way down

because there are only two buttons. You'd think they do that on the Mega Drive version, which has three buttons, but no, they just only use two of the buttons. They're idiots. I'll rant about space meetings and some other episodes because we need to get to the latest

and I guess kind of in arguably best South Park games. Two years after South Park Tenement's Revenge we get the first I don't want to say AAA but the first big boxed South Park game in a while which is South Park the Stick of Truth in 2014

made by Obsidian and South Park Digital Studios, released on Windows, PS3 and Xbox 360, and later, as a giveaway with the fractured but hole, and later sold separately, PS4, Xbox 1 and the Switch. And now what you've got here, Matt and Trey were much, much more involved in, very closely involved in, in fact,

to the detriment of the show, is an RPG with more traditional term-based two-character combat and huge fidelity. The whole thing does look like an episode of South Park at all times pretty much. If there wasn't for like the HUD and such, you could forgive and be forgiven and think you were watching an episode. But what did you make of this one?

Did you play this when it dropped? You know, I will say that I want to say this is a AAA game because it takes a lot of to make it look, uh, quote unquote, crappy by that it looks like a South Park episode. And they're also paying the show's billionaire writers to do voices and write all the dialogue. So I feel like, even though it doesn't look as flashy as like God of War Ragnarok, the amount of work is still being put into it. I can see it. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. And it was marketed like a AAA game with that much money.

Like I... This is another one that I saw from the other side of the Games Press 2. And that's why, like, I got to see it first as a THQ game and then THQ died. Oh, my God. Yeah. And it became a Ubisoft game. And it had to be marketed by both of them. And THQ, man, if they could have just got this game out a little sooner, but that's what you get for working with the city. i'd say uh but if they could have got it out a little sooner it might have saved the company who

knows the obsidian you may have to wait for their games but they're very good well t hq have been reborn now like a cockroach yeah actually they're more powerful than ever they own they own tolkien now oh uh they've been embraced yeah they're the embracist oh geez tv and they own tolkien yes yeah really yep yeah among many other things i mean not the south part character tolkien the actual like okay the every thing of lord of the ring is owned by the Tolkien Estate sold it to the Embracer Group, which also owns Nordic Games

and owns THQ, and that's why it's T.HQ. Oh, yeah, Nordic Games. They're the guys who advertise on a paedophile websites, aren't they? Good stuff. You know, soon we'll all be speaking Swedish, so let's not laugh too early. I don't think about that too hard, because look, they made a new SpongeBob game. Way.

But Stig of Truth, it was the first time where I was like, wow, this actually feels like it's really the show, and I'm like playing the show. and they were saying all the right things in interviews, too. They were saying, like, oh, well, we love Paper Mario and Super Mario RPG and Earthbound. Like, they specifically shouted out Earthbound as, like, Trey Parker's like, I loved Earthbound. And this story of four kids who fight against aliens, like, you can see that in the first episode of South Park.

Like, he was making direct connections. And I also have a funny story about I went. to the, I believe it's Comic Con 2013 panel for this game or 2014, one of those two. And they're presenting the game. First off, it's funny because I got the sense that the men, Trey, were having to face their fans in the Q&A part and they did not like it. Like guys came up and like, you, you swore my whole life of all my views and they're like, oh, I'm sorry. You should, don't do that. Don't do that.

or somebody would say, I loved all those great old South Park games. I'm so glad there's another one. They'd say, like, those are shit. Those are new games. And lastly, I did think it was very funny that they were partnered with Greg Miller to be the host of the panel. And after Greg Miller introduced them, they ignored Greg Miller the entire rest of the panel and did not speak to them and hosted the panel themselves. It seems like he is the kind of like smiling corporate presence they would despise. Yes.

And no, speaking of that, like it's funny. I didn't play these games. and they do seem interesting to me, but again, like I, I, the, the South Park mentality kind of bristles against me and I, those guys need to learn a few things. But it's funny, like, Ubisoft is like the most toothless gutless publisher in the world. Even if they make a game about a subject, there you go. Even if they make a game about a subject, they're like, we think the players should decide what to think. Even if it's about like police violence or something, they're completely gutless. But it's funny to be at a Ubisoft appointment and having, you know, the nice, the nice PR person who,

doing their jobs are like, okay, make your character. Now go up to the toilet and there's like a nice Ubisoft PR person teaching me how to use the control button to spread a child's ass cheeks open so shit can fall out of it. So that's what's happening at these video game points. Like, okay, now hit the L, but okay, now the butt cheeks are open. Now you can drop a poop in there. It's just like, I, it's funny that I was having to be walk through this, but it's just like, this is not like my Assassin's Creed appointments at all.

but I like that Matt and Trey put this offensive stuff in their games and then like it has to be brought down to the corporate level to like instruct games journalists like now now do this offensive thing and they have to do it like because they actually do hold all the cards like it's it's their studio and if you want to make a South Park game you got to please these guys I mean it from the from a journalist side of things it's funny to see the publisher side who uh almost every single other time tells creatives each shit we're doing this, that it had to be the other way around, that PR actually had to listen to the creatives on something and let it do, I mean, wasn't it hilarious when Matt and Trey were like,

hey, we're going to do, we'll do a section of the E3 press conference for Ubisoft, and they destroyed the whole show because they did not go on script, they did not go on time, and they were making fun of the presentation style of the people that proceeded them. And that was the year where

like the president was like, I will tell you about my Assassin's Creed movie I am making. Yes. Oh, dear. Good old Eves. Good old Eves. Yeah. Sorry, I got sad thinking about Ubisoft. I mean, it's weird that they make a game like

Assassin's Creed, and that has the word assing it twice, and it still doesn't have any shitting. It's just really disappointing. Bring shitting to the series. In another world, there's a huge outcry on Twitter because a games journalist wasn't able to make a child take your shit. Well, you can't even do that. My word. Yeah, I respect these games because Ubisoft

adjust, like, they're not making this, of course, they're publishing it, but I feel like they have an identity in all of their games are kind of the same, but this, they were allowed, they didn't make this an open world Ubisoft game. They're allowed to make it their own thing, and there are so few Ubisoft games these days that are allowed

to break free from that identity. So it's refreshing to see that this was even possible. The bit with, I mean, too, Like, Ubisoft didn't buy this South Park game. They bought a game that was already greenlit and they continued it. Like, I absolutely think South Park, who knows, they might have even actually pitched it to Ubisoft at one point. And Ubisoft goes like, nah, that's not really what we want to do. It's single player only a term-based RPG?

Do you claim any towers in this game? It's a stand player tower? Where's your season pass plan? Well, they did end up with a season pass plan, actually. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was in, the second one, wasn't it? Because the first one, I thought there was only just a little bit of a DLC, but I didn't... Yeah, in the second one, there's a bus stop that actually is just your DLC bus stop. Yeah, I heard that the DLC for that was pretty good, but I guess we'll get to that.

I mean, the stick of truth, I haven't finished, I have to admit, I've been playing it for now about nine years on and off. I will occasionally dip into it because with the best will in the world, all the fights are the same. Once you reach a certain point, you will never lose a fight, and they're all the same. The main obstacle I ran into is when the game teaches you how to use the fart magic, the controls are completely opaque and, like, make no sense. I would get stuck at them for like 30 minutes trying to do this stupid tutorial. That doesn't even relate to how you do them in the actual fights. It was QTE.

I did like that they put an abortion clinic is one of the main areas in the game, and that then had a bunch of problems internationally, even being solved. Yeah, the European console version, there's big parts of the game cut out. Australia, too, I believe. Yeah, yeah. I remember because the image that comes up is like, I don't remember what it is. There's some European image of some sort. It's just like, sorry, Europe, you don't get to play this part.

Though I had it on PC, so I did get to play it. Yay, lucky me, I get to perform an abortion on a child in a game. Again, we're truly free. Yeah. Free to consume, the only freedom that matters in America. They'll sell us anything. After three years, the game was just a hell of a title of a title. The South Park, the fractured butthole.

It's so good. I'm just in awe of that. It was 2017. That was all the usual systems, Windows, PS4 Xbox 1 and Switch. And rather than continuing from the fantasy theme of the first game, they were using, now this is what it's called,

so please do not get across with me, the Coon, as they called it, where Cartman would dress up as a raccoon and run around, saying a racial slur hilariously, over and over and over again, because they could somehow get away with that. Yep. Um, man, bad.

Did anyone, did anyone find those cute episodes funny? Because I thought it was just interminably unfuny. It felt like they were all just an excuse to say an antiquated racial slur. And it, and it was like shockingly funny to me to see that character on the front of a Ubisoft box. Just like, it's essentially, it's like the racial slur game. It has another title, but that's kind of the point is to say that, uh, that word a lot. Over and over and over again in the game. So this is more of a taking a run at the sort of MCU kind of parody, I would say.

Is that fair to say, I think, for this one? Yeah, so this one actually I played to completion. This was a pandemic game for me, which isn't over, but I should call it a lockdown game. No, I ended it. It's okay. Oh, nice one. Thanks for that, Bob. Yeah, yeah.

I wanted to play it for all the Marvel stuff in it, which was funny. I did like them. They were making fun of like phase three in the entire plan. And it was all just about, Carmen wanted to have a successful superhero team so he could sell all the different phases of superheroes to it. And I also like that the game starts with them saying like, no,

it's not that. We're not playing that anymore. We're not playing fantasy anymore. We're playing superheroes now. And there's, they have some good stuff with the cops, like anti-cop stuff. But then the joke in the end of it,

of course, has to be slightly centrist as well. But, uh, Is this the game where at the beginning, for hard mode, you just make your skin incrementally darker? Difficulty is measured by the darkness of your skin, yes. See, that's an okay-ish, like, swipe, you know, but it doesn't really amount to anything, does it? And also, they respect gender pronouns to such an absurd, to such a high degree to be absurd, and I feel it is the joke.

Right, I see. Like, characters will ask you, like, Mr. Mackey will ask you, you know, oh, what do you identify as? Oh, that's great. We have a lot of cis people here, whatever. Yeah, I mean, knowing who they are and what they believe, I feel like the joke is they're being sarcastic. Like, could you believe if anyone cared this much? Wouldn't that be a silly world? Yeah.

And also, I did like doing the hunt for the Yowie images in the game. Though then again, I was still like, the tweaking crazy is that. These are 10-year-old boys drawn making out with each other. This is weird. Again, investigate Ubisoft. Yes. They're making me spread a child's butt open? What's happening at that place?

Well, they did an episode, Tweek, X, Tweek and Craig, which was making, I guess, it was sort of seen as embracing that whole kind of weird side of the fandom. I don't mean weird, like, gay weird. I mean weird, like, small children, weird, you know? I just want to make that clear, because I don't want to come off wrong here. I feel like I've already done that, so, yeah, I apologize. It's weird to step away from the source material. you know, we were so inundated with it as kids and teenagers where I'm watching the Chef's Love Shack

video and the final round is like a lightning round and you have to answer questions as this probe approaches Cartman's butt, butthole. And if you fail, it starts drilling into his ass. So then I was like, oh, the whole first episode was about a child's ass being violated. Yes. When you put it like that. Yeah. Yeah. I guess it's just, I dare say this humor is inappropriate. I guess it's just the way that perception has changed around stuff like that

around child's anus Yeah, I mean you couldn't In 1997, you could launch a series based on that joke. In 2023, I think your building would be burned to the ground by internet weirdos. Yeah. God. Yeah. I mean,

it's kind of wild. I mean, and again, some of the stuff that South Park's got away with just still kind of blows my mind, honestly. I don't know how they do it. But, yeah, I mean, the fact that they changed up the combat to be a bit, what was it like a sort of lane-based kind of, not quite so simplistic. It was a lot like Battle Network, actually, except in turn-based, yeah. I guess Battle Network's kind of term-based, yeah. I think you have like a limit of time to act, and then it's the enemy's turn, I think, maybe. Yeah, it's, it has a lot of good stuff in it. I have to say, it was

fun to play. I played it to completion. And then every, I'd say one out of every five jokes would make me go like, ooh, I'm embarrassed. My husband is watching me play this right now. I mean, that's the South Buck experience now, isn't it? Like, I guess one in three episodes, you're just going to go, oh, for Christ's sake.

And speaking of them bringing back old characters to powerful effect, I won't spoil the end of the game, but they bring back the Marlon Brando character from the first season who makes genetic clones with assets. Oh, Mephisto. they bring back Mephisto for the finale of the game like he his lab is I as I recall the final level of it yeah that's cool

he was in 200 and 201 but that was a long time even before this it's uh you know they're giving it away like all Ubisoft games that are more than a year old that's basically zero dollars it's always on sale so uh if you're looking for a good if you do like nintendo kitty RPGs like paper Mario you actually do get a lot of that infraction butthole. Yeah. If you like Nintendo KDRPGs like Paper Mario, may I recommend

bug fables and maybe not softbuck. I heard bug fables is very good. It is. It is remarkably good. And it doesn't have

any child's anus being drilled by anything. Thank God. Yeah, there's now a bunch of Paper Mario likes and bug fables is one of them. There's another one

that recently came out and I forget the name, but people are making, I love when people start making games when Nintendo just stops. And that's the last self-plug game, apart from the phone game, phone destroyer, which I have not played, it never will.

I assume it's just one of the three of human games they made fun of in the episode anyway, or a card game or something, I don't know. I'm shocked that Ubisoft hasn't green lit a third South Park game. I would have figured Butthole made some money. I would have figured it did.

Maybe they are working on it, and it's just not been announced yet. They are already doing six episodes per season now, so maybe they are working on it. Matt and Trey are very busy guys, so it also could just be like, we literally can't, we don't have the time to make a third video game.

And they're also aging guys. or in their 50s now. They're doing six episodes per season, but they're also doing the movies, which I presume take up the time that the other two episodes would have. And they're basically sold as episodes anyway. Yes.

And on top of that, right now they're working on rebuilding the real life Casabonita in Denver, Colorado. Oh, yeah. The most recent episode was making fun of them for doing that. I think they were mocking themselves for being so just sitting back and just not knowing what the hell they were doing, basically.

It's like Butters is trying to run this ice cream parlour while Cartman is just not going in and just like being Cartman. This season has been surprisingly good, honestly. But that sort of brings us to the end of South Park games. I guess it's not quite so bad

as I thought. It really is just a very poor first few years of real lame licensed crappy games. I mean, would you say that of this sort of adult animation stuff, they're the only ones have ever put out any games that could reasonably

described as good? Or do you think there are any good or do you think there are any good or sit and run isn't that Simpson's set and run but you know

Stuart and there's always like one rare good game from licensed properties I think I want to say we did a Beavis and Butthead games episode last year

I heard that it was great virtual stupidity is up there with the Lucas Arts adventure games in terms of quality but that is an outlier and I think the other Beavis a Budat Adventure game

do you is a fine like almost telltale style adventure game but are outliers, I think, but I do think they made one really good Beavis and Butthead game with that virtual stupidity adventure game. And I'd also say, if you think there's any others, look up that Family Guy game and know that there aren't.

Oh, that game sucks, so bad. I bought that. I was well excited because I loved Family Guy. I still kind of do love Family Guy for all my sins. I'm really sorry that I love Family Guy. I'm really ashamed of it. Hey, look, I've lined up on Family Guy too. It's fine. I just like, it's just, it's just gags. I don't expect any emotion from it or any, like, you know. Plus, they've also kind of stopped being horrible about, like, gay people and trans people. They've just, I've moved on

from it. But... The quagmire's been reformed. Yeah, now they've made quagmire into not a rapist, except when they want, except sometimes. No, when I say that, as if that's what it should be praised for, yes, they used to be absolutely vile about trans people, but now they're not quite so bad. Five stars.

Um, my word, no. Um, yeah, I would put South Park up there. I mean, better than the ugly Americans game, better than any imaginary Brickleberry game or something. There's an alternate world where Brickleberry gets like 10 games. What about the Bordertown game? Oh, Jesus.

Oh, man. I just want to keep doing this and keep naming shows, but I'm not going to do it. The three South game. Yeah, the stressed... Oh, man. I think there actually was a stressed Eric game as well. You know, also, oh, sorry, Duck Made Adventure game, very good,

but they couldn't afford Jason Alexander. Oh, yeah, that's going to bring the whole thing down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, and there was the... team joke game that was the like uh it was oh rc pro golfer and that yeah i played through i finished that it was terrible it was part of me what part of me wondered if it was actually terrible on purpose because that was kind of thing that they would do i believe that well i think i also think they would make a cheap horrible a cheap game that just sucks and then they'd be like uh it was a joke

that's a joke the main thing i like it's it's it's funny you bought it yeah i bought that for like real cheap on sale like maybe like a fiber or something and the best thing about it is it has the Brood Witch episode in it. You can just watch it from the menu. And the Brood Witch is really funny. So I would just watch the Brood Witch over and again. The Harvey Birdman game wasn't bad. Oh yeah. The Phoenix Wright style one. Yeah. Yeah. And by that it's like it's the length of half of a Phoenix Wright first chapter. It's like a two hour game. But it's very, very faithful. There was a, just listening to them that, but it was a Dari game as well. Darry's in fun. I'm sure you know about that one as well. I heard it's very bad and produced in very limited

quantity. So I've actually never played it. Weirdly, enough, I do own a copy of that, like a legit copy. And I don't, I picked up for a charity shop, a thrift store or something. And I'm wondering if I should maybe look on eBay and see if it's worth infinity monies. But that's it. But that's it. But that's it. It's been in the works for like seven years. Oh, geez. Yeah. I think that's definitely coming out along with the clone high. Although that's actually dropped, hasn't it? Some of that's actually been leaked. I'll be out in May. Yeah. I mean that, but as far as like most successful at being, of having video games of adult animation,

It is South Park, I would say. Yes. Not Dilbert. With the young Dilbert and Dilbert's desktop games. South Park had two real video games that I would call like actual like, oh, these are eight out of tens. Or seven maybe on stick of truth. But and then, you know, tower defense and Tiananmen's revenge are like, hey, this is a big, you don't have to be ashamed of those. I'm sure they didn't cost very much for the consumer. I'm sure they were like 800 points, 800 Microsoft points, right?

Oh, the point. Yeah. But no, thank you very much for coming on and yamering about South Parker and all sorts of other things with me. And where can, where can Retanaut's listeners who I'm sure have no idea? Where can they find you, Bob? Well, they can find me on Twitter as at Bob Servo. And, of course, I am part of the Talking Simpsons Network of Podcast. You can find those wherever you find podcasts.

Or go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. if you go there you get advanced access to episodes but also access to our vast catalog of mini-series episodes over 150 to date we've covered things like Mission Hill the Critic and Batman the animated series and if you're on that $5 level at our Patreon you also get monthly access to new episodes

of Talking of the Hill and Talking Futurama Our King of the Hill and Futurama recap series and as soon as you sign up you get access to everything we've been doing for almost six whole years with Patreon That's a lot of stuff Yeah I can vouch for that A lot How far through King of the Hill are you

we have just started season three and it is one of the best seasons it's a lot of fun what a great show that is for like the first six years though man yes um and sorry yes and henry where can we where can our beloved listeners find you on the internet uh yes i'm at h e n er e y g and yeah back in up what bob said talking simpson's what a cartoon podcast and if you go to the premium level there which is ten bucks a month you get to hear our what a cartoon movie podcast and if you liked hearing all this stuff about south park uh we have a over six-hour South Party, the movie, Bigger, Longer and Uncut, a podcast. We get into every bit of history. If you want to know why Conan O'Brien doesn't voice Conan O'Brien in that or why they're so mean to Brooke Shields in that scene, I have the clips and we play them and go through it. So you'll learn a lot of trivia. That Brooke Shield's bit with Terrence just looking at her with this stupid kind of, like

that Canada face that they do before he just slaps her in the face. It's so funny. feel bad laughing at it but it is so funny um that's got to be a deep dive at six hours i remember listening to your goofy movie deep dark because that's one of my favorite dizznys and i loved that so yeah oh thanks i can vouch for all those i kind of come on and off and listen to everything and then go back on again and they keep forgetting i should really do that um but as for um retronauts itself uh we have a five dollar tier which lets you get early access to um every monday episode you get a week early so you get to be the cool kids and know exactly what

everyone's talking about it, and then the next week when everyone's like, oh my God, did you hear that episode Studed about Dizzy? You know, I heard that episode Stude about Dizzy last week. Bullshit, that was old news. I'm already listening to the next one, which is Stu talking about giddy. But also for $5, you get access to Diamond Fy's tremendous

This Week in Retro columns, which are also mini-podcasts that they record. And you'll also get this month in Retronauts, which is a new community podcasts, which so far is about me getting really angry about something to some reason and ranting about it and causing

a mini-updown a mini breakdown on the Discord, which you'll also get access to so you can witness me having my mini breakdowns every month. Lots of fun for the whole family. And you'll also get two exclusive episodes every month, but for Metro Networks, completely exclusive to Patrions, and they're great

episodes too. We're not just lumbering you with like buzzy. This is good stuff, you know? You want to want to be tuning in. One of them this month was Super Metroid. You want to hear us talking about Super Metroid? That's like a solid 8.5 out of 10, if not more. But yeah, that's Retronauts, and thank you very, very much for listening. I guess we should all round off with some kind of South Park noise.

Does that sound appealing to everyone? Okay, well, I'll have my startup noise for my PC back then. Beefcake, beef cake! Oh, my God, that takes me back. I'll say, yeah, I want cheesy poofs. Nice, nice, nice. See, this is the thing I had all of the sounds that you guys are saying, assigned to different sounds on my computer. So I will do the beginning of the Carl's Mons a Bitch song

And I will say I can't do the Cartman voice Because my voice has been destroyed But thank you very much for listening And I hope you have a fantastic day You know, I'm going to be able to be. Thank you.