Retronauts - 636: The 8-Bit Mascot Ranking Hootenanny

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

Jeremy Parish, Diamond Feit, Nadia Oxford, and an entire room full of people take stock of the mascot characters of the 8-bit era and (loudly) rank the value of their existence. Who comes out on top?! 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 episode of Retronauts is brought to you by Cook Unity. This week in Retronauts, the Who and Hoot Nanny is you. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the official Retronauts panel for Retro World Expo 2024, not the fake Nadia Oxford panel from earlier. That's the trick panel. That was the Ersats. Now you're going to die in seven days after. That was retro knots. Okay, that was good.

All right, I've been saving that one up for almost 20 years. Glad I could spend it. Got that out of the way. Hi, I'm Jeremy Parrish, and I am hosting this panel, but I am not up here alone because we also have. I'm Nadia Oxford. I did the fake panel we just talked about, the one that will kill you in seven days. I apologize, except I don't. I'm part of Act of the Blog God as well.

We are an RPG podcast. Terrible case of Ringu Worm. Fatal, really. And down at the end, we have... Hello, my name is Diamond Fight, and I also hosted a chat today, but that was held in secret behind closed doors. So you'll hear that at some future point,

but only if you go to patreon.com slash retronauts. Hey, good pitch. nice our fourth panelist today is you the audience because this are you are you me no you i mean you not you you isn't me no who can frent forest fire them you third person you not second uh yes this is another of the famous retronauts rinking hoot-nanny episodes this is going to be recorded as an episode we're recording right now on this little thing and uh usually we'd like to get a lot of people in here So instead of doing the four-panel thing, four-person panel thing, I said there's going to be a lot of people in the audience so we can really get some participation going. So what I'm going to do this episode, and let's get it started properly.

There we go. All right, here's the way it's going to go. This is the 8-bit mascot ranking hoot-nanny. So we are going to go through 18 of the most visible, popular, and notable mascot characters from the 8-bit era. And as usual, we are going to, those of us up here at the panel,

are going to assign a number to those characters from 1 to 18, 1 being the best. They are number 1, number 18 being the worst. Or maybe there are no bad mascots. Maybe they're just the least best. But in any case, that's how we're going to do that. I've got a spreadsheet up here where we're going to be tracking all of this live,

and then once we have given our numbers, we are going to open it up to you, and I've got a decibel meter here, and we're going to put down the number of decibels that you generate on the spreadsheet. And then at the end of the panel, we are going to rank the numbers that you generate from best to worst,

most loudest to least loud, I guess. And those will be the fourth column of numbers. And from that, we will collectively determine which of these 8-bit mascots are the best. There is a recording here. You've been warned, so you're going to be part of posterity. But if you prefer not to be recorded, you don't have to leave. You can just be very, very quiet and not participate. We're not going to call out anyone by name, except Squall Leonhardt.

You're actually a 32-bit mascot. You are not up for consideration here. Gunblade or no. Sorry. So anyway, there are just a few basic ground rules that I have to present here, which is that the characters included in this panel, this hoot nanny, were determined arbitrarily by me. I did not open it up for discussion, but I used my great wisdom and kindness to induct 18 characters into this countdown. basically if a character debuted on 8-bit systems and appeared in multiple games

or was presented as a company mascot they were eligible. I tried not to bring in too many characters from a single company so you're not going to get like all Konami all the time, all Nintendo all the time. There's no Kirby, I'm sorry. I'm very sorry, man with the Kirby shirt. It's nothing personal. It's just we had to come up with some limitations. And finally, if a character debuted outside

of games media. They are not eligible. So Golgo 13, no. Teenage Ninja Turtles, sorry. Lots of cool A-bit games based on TM&T, but no. So that's pretty much it. So without further ado, I'm going to let it get rolling. This is done, presented in alphabetical order, beginning with Alex Kidd.

Here are some samples of gameplay, so you can see what's up with Alex Kidd. Alex Kidd. is the screamiest of the mascots. So that was Alex Kid of the Lost Stars. This is Alex Kid in Miracle World. Listen to that jaunty tune. And Alex Kid, BMX trial, which did not come to the U.S., but he is the only of these mascot characters

to have appeared in an officially licensed to BMX game on the Sega Mark 3 in Japan. I got to say Alex is way too cool for BMX. I mean, like, just what a cool combination, just ice cold. I mean... I think what happened was the... that Sega saw that Wonderboy had a skateboard. And they were like, what's cooler than skateboard, BMX?

They were wrong because it was the 80s and skateboard was the coolest, but I can appreciate the sentiment. So that was Alex. Let me roll it back like five seconds so you can see Alex picking up. Where is it? Oh, let's go. Come on, Alex. Let's see it.

There we go. Yeah, this is why the game didn't get localized for the U.S. They couldn't have time to turn that onigiri into a hamburger, very sad. or a jelly donut. So the way we're going to do this is I'm going to present very brief pros and cons for each character, and then we're going to discuss briefly each character. There's 18 of

these guys to get through. We have two hours. I don't actually want to go the full two hours. I don't know about all of you. But at some point there may be some bathroom breaks needed. I don't know. We're not going to take it personally. But we will give a little bit of discussion and then give our numbers. So pros to Alex Kidd.

One, I feel like that was the character that Sega really presented as their master system mascot. Two, Alex Kidd was designed by the late Rieko Kodama, who was a great artist and great game designer. And this was one of her first kind of breakout characters, her first major roles. And she carried a fondness for him throughout her career. And three, according to a friend of mine who works at Sega of America now, this is the only of the eight-bit Sega mascots who adorns their walls of their current studio. This is not like a holdover from when they had a studio, you know, a long

time ago, because they used to be in San Francisco now. They're in SoCal. So at some point, Sega moved south and said, the one thing we got to carry with us is Alex Kidd. It's like the Ark of the Covenant. That's a strong endorsement. Cons, none of Alex's games are actually

all that good. Shinobi World. Shinobi World. Okay, but that's actually a Shinobi game. That was definitely like, that started life as super deformed Shinobi, and they were like, we should put Alex Kidd in here. He has no purpose in here. It doesn't make use of his mechanics in any real way, his skills. But yes, let's put Alex in there. So does it really count? High Tech World is terrible, but I do respect the fact. I think it's amazing that I sat down. Your whole goal is to find the arcade with the good second game. That's right. That's true. It's like it understands what it is. But you play that game. And if you don't know what you're doing, which, you know, the first time you play it, why would you know? Within a minute, you can kill yourself permanently, instantly, by putting on a suit of armor.

Because you think, oh, I need some armor. That's great. So, yeah. So Alex, kind of a rough start. Also, Alex Kid was just created as a substitute Goku because his game, Miracle World, was supposed to be a Dragon Ball game, and they didn't get the license. So they were like, let's give a monkey guy, but he can have a really big fist. Okay, good. We're good. So no turtle hermits, though. That's the pros and cons of Alex. So where do the two of you stand on Alex Kidd? I've always just kind of been annoyed by Alice Kidd.

I think it's because he never had a consistent design in the West. He always looked weird. Like on the screen, you know, he's a cute little guy. He looks like a substitute Goku, yeah. But, you know, which he could be a generic song, Wukong kind of a knockoff. But in the art, like it's like they couldn't decide if he was a weird-looking kid with huge years

or if he was just some terrible outline drawing on a grid background. Like, I don't know. I feel like he had more potential, but also he reversed the buttons just to be different, and that's so stupid in an order. Oh, Sega just did that. They were confused. The master system was a confusing time. But Fight, you seem to have a different perspective here. You're shaking your head. I'm shaking my head because Alex Kidd disappoints me. Oh, see? I'm sorry. I played Alex Kidd games as a child. I was not a master's kid, but I had access to Master System games, so I played these games. And I did not approve. Alex Kidd's antics? I don't know. What are these

antics? Goodness. You cannot sanction his tomfoolery? No, I could not. I did not. Even at the time, I didn't know who Goku was at that point, but I was like, this monkey kid does not well, me. So I'm afraid, you know, decades

of, you know, decades of information to give me more context has not warmed me up to Alex Kidd. And it doesn't help the fact that, as you point out, none of these games come out, like, oh, you really need to play this game. I'm like, no, I really don't need to play these games ever again. Now, if Alex Kid me to come back, I would not reject him. I'm an open-minded

human being, but I got to be honest, to date, I have not felt any warmth towards Alex Kid. Okay, so the stern parent lecture for Alex Kid. So now we put it to you. Just give us like a three-second cheer based on your love or dislike of Alex Kid. louder you cheer, the more you love Alex kid. Boo. Boo means you get... Boo. Boo counts as noise, and the decibel meter

does not discriminate between yays and booze. I mean, it will add to the noise a little bit, but you can just go, me, I mean, that's a very lukewarm response. So, I'm going to

put it all to you. I'm going to count down from three. Okay. Yes. And I want all of you to cheer to what your heart tells you is correct for three seconds or so. So here we go. Three, two, one. All right. That peaked out at about 85.5. Mostly from two individuals. So Alex Kidd. If their passion stuffs the ballot box, that counts. 85.5. All right. So my ranking for Alex

I believe of 18 characters, I put him at one, five. Don't scare me like that. We recently had an episode just talking about SIGA Master System mascot characters in general, and everyone also on the show betrayed me and said, Alex Kidd is the true Siga Master System mascot. We all know it's Opa-Opa, so this is my chance to get in the final word in the most petty way imaginable. Thank you for your time.

Nadia, where do you put it? Where do you put Alex? I actually put him 11 because as much as he annoys me, my husband likes him, so it just seems wrong to pass on. Your husband does not hear it. Do not feel like you have to appease him. That's true, but, yeah, it just makes you feel warm. And Diamond.

It's funny. I thought I'd be the outlier, but I said 16, so I'm right next to you. Yeah, hey. All right. Alex, not looking so good for you, but still not the bottom, probably, unless, I don't know. There could be some averaging shenanigans that will bring him down, but we'll see. We'll see. Anyway, on to the next character.

All right, so Bentley Bear appeared in Crystal Castles for Atari. There you go. Okay, he kind of looks like... He's cute there. When you see him in the game, he actually kind of looks like Captain Caveman. And I would not actually know that this was a bear unless they explicitly told me. So the little guy running around the grid and picking up diamonds and avoiding trees as a bear. I would not have been doing it.

Is anyone here from the UK, that kind of general area? at all because he looks exactly like a character from Beano Comics called like Biffo Bearer. It's a terrifying thing of a bear. And there he looks very cute, but in-game his sprite looks completely deformed. Bentley was in some other

game, and I can't remember what it was, and I actually don't care, because Crystal Castles is what people remember. He was in the racing game for the Atari Jaguar. Oh, that doesn't count. There was another sequel to Crystal Castles. But anyway, that's what Bentley Bear is supposed to look like. He's on here because Atari in the olden days didn't

really make that many character-based games. So he kind of stands out for being an actual character in an Atari developed arcade game. Very rare. They kind of went with like spaceship and missile and, you know, other spaceship

and things like that. Centipede guy. Like a little... What's that? Well, that was an arcade. But an arcade you had centipede, which was supposed to be like an elf with a bow and arrow, but... Really? It looks like a tiny mushroom with like a sardine or something

spitting up at the top of it. I thought it was a guy with like a DDT or something like that. If you no you shoot the DDT and that's in Millie. But if you look at the box art there's sometimes they have a little like elf guy like a gnome jumping around a mushrooms. Anyway, Nadia I know you have a fondness for Bentley Bear. Unfortunately yes

basically I grew up with the I had to make do with the 2,600 for long after most of my friends had the NES and better. So I was kind of desperate for a good character to represent me as a gamer, I suppose, because I didn't have Nintendo, so I couldn't really claim Mario.

Yeah, I just liked how... He looks really cute in the Atari, 2600 version. I actually find that version a lot more playable than the arcade version. In the 2600 version, it looks like Winnie the Pooh. He's actually very cute. So it's not a great game on the 2600, but it's a very

decent one, and so, yeah, I just like the dude. Diamond? I identify strongly with Bentley Bear, because as a child, I was very frightened by bees and bees are a persistent threat in Crystal Castle's. If you don't move

quickly enough, the bees will come for you. That frightened me. As an adult, I still am frightened by bees. I don't know if Bentley Bear has changed his position in 40 years, but when I was there and I was a kid, Bentley Bear spoke to me. So I feel for Bentley Bear. Also, I like when Bentley Bear puts on the magic hat and becomes invincible. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

All right, so now it's over to you, the audience, the who and who to nanny. To tell us what you think of Bentley Bear, I'll give it another countdown from three, and then you need to cheer or not cheer, as your soul tells you as appropriate. So three, two, one. Mm, 72.1 was what I saw there. That was polite applause. Bentley, not doing so great. not liking your prospects

here, especially when I give you a 16. Nadia, you got to bring up the average. Yeah, I gave him a 7. Wow. What, how can you justify that? I told you, he was the only character I had for a long time. Okay.

Except for the ship from Solaris. Wow. See, another ship? I tell you what, Atari really needed to work on those characters. Fight? Four. What?

Four. 19? 14? Okay, 14. No, four. I heard it first. They said four. Bentley Bear is a four. Absolutely. That's fire in its hand. Man.

Okay, well, I don't know what to tell you. It takes all kinds. It's a hoot-nanny. This is what, yeah, this is the totality of hoot-nanny. We're all over the place. All right, let's move on to our next character.

boomer everyone loves boomer right no I didn't know who he was until I was boomer good old boomer everyone loves boomer now you may ask why did I include boomer in here

and it's because boomer is the only mascot character I recall being explicitly called out in Nintendo power an early issue saying hey Asmic is introducing a new character you're going to see him everywhere they got his name wrong

they called him Bronte the next issue they had to print a retraction and say sorry we were wrong it's actually boomer and then a couple of years later boomer showed up in boomer's world or boomer's adventure in asmic world i don't know it's basically a hayankio alien clone which you know that's that's a plus and i think he showed up a few other places but mostly unlike the title screen he actually is a mascot character in the truest sense of the word because he wasn't in mini games to speak of but they plastered him. Good old Asmic on their packaging.

So that's a, yeah, see, he's featured in the title screen of Asmix's upcoming game, Top Player Tennis. So he existed as a pink scribble of a dinosaur to promote the Asmic brand, whether his name was Boomer or Brondy. That's what I got. Where do we stand,

we collectively, the audience, stand on Boomer for Asmick? Who is it? Like, boomer. That's the question. Here we go. We've got to hear the cheers. Three, two, one.

This is registering as a quiet whisper. It was... 61.3. All right. So let's put Boomer on here. I gave him a rousing, 18. Yeah, we're starting with the low numbers here at the beginning of the alphabet.

that. Hopefully the alphabet's going to improve. Nadia, what about you? I have to admit, I don't know who the hell he was, but he gave him a 13, because he's such a, I don't give a shit design of a, somebody is like, oh, should I redo this? I, no, no. It's Friday. I want to get drunk. I'm already drunk. I'm gone. I put way too much thought into all of this. I'm sorry. Diamond. I think boomer's okay. 12. All right. Wow, I did not expect this level of chaos.

I'm very proud of all of us. All right, number, the fourth one here. Clarice, you may not know Clarice, but you've probably played City Connection. Clarice is the driver of the Honda City that stars in City Connection. Except in America, in America, the driver of the Honda City is a dude who smokes. What kind of representation an example is this for our children, I ask you. unacceptable. This is terrible. But in Japan, they loved Clarice. She was front and center in the advertising. Look at this amazing commercial for the Famicom version of City Connection. That is Clarice, a true mascot character for the ages. How can you not love Clarice? She is absolutely a rip-off of the princess from Lupon the 3rd Castle of Caliostro. That little car is inspired by the chase. I know it 100%. Clarice is a, the princess whose name was

Clarissa I believe and yeah once she had her run in with Lupine she was like crime is cool I'm gonna stop being her princess I'm gonna go vandalize all the roads all the highways of the world and I think that's awesome that's an amazing premise for a game and a phenomenal premise for

a mascot character sure she hasn't been in much but she's actually had a bit of a revival she showed up in a few other Jalico games like their pinball game for Game Boy, which is terrible. Don't count that against her. But I think Game Ten Goku, Game Paradise, and a few other things, there is now a company called City Connection that purchased

a lot of Jalico's properties and is republishing them, including City Connection, and they use Clarice as their mascot. So she's had a pretty long life beyond the arcade and the Famicom. So you have to respect that, in my opinion.

But let's find out what your opinion is is untainted by our numbers up here. Please on the count of three, the countdown of three, give me a cheer for Clarice because you know she deserves it. Three, two, one.

All right, we peaked out at 87.3. That was pretty good. Actually, that was better than I expected. Where did I put Clarice? Nadia, what do you think? What do you think? Well, here's the thing. I did not play City Connection as a child. I don't know why, and I would have loved it, too. So I don't really have any kind of familiarity with

Clarice, even though I'm rooting for her. I think she's great. But that's all I really know about her, and her hair is purples. I gave her 14. 14. Yeah. It's not her fault. I just don't know her. Diamond? I respect Clarice because her goal is to travel the world. She does this by throwing stuff at cops, and she takes animal safety very seriously. If she dares to injure a cat, she costs her a life. So I respect Clarice.

I gave Clarice a seven. Nice. Wow, that's actually better than me. After my impassioned defense of Clarice, I only gave her a nine. Oh, my goodness. I thought you were going to give her a one, by the way we were talking about her.

No. Clarice is cool, but she's only been in that, really, that one good game. And it's a really good game, and that commercial is great. But, I mean, still. It's, you know, it's one game.

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That's 50% off your first week by using code R-E-T-R-O. When you go to cookunity.com slash retro. All right, so that's our fourth character of the mascot ranking hoot nanny. Let's move along. We're keeping on track. Here's for the British people in the audience. I threw in Dizzy because our British listeners will be angry. They get really upset when you act like the games that were released only on their island

weren't super influential throughout the world. So here's Dizzy. He did show up on any. thanks to Camerica, which was Codmasters America, the branch that Codemasters illegally launched in the U.S. so that they could hack American

NES systems with their deck enhancer, the Aladdin, and the game genie that Aladdin rubbed, I think. Something like that. That sounds kind of weird. Anyway, Dizzy is an egg. He is very fragile like an egg, but he can also roll like an egg. And he can carry objects around with him

like an adventure game character, even though it's kind of a platform character. He actually has had a very long life, like beyond the ZDX spectrum in the 8-bit era. The Oliver twins who developed the Dizzy games back in the day have revived Dizzy

and had Kickstarter and launched modern games and brought back canceled games from the past. So Dizzy does have some life, even if no American is familiar with that life whatsoever. So now I turn it out to

turn it over to you, the audience here in this American city, but we are close-ish to Canada, so maybe some of that Britishness will leak through. I don't know how that all this guy is. Okay, well, there you go. You just derailed me there. Sorry. All right. So, yes, I'm going to let all of you cheer or not for Dizzy on the count of three.

What does Dizzy deserve? Let's find out three, two, one. All right. It's a very British clap. 67.9. I've heard worse. I've heard worse. Boomer was worse.

But that goes without saying, really. Fight. Let's go over to you first. What kind of number are we putting on dizzy? I mean, I like eggs, but I also don't... As a food, though, right? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I do not aspire to be an egg.

I do not aspire to befriend an egg. And quite frankly, at Bitsum of this year, I played a platformer where you plays an egg, and it was much better than what anything I've seen Dizzy has made. So I don't have a high opinion of Dizzy. I do respect the legacy of Dizzy. You don't have to. Well, I'm paying the lip service.

I'm paying the lip service. I'm giving Dizzy an 11. So, bottom half, but not the bottom. Nadia? I can make up for that. I just, I don't know a whole lot about Dizzy. I don't know a whole lot about the ZX Spectre to be honest or the UK side of game development.

I do respect a great deal of it. Like, of course, Rarer's history and the rare collection is absolutely fantastic. But sometimes I feel like games like Dizzy exist because they got mad at us over there because we had Mario and we said, wow, Mario's so great. And they're like, no, we have Dizzy Doo

and dixie teacup man like I just I don't know I'm trying not to talk crap about our UK listeners I'm sorry but I don't know anything about Disney he's an egg I gave him 17

because eggs don't agree with me I mean there is that sulfur element to it exactly if you don't boil it properly just so you have a really stinky egg I feel like the best eggs I've had have always been in Japan those half-boiled

eggs that they put in ramen those are amazing are perfect. Dizzy is not a Japanese character. Therefore, I'm giving Dizzy a 14. All right. Sorry, Dizzy. You're scrambled.

Hey, hey. All right, next up, you might know this guy. You might not. I mean, I don't want to speak for you. But, yes, it's Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong started as a villain, became a captive, later turned back into a villain,

and you shoot him in the butt. as one does to villains. And then a strange thing happened in the 8-bit era. Hudson created a sequel to Donkey Kong 3 where Donkey Kong travels through the planets after getting abducted by aliens. It's really weird. It was only released in Japan for computers.

I don't understand what's happening there. But that was kind of the end of Donkey Kong's 8-bit career until Donkey Kong 94 for Game Boy, which was very good, but was Donkey Kong. He got vivisected by those aliens, I'm telling you. It's brutal. When you show that to me, that's the first time I've ever seen that footage. I said that looks like, you know, some crappy-ass cart that you would get off the back of a magazine.

No, like when Fox Mulder plays Donkey Kong, that is what he's visualizing. He's like, they got Samantha, now they're getting Donkey Kong. Anyway, so yeah, Donkey Kong. We know him, we love him. But the thing about Donkey Kong is that even though he was a huge mascot character in the early 80s during the Golden Age of the Arcades, he was pretty quickly supplanted by Mario. I mean, Mario took over in the second game and abducted Donkey Kong

and you had to play as Donkey Kong's kid and then later they kicked Mario out altogether and just gave you like Stanley the Bugman who even knows who that is. Yeah, and then there was talk of an NES game called Return of Donkey Kong and they promoted that for a while Nintendo Power but not even Howard Phillips

who was like the guy for Nintendo Power remembers what Return of Donkey Kong actually was. He just sort of evaporated and didn't come back for a decade until Donkey Kong 94 in Donkey Kong Country. And Donkey Kong Country doesn't count because it's 16 bits. So keep that in mind as you are celebrating the legacy of Donkey Kong with sound. But please, on the count of three, let's hear it for Donkey Kong or not, as you may so choose. What do I do here? Yes, three.

Okay, three, two, one, let's go. All right. We peaked out at 92.2. The king. That's like classic radio station right there. All these all the time. All the time. Jinks.

All right. So me, I'm giving Donkey Kong a six. He's a solid fellow. He could have done better. They shouldn't have abandoned him the way he did. But did I mention that he was in a head-to-head game-and-watch game? I guess that's not technically 8-bit, but yeah, like it's wild. It was like before a Nintendo Switch, there was a Nintendo Game and Watch LCD handheld

where you could pull out two little puck controllers and two people could play head-to-head. It's crazy. Donkey Kong was at the forefront of innovation. What a great guy. Love that guy. Yeah, Donkey Kong for me is one of my very first video game characters. The first game I played was Donkey Kong and the Klico Vision. Let me tell you, even though that's a great adaptation of the game,

they had to make sacrifices, of course, and the way they cut back on the memory was Donkey Kong never moved, whereas in the NES game in the arcade, he's stomping, he's making faces, going ook, ook. In Kalikovision, he just sits stock still and is terrifying because he has these tiny eyes that are glaring at you, and he has this big frown, and I was just scared to death, but I loved the game, so I kept on playing it.

Also, like, you would probably remember this, the Donkey Kong cartoon back in the day, I have good memories of my aunt made a big her big proud moment is that instead of going to school she would skip school to play Donkey Kong in the arcade at the mall so she had a whole bunch of paraphernalia that I loved and it would probably be worth

a lot of money now but yeah I just have good solid comforting memories of Donkey Kong so he gets a four for me. A four, all right. And Diamond. Donkey Kong did nothing wrong. As an animal he cannot be held responsible

for the mistakes that he made and in subsequent games I feel like he has been only mistreated more by humans who know better Nintendo also did Donkey Kong dirty but not only the return for Donkey Kong that didn't disappear the Famicom was supposed to have a Donkey Kong game

I think it was a... Oh Donkey Kong Yeah, music playroom or something That was announced and featured in several ads But then just disappeared never It became Donkey Kong That was supposed to be the 10th Famicom launch title, but it was not to be... Wow, I didn't know that.

Yeah, so basically the reality is that Nintendo needed to pat out its Famicom library. Yeah. So they looked at Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Popeye. They were like, well, we've got these games, let's reuse these assets. So we got Donkey Kong Jr. math. In Japan, there was a math or an English tutor game called Popeye's Ego No Asobi. And there was going to be a Donkey Kong music game that used the Famicom microphone built into controller, too. but I don't think they can make it good or fun

and you know this is the company that gave a stackup which is not really a game so if they didn't think that Donkey Kong's music training game was as fun as stackup there was some problems with that product like I said it probably became Donkey Konga and actually there was another show I was out of camera which one but there was a donkey Kong

set up and everyone was always smashing on that freaking thing all the small things like I mean it's a fun game well my point is I give Donkey Kong A five. Good, good. Donkey Kong is upper tier for me. All right, upper tier.

The very top of the girders, really. How high can you get? How high can you go? I got pretty high. No, it's how high can you get? It's a double entendre, I think. Don't challenge me, Donkey Kong. You don't know what I'm capable of.

Is that legal up there? What, in Canada? Hell you. Okay, yeah. Got you. Jesus. The green and dame. Donkey Kong country is not actually

Jungle Fulage. Dinky Kang, that's right. All right, moving along to fewer drug jokes. Maybe, I don't know. Frogger? Frogger? Anyone? Frogger? Seinfeld jokes. Okay, there we go.

Frogger, famous character of the video game arcade scene appeared in a sequel on consoles called Frogger 2 3D. Pretty funny. It's not actually 3D. And there was a cartoon, which I'm sorry the sound isn't coming through here because his voice is not appropriate. It's not like inappropriate. It's just like you don't hear that voice coming out of a little frog in a sweater.

It just, it doesn't fit. Good. I was relieved. It was racist or something. Oh, no, no. Oh, gosh, no. The 80s were kind of rough, but they weren't that rough. Exactly.

I was thinking 80s, you could really have a 50-50 chance. No, we didn't go quite that far. Good, good. But Frogger, so Frogger was not in that many games back in the day, but Frogger was one of the first true breakout games with a character who drove the action that people gravitated to. because one, like the entire game concept was basically the chicken crossing the road joke and they turned that into a video game starring a frog. That's very memorable.

Frogger got a second lease on life thanks to Seinfeld in one of the very final episodes. George finds a Frogger cabinet at a local deli and says oh I got the high score on here. I need to preserve this high score so he buys the machine, tries to take it home crossing the road with it in a very funny montage

that imitates the actual viewpoint a frogger. Frogger himself like he's trying to get home he's trying to eat, he's trying to hook up with a girl. These are very basic impulses that I think many of us can relate to. Frogger despite being a frog is among the most

human of video game mascots. So those are the pros the cons. There were some really bad Frogger games in like the late 90s and early 2000s, but to be fair those were not a bit. So we don't have to count those against Frogger. That's my

pitch for Frogger now we're going to turn it over to you the people to see what you think of Frogger. Do you have fond memories of getting crushed on the highway and saying, I can do it this time one more time? Did you import

the Gakken TV boy version of Frogger, which is unspeakably terrible and barely recognizable as a video game? Or did you just, you know, have it on Colico Vision or Atari or something? Do you even care about Frogger? Let's find out.

On the count of three, two, one. All right. We got an 83.6 pique. Not bad. Not bad. That puts Frogger ahead of Bentley Bear, but behind Clarice, which I think is fair. Actually, no, I say that, but I actually. gave Frogger a very good score, a seven, which puts him above Clarice.

Oh, hey. What do I even know? What am I talking about? What about the two of you? Nadia, where do we see Frogger landing? Frogger is a game I'm actually quite nostalgic for because my grandfather taught me how to play it. Like, I visited him at work, and he, I don't know if anyone here's from Toronto. Overwhelming applause. Anyway, he worked at the university there, and I was waiting for him to finish work, and he had me play Frogger and he taught me how to play it. because he was actually pretty good at arcade games and whatnot.

Frogger, I have great respect for because if you look on the, I don't know which specific art this is, but he has the tie and the briefcase. It's the classic art. I think it's the Atari 2,600. I absolutely love that image. It's one of my most favorite video game images. I have great respect for working people, so Frogger is just a dude.

He's doing his best. It gave him a 10. Yeah. Oh, okay. That's not 10 out of 10. That's just 10 out of 18. Okay, right. Yeah.

Gotcha. Okay. So in the bottom half, let's kind of keeping the working man down, really. Well, I mean, we've got to have about Kuberton people, so I don't know. All right. Fair enough, fair enough. Diamond.

Jeremy, you really hit the nail on the head here when you talked about Frogger's needs, right? Frogger wishes to consume. Frogger wishes to procreate. I feel like these are good, wholesome values. You can also argue... Family values, really. You can argue that Frogger is also a parable about the goal for 50-minute cities, walkable cities. You know, Frogger just wants to go.

you know, from point A to point B, that I didn't deal with all this stuff that we put in this way. God, no kidding. There are natural hazards, too, but they're supposed to be there. We put a whole... Are they? I mean, that river is jam-packed. I feel like that is not natural. It's compacted because we've over... Exactly. It's spirited away all over again.

Yes. So, I give Frogger a six. Nice. I like Frogger. Frogger did pretty well, considering he's small and squishable. Although, you know, squishable is cute. As long as it's not like gross squishing. Anyway, okay, let's keep moving.

We've got a lot of characters to get through here. So we move on to another legitimate corporate mascot, Konami Man! Who you probably only know from the Goonies 2, if you ever found this room where there's a guy in boiler pants, boiler shorts, saying, I'll heal you, little kid. But if you have ever imported the game Konami Wi-Wi World from Japan, you can actually see how Konami Man ended up stranded in the world of the Goonies 2 because he is the main character

along with Konami Lady of Konami YYWI World and one of the worlds you can fight through is the Goanee's world where Mikey lives and you have to rescue Mikey but Mikey doesn't count because he started in a movie and therefore is not a video game mascot character but Konami Man

is and he fights through the Gunny's world and also the Goyman world and the Kasselvania world and the grottiest world and the that game that name just totally escaped me that they based Getsu Fumadin, that's it, yes. Oh, yes. He fights through a lot of worlds and they're all really difficult and there's a scientist who will heal him

and take all of your money and your missiles, that's his currency. He's a very American kind of character. Anyway, that's Konami Man. He shows up in a lot of Konami games from the era and in later games. There are some Castlevania games on DS where you can randomly find like a Konami man just like an icon just around. He was kind of all over the place. Not really much

of a character to speak of, but still, it's kind of cool that a company as cool as Konami had their own mascot character and said let's put him in some video games. I guess. I don't know. Where do you all stand on this? Maybe I'm just

talking trash. I don't know. We're going to let you weigh in on Konami Man's value as a character, and perhaps as a person, I mean, this is a judgment zone. So feel free on the count of three to really give it to Konami Man if he deserves it. One, two, three. Actually, that was three, two, one. That's pretty miserable. Okay. Not fans of the Goonies, too. Okay. Konami Lady is cool. She's she has like a laser beam or something

I can't remember it's great yeah Konami Man 64.2 which puts them still ahead of boomer but people are not buying into the corporate mascot thing is what I'm hearing here you like your characters authentic

not corporate not shills for the man absolutely all right Nadia what do you think well it's kind of weird because I have never played games with Konami Man in them but I like him as a character. I like his design.

It's a very Konami sort of thing where it's a simple. He's got the winged hat and he's got the cape. He's just kind of cute. He's got a K. He's got a Kana's chest and it's like the old school

Konami logo came before they turned it into the little wavy purple red and orange bars. It's the vintage Konami logo. It's also, he's kind of acclaimed of fame of mine because if you are very, very lucky

in Castle of In The Night in the save boxes, the safe files, the little icons, you know, sometimes you get a skeleton, you get like a little flashing, like lightning scene. Once in a very, very blue while, you can get Konami Man as the icon.

And I have gotten Konami Man, and I knew that was so rare. And I'm like, yeah, Konami Man. I don't think I knew he was Konami Man at the time. I just knew he was like rare. So, yeah, I have nothing against him. I like the fact that he goes through different Konami worlds and has the parody versions of them.

So I gave him a 12, because what the hell, why not? Oh, not bad, not bad, considering, you know, I mean, he's useless. The game that he stars in did not actually come here? Yeah. He's a good kind of useless. Yeah, it's a positive useless. Interesting, useless.

Fight. If we are to laud Konami Man for his, for Konami's achievements, we must also hold him responsible for Konami's many crimes. This is about Snake's Revenge again? And quite frankly, a company creating a mascot naming it after themselves is pretty low. I mean, at least Capcom as a joke created Captain Commando, and then later made an actual Captain Commando game, which was kind of fun.

But Konami Man is just there, Konami Man, I'm not buying it. I'm not abiding Konami Man. 17. Oh, my God. He's dead. So you're biting a little bit. There's one worse. Is it Mario?

The diamond does not abide. Oh, sorry, I spoiled it. I didn't think you knew Mario was going to be on here. Yeah, Mario's going to show up eventually. Sorry, everyone. So, you know, as far as video game companies naming a mascot after themselves go, I would say Konami

Man is not nearly as bad as SunMan, the mascot of Sunsoft, who was created specifically because they licensed Superman, created a game, and then lost the license, and we're like, oh, what do you do? Let's give him a pallet swap and call him Sun Man.

And then better, like, cooler minds prevailed, and they said, Actually, let's just cancel this game. And that's how it should be done. That's the difference. That's the difference. But Y. Y, Y, World, pretty fun, unbalanced, but fun.

I mean, you get to play through King Kong world, and later you can play as King Kong. Like, it's hard to argue against that. If Konami Man is what it takes for us to play as Simon Belmont, Goemann, Mikey from the Goemeyes, and King Kong in the same game, I say Shill Away. So I give Konami Man a 13. the luckiest number of all. Absolutely. So let's move along to another... Is this another little guy?

No, our first little guy from arcade giant Namco, another anthropomorphic character. It's Mappy, the little mouse. I know everyone says Akhab, including Mappy, but how can you not love Mappy? Look at that. He bounces on trampolines. He steals the Mona Lisa back. He smashes kittens with a door. Actually, that's kind of bad. But in Mappyland, for NES, he can actually jump on those little overhead bars and do

the Jurassic Park, the Lost World gymnastics thing, like when the girl is kicking away. the Raptors. He can do that. She stole that from Mappy. Absolutely. Mappy is, he's one of the classics. Mappy has, let's see, in addition to being a charming character, he had multiple sequels. Some of them were kind of bad, like hopping Mappi. I don't understand what they were doing with that one. But it has, the original game has a great soundtrack, I think, by Junco Ozawa, which is basically banjo music, which, you know, in the 1983 arcade game, running around to this kind of like bluegrass banjo music while a mouse policeman steals art from a cat gang and blasts them with microwave beams while jumping on trampolines is just the sort of bizarre surreal mashup that made early arcade games so interesting because it was really just like what can we depict with eight pixels and two colors okay it's a microwave

beam and a tiny Mona Lisa. There's actually, if you picked up the collector's edition of the game 8-bit Music Power Encore that we pre-sold through Limited Run earlier, I put together a book in there and there's an interview with the pixel designer of Mappy who talks about how

he put so much love and care into the little paintings that Mappy has to steal back from Miaokees, the Miaokees gang, and how he really poured his heart and soul into making those portraits. And Mappy is the one stealing them back from criminals so that they can be in the tiny

bit mapped Louvre instead of being in some criminal cat's gang, never to be seen again by humanity. And I think that's beautiful. So that's my pitch for Mappy, a great little guy. He also was the star of a comic series in recent years, the Shifty Look Comics. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he made a comeback. Mappy, you know, everyone loves him.

He's a great little guy. So tell us, how much do you love Mappi? On the count of three, you have the opportunity. Yes, you. Three, two, one. I don't know. Maybe you're just all getting tired, but I feel like I have seen more passionate uppourings of love this evening

than you have given to Mappie. But that's okay. You know, maybe you don't agree with this career choice. Maybe you just are afraid of mice. It's understandable. He's a controversial character, a tempestuous figure in video game history. But he did save the pixel Mona Lisa, so you have to respect that. Fight, what about you?

What do you think of Mappy? I'm sorry, I can't, I can't go along with Mappy. First of all, in researching this, so I didn't just sound like a complete loon. I looked up where Mappy came. from and it turns out Mappy is very likely a derivative of Japanese slang derogatory slang for cops. Apparently there's a Japanese word Mappol, which comes from Sats. That's my favorite kind of tofu. Sounds like Satsimapol because apparently a lot of cops used to come from that part of Japan. I don't know the reasoning, but Mopo became Mappy and that just stuck. So I feel like

they were trying to tell us that Mappy was wrong. Even then. But, no, I don't believe that we can, I can honor Mappi. I'm sorry. Wow. 18. But the Pixel Mona Lisa. Should not have been, that Mappy's business. You just, no, you just handed it to Goro.

And the Miaokees. Sorry, Niamco. Who is he serving? The Mona Lisa? No, the people who have the right to see Tiny Pixel Mona Lisa at the Tiny Pixel Louvre. Have you ever been to Pixel France, Diamond? It's a beautiful little place Not a lot of colors

But great visual detail Love the dithering So beautiful And look, I've even got I've even got a French bread On my lapel That's how much I love pixel France So I respect Mappi

I respect the hell out of Mappi For his service In protecting the pixel Mona Lisa Nadia Geez, we're even follow up with that I like Mappy because I like it when mice get in over their head I like stories like Red Wall and Mouse Guard and stuff like that.

So I'm always down to see a mouse screw things up for everyone else. I like Goro, too. I think Goro has a great design. I never really played... They stole it for Fat Cat in Rescue Rangers. Just straight rip-off. It's so perfect. You're right.

I never even thought about that, but you're right. But, yeah, I just like him. I like the aesthetic. Like I said, I didn't play the games too much. But I did look at the ads in Archie Comic a lot and, like, I wish I had that game. I wish at Nintendo. So I put him at,

nevertheless, he does get a 15 for me because... All of that for a 15? I don't know what to say. All right, I give Mappy eight. So I guess, you know, that's not quite as as Kai as it might sound like I was going to go with this, but, you know, there's the good and the bad. But Mappie's a good little guy.

He reminds me of the Jethro Tull song, The Mouse Police Never Sleep. I have to respect that too. The mouse Steaks the mouse The mouse Anyway, we are now halfway through this hoot-nanny and not taking into account the decimal score or the decibel, yes, the decibel meter scores. That's right. It looks like Donkey Kong is in the lead. And could it be, yes, Boomer. Last place. Although Konami Man and Alex Kidd and Dizzy and Mappy are all nipping at Boomer's feet. We really hate it. We really hate it. There's some rock bottom happening

here. So I'm really kind of curious to see where the second half of this episode goes. You got the bad numbers out of the way. If we were doing a recording in the studio, this is where I would say let's take a bathroom break, but we're not. So we power through, I hope you didn't have too much to drink earlier.

If you did, the doors are locked. Well, this is an experience, an exercise in perseverance and bladder control. Anyway, so let's move on from Mappy to some guy you may have heard of it's a Mario

look at that guy on Game Boy jumping he this guy okay so here's the here's the condo Mario this guy is overexposed he is all over the place he's in like every single video game ever from the ape and era they just would not stop shoving Mario's face into things you had alleyway wrecking crew what was that that I showed earlier doctor Mario they even

stuck his name on the box and it wasn't for a Mario adventure oh look there is a little line judge in tennis. Here he is swimming around in Super Mario Brothers. It doesn't look so super to me. Oh, there's Green Mario and Super Mario Brothers, too. They even

swapped his palate out. Here he is on the title screen with his friends who share equal billing with him, but not really because it's his name on the adventure. It's not Super Princess Peach and Toad and Luigi and Mario Brothers 2. It's just Super Mario Bros. 2. Mario 3, Giant Fish Try to Eat him.

Here he is back again on Game Boy, driving in airplane like what does not what does this guy not have his hands in he's he's oh there we go it's Mario again two more brothers but on Game Boy Color and horrible to play extremely difficult because there's no visual resolution I kind of wanted to try that all over Mario's over he was all over all over the Ibid era yeah no you're absolutely right maybe you see that as good maybe you see that as

bad I don't know I don't I don't choose to judge but let's let's hear your thoughts on this Mario guy. This Mario dude. I think Mario's the reason we're all sitting here. Is he? I think so.

He did not pay for my ticket to Hartford. He did not invite me to Retro World Expo. It costed too much of money. What do you want? No, I love Mario. Seeing Super Mario Brothers

for the first time just blew me away. Of course, as I said, I grew up with Atari, LecoVision. Great, has some great games in their own rights, but the first time I saw like that side scrolling,

that breakage of the barrier that I'd always known led to be like permanent, it was like, holy crap. So Mario expanded my universe, I suppose he could say. So he was like the LSD of your childhood? Oh, he absolutely was. Okay. I mean, where do you think we all made, we all made those mushroom jokes, did we not? L is real, LSD is real, I don't know.

Hard to say. But, okay, so you've said good things about Mario here, but how do you reconcile the fact that in his second appearance ever, he broke up a family he abducted a father and separated him from his child leaving this poor infant alone in the jungle

to fend for himself and not only that but he actively antagonized the child sending living steel traps after him and birds that like flew at him and tried to I don't know what did the birds do I guess just pecked him try to pluck him or drop fruit

no you drop fruit on the birds that's right yeah the birds were actually kind of defenseless. So that's also sickening. He sent defenseless birds after a baby monkey fitting, pitting nature against itself, red in tooth and claw, and all because of Mario. That is very anti-. That is why they changed his outfit to red in later games. Mario has blood on his hands and his shirt. Well, now you've just made it unfun, but like... Success, all according to Kekaku.

No, I mean, maybe Donkey Kong had rabies. Maybe he was shut up for his own good. Is that something that is prone to happen to apes? I don't know, to be honest. I've never heard of a rabbit ape. No, I don't think they can, I don't know if they can carry rabies or if they just aren't exposed to it. But I don't want to find out. You want to go near a rabid gorilla? No.

I don't want to go near a gorilla. So Mario's doing this all for our own protection. I guess. What about Donkey Kong Jr.? Growing up without a father? Keeping him away for his own goods. He doesn't become rabid to. He could have called CPS or something.

Hello, Gorilla CPS. Exactly. Chint protective services. Okay, so that's your thoughts. What are your thoughts? I feel like Mario is a case of Jack of All Trades, Master of None. You know, in Nintendo early on,

even from his conception, Miyamoto pictured Mario as some sort of just cipher that could go into every game. You know, before he was named Mario, he was just video man. Like, oh, here's a guy I made. We'll just put him in. everything. And it took for you for them to realize, no, he can't be in everything.

You've got to name him after the landlord. Yeah. Let's do this. Let's do this. You've already talked about his cruelty in Donkey Kong Jr. I would also point out that in Punch Out, there is a newspaper headline that at least suggests he may be a deadbeat dad. Oh, right.

Or at least an absent-minded one. He's always chasing after the princess. Like, how does that help his family at home? Yeah. So I feel like if we're, you know, Mario's been into star of some fantastic video games. But if we're talking about as a character, I feel like he

is stealing valor from the real hero Luigi. Yeah, I do like Luigi more. You mean Green Mario? So, I actually do not rank Mario very highly considered. Okay, don't give the number yet. Okay. We've still got to get the scores from the audience. But yes, I agree with your Jack of All Trades, Master of None.

I have played Super Mario Cart, and I never pick Mario, because he is, you know, like the biblical proverb lukewarm, you know, spit him from your mouth. He's just not hot, he's not cold, he's nothing. He's nothing. Play as Toad. That's the cool guy. No, Coupa.

Even a Super Mario Brothers 2, U.S., which is sensibly his own dream, he is the most boring character. Yeah, he dreams about how much cooler Princess Peach is. Yeah. His brother can jump much. His brother is the best character game because it jumps very high, and that's the main verb of that game, you're jumping. And Toad is just, Toad is just a machine. He's burly. Yeah.

He's a brawny little thing. Maybe it's a reflection of his anxieties. Maybe he feels like he's not living up to the hype. I don't know. Yeah, at the end, you see Mario wake up from his dream in the ending, but what you don't see is Dr. Freud on the sofa next to him. Tell me about your childhood. Mama me.

All right, anyway, so Mario, good, bad, who can say, oh, you can say by cheering or not cheering on the count of three to let us know what you think of Mario as a game game. character as a mascot, as an 8-bit hero or villain. Yeah, you got to speak to the decibel meter. So here we go. Three, two, one. All right.

I see how it is. Mario, 94.3. Hey, yeah. Hey, come on. That is a spicy meatball. All right. So clearly, clearly you guys don't care about family values, Mario. Whereas I, on the other hand, also don't care about family values.

Nadia? Okay, I'm giving Mario two. Yeah, I care the least about family values around here, because I gave him a one. One. No, no. All right, fight. Ten. All right, there we go. Finally, bringing balance to the force. Some morality to this presentation. If it weren't for you, we would just be sucked into a black hole of evil, or of Mario.

I don't know. Red and green and blue. That's right. Anyway, so that was Mario. I kind of had a feeling it was going to go like that, but I dreamed otherwise. Next up, we have master Higgins. Okay, he's a cartoon character. He almost doesn't count as a cartoon character. He almost doesn't count as a video game character because he's based on a real person.

It's Master Takahashi, the real human being, telling you how to shoot enemies and Star Soldier 16 times per second. But Master Higgins had a strange journey through the world. He started in, actually, he just replaced, he was a sprite hack of Wonderboy, of TomTom in the original Wonderboy, developed by Westone. Hudson licensed that and were like, What if we, instead of doing Wonderboy, a character that SIGA owns,

what if we stuck our own little guy in here who's really good at Star Soldier? It's a weird choice, but it kind of worked. Hudson's Adventure Island is actually better known in America, I would say, than Wonderboy, even though it is just a clone, like a literal sprite hack of Wonderboy, with a few little minor tweaks to it. And then Master Higgins actually went away for a while. There was a spinoff game called Bug Honey in, Japan where you actually play as

like the little ferry that flies around which was based on a cartoon that was based on the Adventure Island video game. It's all very circular. That never came here because it wasn't very good but we didn't actually get an Adventure Island sequel until like 1991, 92.

You can tell it's pretty late in there because he's riding around on a dinosaur which they straight up stole from Super Mario World. They were like, oh Mario can do that well, so can Master Higgins and then they gave us

Adventure Island 3, which was exactly the same. And then a kind of cool thing about Master Higgins or Master Takahashi, Takahashi Meijin, if you prefer, in Japan. He was actually the star of the final game published officially for Nintendo's Famicom,

the NES, in Japan at the end of 1994, Adventure Island 4, or Bokinjima Yon, whatever. Anyway, It's a pretty cool little semi-metroidsvania game that really builds on all the stuff that had come before. It never came here. I will tell you that at least once a year,

I go in at work and I look at my boss and say, we need to license the Adventure Island games from Hudson and Konami so that we can publish Adventure Island for here. And he says, okay, Jeremy. Let's get you back to bed. So I'm not as influential as you may think. But it is a cool little game, and a great little capstone for Master Higgins' 8-bit adventures.

And actually, that came out after some of the 16-bit adventures. Super Adventure Island had actually come out on Super Ineus by that point. So kind of like visiting the past and just, you know, getting a little time there to remember his old stomping grounds. It was kind of nice. Super Adventure Island had a soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro, though. So ultimately, who can say, which is the better game, it's probably Super Adventure Island.

But anyway, that's Master Higgins. Kind of a kind of cool guy, even though he was only in a couple of games and is actually the only character in here, I think, who is a real human being? But I don't know. Does that kind of as a mascot character? I feel like it does because Hudson treated him as a mascot. Like, even in real life, Takahashi Meijin was a mascot character who went around on tour and was like the friendly face that everyone played video games against,

and he would always stomp them because his thumb is inhumanly fast. Yeah, he's got crazy, crazy reflexes. Yeah, I respect him very much as an actual person, but I don't like his design in Adventure Island. He looks like Peter Griffin He's the only Cape Man with a trucker hat. He looks like Peter Griffin

with an overbite, underbite rather, and... Hey, Norris! That's not his fault. That's Takahashi Meijing's fault. He doesn't, if Takahashi Magee doesn't have an overbite, it looks like a perfectly nice human being. He's got a little bit of, like he's got a pronounced jaw, slightly. It's really pronounced. It's a caricature.

It's a weird character. The cover art was, for the Adventure Island Games, was drawn by Susumi Matsushita, the guy who does the Famitsu covers and, you know, like, Maximo covers and a bunch of other things like that. So he's very much a caricature artist. Yeah, I mean, he looks great in the art, but, like, I'm talking about the Sprites. I can't parse his face. I look at his face, and I'm like, it's like looking at an elder god. I can't understand what I'm seeing.

He has a non-Euclidean face. He really does, yeah. All right. What about you? Nadia really nailed a lot of it I do not like how he looks

I like Takashi Meiji the real guy I would love a story about him I feel like we need to get we need to get

his experiences recorded on tape somehow or dramatized for for you know entertainment purposes

I thought Adventure Island was a dramatization of his real life I just don't I don't really no

I'm not buying the Adventure Island stuff I think he's he's a poser with the skiboarding I'm sorry I don't like it

I don't like him so you say Alex Kitt has a better claim to BMX than Master Takahashi has to stayboard? Is that what I'm hearing here? I did not rank him lower than Alice Kitt, no. Better than Alex Kitt.

A few things would be lower than that. Okay. Well, I have to turn it over to the audience then. There seems to be some dissent up here. Do you share their perspectives, or do you see Master Higgins as a beautiful avatar of a true video game

hero, a real-life video game hero who can destroy star soldier and star force in a way that leaves normal mortals in awe where do we stand on this please let us know in three two one

okay we got a 78.4 pretty middle of the road pretty middling yeah again lukewarm, lukewarm. All right.

Diamond, what's the number you've got here? 13. 13. I see. How unfortunate. Nadia? Mine's more unfortunate. I got 16.

Oh, come on. We're talking Master Higgins here. Wow. We're talking weird elder god Peter Griffin. That in itself is a pretty ringing endorsement in my opinion. You got a point. All right. Well, I'm going with the audience and putting Master Higgins right in the middle of the road

at number, giving a 10. 10 out of 18. So, bringing up the rear, I would say. Jeremy, I don't want to stop you, but honestly, I have to run to the toilet or else we're going to have a real problem. Okay. We just keep going. All right.

No, that's good. I didn't bring another pair of pants on this trip. I'll be right back. There are some cups up here. I know. Oh, God. All right, so we'll stall for time. I don't want to continue the ranking.

Yeah, just go on. I don't want to write this character. Good guy. Oh, okay. Well, you've already given it away. Wow. We know how fights bread is buttered. All right. We'll go on to the next character. Mega Man. Star of screen and stage.

All right, here's Mega Man in his standout moment. He's off to beat Dr. Wiley, and he literally rips open Dr. Wiley's fortress with his bare hands. That's a pretty cool way to wrap up your first adventure. adventure. Then here's Mega Man and Dr. Wiley's revenge. No, wait, that's a different game. That was Mega Man 2. It was the mystery of Dr. Wiley or something

like that. No, the Japanese title was like, anyway, this is Mega Man 4. He's fighting a Russian. Here's Mega Man 5. He's riding a mecha snake through a pit or something. Sorry, Super Mario World. Yeah, okay, anyway. So that was some samples of Mega Man. I didn't show the Game Boy games

or the Game Boy Color games, because the Game Boy Color games were Mega Man X, which is as we all know, a distinct entity, a unique character from the original Mega Man, and therefore does not count toward Mega Man's totality. There was also the rockboard game, the board game based on the game of life. That's Paradise. Released only for Famicom because I think Capcom wisely looked at it and said, that is not going to do Buckkus in America.

Why did we make this? Pretty much. It was a, yeah, contractual obligatory. God, I had to play the game of life all the time at my grandmother's house. She had the game and had this idea that my brother and I were going to play it every single time. I went there. I hated that game. I would take little, like, dudes that you put in the car

and I'd chew them up. Hey, grandma, I'm calling it the game of want to end my life. So, yeah, Mega Man was in a bunch of Apa games. Like, he might after Mario is probably the most prolific of all of these characters. He was in six of his own

adventures. I can't even do that on one hand. of his own adventures on NES plus the Famicom board game seven, seven games on that 8-bit system, plus there were the five Game Boy games, three of which were stale, badly made retreads of the

NES games, two of which were actually good and interesting. Yes, the Game Gear Game, which was a retread of the NES games that was then remade. Was that not remade for Genesis as the Wiley Wars, or is it something distinct?

is a combination of the first three of it here. You're right, but isn't that what the Game Gear game is also? I think it's a little different. Okay, it's a little different. There's a copy out on the floor for $1,500 if you want to give it a space and whether you know how it goes.

All right, all right. Yeah, so anyway, you missed it, but we're talking about this guy called Mega Man. You've probably never heard of him, but he's blue except when he's not. Yes. Okay. Huge fan.

Yes, all right. As I said, goes into the final battle of his first adventure by ripping apart Dr. Wiley's Fortress with his bare hands that's super cool

the more I think about it the more I'm like what a great character anyway that's Mega Man maybe I've tipped my hand a little bit but I think he's a pretty good

character and as a mascot he works really well Capcom used him in a lot of stuff he shows up in a lot of marketing materials for Capcom from the era probably because Capcom's first really big hit, like worldwide hit was Ghosts and Goblins. And for a while, that was their top selling

series. But after a while, Mega Man actually took that over. And for like a couple of years, Mega Man was their top selling series. So they put him everywhere. And then a little thing called Street Fighter came along and just kept going and going and going and going. And so all of a sudden Ryu became their mascot. And I don't think he's as lovable. But Mega Man continues to have something of a life. I guess Ryu does too. Maybe. Anyway. So, that's our thoughts on Mega Man. Actually, that's my thoughts on Mega Man. What do you have to say about Mega Man?

We've got to work up to Nadia because she's going to have a novel here. I just think what I love about Mega Man is that at his most basic level, he's incredibly capable. But the fact that each adventure he takes, he just gets

a whole bunch of new powers. And while not every new power is great, like, let's be honest, in the original game, how useful was that bomb. The bomb is pretty useless. The bomb's pretty bad. And the arm strength thing is great but only in certain situations because of the way they built

the game. But, you know, I feel like every game he gets at least one or two new powers that are incredibly useful. And then, you know, doesn't need him. Tosses him out the window. Okay, fresh start. I think what happens is between adventures, Dr. Light has to reboot him

and it cycles those weapons out of RAM. So he just needs better memory. Yeah, that's pretty bad. could be. There's also, there's a, you know, Tetsuan Atom kind of, you know, Astroboi thing happening. Yeah, which is unfortunate because, you know, you should have a more creative character. But then again, if you ever meet Kei and a funny in person, his hair just looks like that. So I feel like... It actually does.

Yeah. Although, did it always? Perhaps he styled himself to become his own character. That's a good question. We don't know. This is a real chicken or an egg situation. And in both cases, the chicken and egg are both robots. So we'll never know. No, one of the chickens is Kiji Inafune, who is not a robot. I've met him in person. I can assure you he is not a robot.

He's an Osaka. You know all about that. I do. I've met him in Osaka. You are an Osaka. I live there. He's from there. Okay.

Fair enough. Nadia, take it away. Well, I mean, what is you're to say? Yes, he is kind of derivative of Astro Boy, but in a really, you know, if you're going to steal, you steal from the best. And not only that, they kind of added such a unique twist. I mean, Mega Man, even just slopping that blue paint on him alone, was just made him, like,

really stand out, especially on the NES palette. We were talking about the NES palette earlier. That's also a very clever use of it. The NES had more blues than any other color. Why did it have so many blues? It was a very sad system. It just, you know, Nintendo was a little depressed when they invented it.

Depressed system for depressed children. There you go. So, yeah, they named Mega Man's brother after the palate. So, yes, he is very astrobooyish. But they removed the machine gun from his butt, which I feel is a big loss. Is that why you put him not as number one on this list?

Yeah, because we have a lack of machine gun butts going on. And that's always a derivative in my book. Machine gun butt, my favorite rapper. Anyway, do you have any more thoughts on Mega Man? Just he's pretty much the perfect NES mascot when you think about it, because all of his games, They're kind of the same, but they're so comforting at the same time. Like, it was, I started with Mega Man 3, and then I moved on to 4,

and then I moved on to 5, and then I went back to 2. But the point is I'd always be playing these games, because I'd always have at least one rented, and my brother, being my brother, be like, these all look the same, these all look dumb. I'm like, no, he's flooding Dr. Cossack this time. He's totally not Dr. Wiley, so, yeah, I have spent much of my life standing up for Mega Man, so I will continue to do so. I thought you were going to start throwing copies of your book at people,

but that's okay. I put them away somewhere. Oh, too bad. All right. Well, anyway, she's written a book about Mega Man. There we go. That one, actually, Owens about Text. Distinct character, not the original Mega Man.

I thought we went through this. All right, anyway, now audience, we have to know what you think of Mega Man. Nadia here, the number one Mega Man fan, has only given Mega Man a number two. So that's not faring well for him. Are you on the same page here? Like, good, but he could be better?

Or are you, do you truly love Mega Man with your little robot heart? Let's find out. In three, two, one, and... All right. Congratulations. That broke 100. And my iPhone, or my Apple Watch is going to give me a little warning soon saying,

hey, that can cause permanent hearing damage. Don't stand around that too long. Thank you for not cheering longer. We'd all be in trouble. All right, Mega Man, 100.1. That's the best score we've seen so far And I What did I give Mega Man?

Let's find out Here on my notepad I'm carrying so many devices I could have just written this on paper But no Ew, paper Got to justify all those expenses I gave him a five

I really like Mega Man But I do think that there are other Better Mascot characters to be found Such as Mario and Dizzy Well actually no we haven't seen any of the others Definitely not Dizzy You are in detention

now. So before you go to detention and put your head down on the desk, what number do you get me? I gave me two. Okay. I assumed, but I didn't want to assume, but I did.

It was a good assumption. Three. Three, all right. We got a three, two, and a five. Not bad. That actually puts Mega Man ahead of Mario. Oh, spicy.

Yeah, it's like the prisoner game where the averages can add up to be a better number than the high score. That's why they throw away the extreme scores in the Olympics. Also because they don't trust the Russian judges. Anyway, Mega Man, I can't wait to tally up these community scores and see how things work out. On to the next character, who is another Konami character, kind of, Moai.

Oh, no, the video's too small. What happened there? Moai, it's those Moai heads, the stone moai heads. But Moai didn't just share. up in Gradius, Moai also had a game called Moai Coon. And Moai shows up in a lot of Konami games as kind of like Konami man does. But on top of that, Moai shows up in many other games. If you look, there's a website, and I can't remember what it's called, but there is a website

that tracks the appearances of Moai heads in video games, and they are all over the place. I can't even remember what they're in. Jalico has a game called Xerian, which actually predates Gradius, and there are moai heads on the ground, and you're flying over them. Moai heads are everywhere. They are just this ubiquitous symbol that you see in AP video games. And in case you don't know what a moai head is, it is a massive stone figure that is found on Easter Island. There's a bunch of them all throughout Easter Island, and they were carved thousands of years ago. No one knows exactly why, or exactly what they represent,

or if there was some purpose to them besides let's make a cool-looking guy and put them all over the place. And that's what makes them so interesting because they are mysterious. They are old. There's no real explanation of what they're all about. And so people can only speculate. And, of course, when it comes to, like, we found a weird thing from a long time ago, it seems more advanced than people really should have been able to make back then.

It must have been put there by aliens. So, MoI heads show up a lot in science fiction, along with the, like, the NASCAR lines that you see in Zedias and other things like that, pyramids, just like these ancient civilizations that did cooler things than you saw like happening coming out of Western Europe at the time. It's just interesting and fascinating. And so people come up with weird conspiracy theories about it that are ridiculous, but they make cool wallpaper in video games. And that's MoI for you, the ubiquitous 8-bit science fiction mascot. I wonder, Jeremy, if that website includes the anime production company Emotion

that famously uses MoI as their logo. It might, if they have ever done like a video game tie-in that has their logo in there? Possibly. That website is very comprehensive. Okay. I recommend look it up. Moai video game website.

I don't know. Something.com. Do either of you have further thoughts on Moai? I cannot have less than an opinion on Moai. It's simply not scientifically possible. It's just, I find them interesting as Easter Island figureheads. Like, they actually have bodies underneath the heads, and they figured out, like, how scientists moved them.

They made them walk for, like, you know, how the natives made them move, actually. It was they made them walk using ropes. It was really cool. Like, all that stuff is very cool. But in the context of video games, they're just mad spitting things at me most of the time. I didn't know about Moai Kuhn, who's the name? He's very cute, but otherwise I have no real opinions on Stoneheads. I believe you can play as a moai in.

Konami Crazy Racers for Game Boy Advance, which is a 32-the-game, but still, it's cool that Moai continues to... Wasn't there, I'm remembering the tip of my memory, there was a cartoon. The critic. Thank you. The kid had a Moai head.

The Stry Island kid at the International School. All right. Thank you. Anything to add in addition to that, Diamond? I love Moai. They are the perfect mascot. All right. So we've got a one over here.

Maybe. Anyway, what do you think about Moai? Let's find out three, two, one. All right, not bad. We got a 71.2. Not bad for Stonehead. Yeah, I mean, considering it just sits there. Angerly.

I could think of worse things to do. I actually gave it a 17. I think Moai are cool, but they're not really much of a mascot because they're all over the place. That's a good point. No one owns Moai. Moai belongs to all of us. I got an 18, so yeah. Nice.

Why are we digging them there? Just give him a lump of stone. Who else is going to get 18? One. Are you joking? I'm not joking. All right. I would not have predicted that, actually.

Yeah, it's right there, black and white. If you had me wagering on this in advance, that wouldn't have come up anywhere anywhere All right, so Emotion Speaking of emotion Here's a character known for his tears Aw

Aw, tears It's Opa Opa Sega's mascot And cool little living spaceship guy With feet and wings From Fantasy Zone and Fantasy Zone 2 And also Wait for it

Fantasy Zone the maze a really cool game that I recently discovered and thought was phenomenal. Highly recommend everyone play it, Sega Master System. Fantasy Zone the maze. It's good. Opa Opa obviously starred in these three games, as well as some later Fantasy Zone games. Sadly, Space Fantasy Zone, which was Space Harrier, but with Opa Opa never actually came out, which is tragic, because that would have been super cool. But Opa Opa also showed up as a mascot in general. throughout Sega games.

I've seen him in a bunch of games, including Alex Kidd. He is a power-up in the game Zillion, and actually they turned him into the team mascot in the Zillion anime. So there's like the three white knights and they're running around,

and then Opa Opa is kind of babbling at them and telling them, alert, danger, kind of a canine-ish character, if you know, Doctor Who. Opa-Opa, yeah, Opa Opa was a legitimate Sega mascot. And in my opinion,

is a much more legitimate mascot for Sega than Alex Kidd. Because Opa Ope began life in the arcades on 8-bit hardware and really did a great job of ushering Sega's arcade legacy into the home. Of all of Sega's arcade conversions to their 8-bit system, the master system, I feel like the Fantasy Zone games work best. And then Fantasy Zone 2 was actually created for Master System, added more complexity and depth to Fantasy Zone and then was backported years later by M2

the cool developers who do emulation and stuff into arcade form. What if that arcade game had actually existed? Let's invent it based on the Master System game. So just a really cool legacy. I feel like people who really played a lot of arcade games back then who really loved Sega back then have a real soft spot for Opa Opa

unless they're from, Europe, in which case they love Alex Kidd, but Did they not get Opa in Europe? They did, but for some reason, Alex Kidd, oh, you know what, Alex Kidd came built into master systems over there, so it was a, it was one of those Stockholm syndrome things, literally in Stockholm. If you lived in Sweden, you were forced to play

master system and built in Alex Kidd. Anyway, so that's Opa, Opa. Do either of you have thoughts on Opa, Opa? I have trouble trusting Opa-O-O-O-Pa because he has no face. That you are aware of. But, I mean, look at Metal Gear Solid on PlayStation. We talked about this earlier.

Solid Steak has no face. Simon Belmont has no face on NES. But I was saying those are technical... Eyes without a face, like that song by Billy Idol. Those are technical implications. Even if at a high-resolution, Op-Opa drawing, is going to have just a big glass window. To me, it's like those transformers

where instead of giving them an actual head, that it said, oh, well, this tire is their head. Oh, this window is their head. I don't, I'm not a fan. Shockwave. Just give him an eye. He's good. You know, Diamond, that's because those were originally

micro-main toys. They didn't actually, they weren't robots. They were mecks suits, and you're supposed to put a little driver in them. Geez, done. All right, anyway, Nadia. I love Opa Opa Opa, because Opa Opa doesn't give a crap. Opa is just like... No, Opa Opa does give a crap.

Opa, the tears of Opa Opa is the subtitle of Fantasy Zone 2. You can't be. give more of a crap than this. Well, that's what I mean. He's weeping. He has to kill his own father. That's what makes it so fantastic. He's a car or something with legs, and yet he has this great JRP storyline

to behind him. On top of being a great game, I mean, Fantasy Zone, I was never a master system person, but Fantasy Zone is consistently great. And the game you showed, fantasy maze? Fantasy Zone the maze? That looks really good. That looks like a lot of fun. It's great. Yeah, I just love the fact that in this era of

mascots that look like bears and plumbers for some reason and you know eggs they went ahead and just made this weird car capsule with the legs that really hates his father or something I don't know his father turned evil his father is basically Darth Vader

like we're concerned about Donkey Kong being separated from Donkey Kong Jr but here we have patricide like Sega is so intense compared to Nintendo this is like Final Fantasy 4 with cars Can you imagine Carr's Final Fantasy 4? Great. Car's Final Fantasy.

So, yes, you probably don't want the number yet, right? I don't want the number yet. Okay. Now that we've both, we've all three made our cases for or against Opa Opa, it's time for the audience to weigh in. So please, on the count of one, coming from three, let us know what you think of Opa-Opa, the true Sega Master System mascot. Three, two, one.

I believed in you people 83.4. That puts them below Froger. Well, Froger is pretty great. That's not a terrible place to be. Opa, Opa, I'm going to go ahead and here and say I gave Opa Opa Opa a 4. Diamond.

Oh, I also gave him a 4. Oh, okay. Team! Oh, no. Got him. Boom. Got him. It's okay. I gave him a five. All right.

I just like a little bastard. Not too bad. Could be better. All right, we're winding down the last four characters here with the last half hour of this presentation. Thanks everyone for sticking around and continuing to cheer, although sometimes I feel like the cheering is lagging a little. such as with Opa Opa, but who am I to judge? Don't poison them well, Jeremy. All right, here's one.

A little guy you may know called Pac-Man. I took all of this footage of the Pac-Man games from a laser disc that I got from Japan called The History of Video Games, Volume 1 and 2, Namco, which is narrated by Satoshi Tagiri, the creator of Pokemon. It's such an amazing curio of video game history from the 80s when no one was even treating

video games as history. That's how cool, Pac-Man is, before people thought of, like, what's the history of video games? They were putting together laser disks to say, hey, let's talk about Pac-Man and Namco, because they're awesome. Look back in the

past, you know, three years ago from when this video was created, and Pac-Land had come out three years before that. So, yeah, Pac-Man, Miss Pac-Man, if you must. Although that wasn't a Namco game, and also it's a different character. But Super Pac-Man is Pac-Man,

but apparently can fly above the maze, I think is supposed to be the idea when he gets really big. But somehow also he's eating the ghosts that are still in the maze. I don't quite understand the perspective there. But in any case, he gets super before Mario got super. Later, you saw Pac and PAL.

Pac-Man had a little pal who actually is not that friendly. Pal, she runs around and steals all the fruit and you have to chase her down and steal the fruit back while avoiding ghosts. And then, of course, Pac-Land, not actually that good a game, but very remarkable and weirdly, based on the American cartoon about Pac-Man,

that's always struck me as a wild and bizarre novelty. But Pac-Man, if you are old enough to remember the early 1980s, and I know some of you in here are much too young for that, but some of you in here clearly are old enough for that, and I can relate to you. When I was a kid, Pac-Man was everything. He was the breakout video game character. I had a Pac-Man board game,

where everyone had a little plastic Pac-Man in a different color, there were marbles laid out, and you would press Pac-Man down as you rolled the dice and moved forward X number of slots, and the marbles would pop inside of the plastic Pac-Man and take away the marbles from the board, and then at the end you counted up the marbles that you'd claimed. It was so cool.

I had a Pac-Man lunchbox. There were Pac-Man toys and books and cartoons and records, and just books, how to win a Pac-Man. The Russians stole the Pac-Man package, and got a leg up on us in the Cold War for a little while. It was a, it was a, it was a whole thing. Pac-Man was everywhere. Pac-Man was massive.

Pac-Man, like if you, if you know, you know, as they say, Pac-Man. Wow, what a guy. What a guy. What a dude. And later he got married, had kids. You know, again, family values, just a good Heartland kind of character. Pac-Man, I am just a little too young to remember how, like the pitch of the fever,

but I do remember the Atari 2,600 version of the game, the infamous one, because my parents had that. And that was, to me, that was what I knew of Pac-Man for a long time. That's not Pac-Man's fault. That is true. That's not Pac-Man's fault. But the fact remains that I did play the game when I was very small and I missed a dot, it was like a line on the board on the first level,

and I died, and I started crying because I died at Pac-in. My mom laughed at me. and at some point I took a pen and I stabbed it in this cartridge and... Wow. Yeah. Again, it wasn't Pac-Man's fault.

I mean, I think Pac-Man, the regular, untainted Batman, great character. I did love the cartoon as a kid. I did think, obviously, you look back at it now and say, oh, God, what the hell is this? But I thought it was very clever that when he ate the ghost,

they had to go back into the closet, which sounds really funny now. They had to go back into the closet and get their clothes back and come back out. I just thought that was cute. but I mean also Pac-Man gets a lot of credit for inventing so many genres I mean wasn't I can't remember the name of the side-scrolling Pac-Man was that Pac World or Pac-Land Pac-Land yeah that was that was side-scrolling before Mario wasn't it yeah so he

he deserves a lot of credit yeah he invented the Hayankio alien knockoff Pac-Man was was all over the place yeah Diamond well Jeremy you and I are close in age so I definitely had a lot of affection for Pac-Man as a youth but as I grow older I do worry about Pac-Man representing the dark side of capitalism because Pac-Man is a relentless consumer

he consumes all around him not even the dead or safe from Pac-Man they too must be consumed by him so I wonder about the kind of message that sends us but ultimately he's been in some great games he's been in some forgettable games at this point I would say ranking the mascots

I just feel like there's so many more mascots that I like better that the score will not be impressive but I do share your childhood admiration of Pac-Man and also I like to say not related childhood at all Pac-Man Battle Royale

underrated underrated arcade game Pac-Man Battle Royale find that find that in the arcade somewhere That sounds really cool actually I think it's a David Buster's two pounds over I think every David Buster has it at this point it's good choice

choice. That's true if you like playing video games with other people, which I can take a leave. I can't get into that. Yeah, actually my very first video game ever that I remember playing was Ms. Pac-Man, which is not, again, Pac-Man, but it was brand new, and they stuck it out

in, like, a department store just randomly on the floor, and my parents said, yeah, here's 25 cents kid. Go play for 30 seconds before you die. And I did. I died in 30 seconds. It was great. Anyway, so that's our Pac-Man pitch. Where do we, the collective you, stand on Pac-Man himself?

Let's find out in three, two, one. That's respectable. You got a 90.7 on that one. Not bad, not bad for the yellow man. Not bad. Pac-Man. Diamond, what is your not-impressive score for Pac-Man? I give Pac-Man a nine

Oh, really? Which nine kind of looks like a Pac-Man going that way. It kind of does. Pac-Man with an underbite. Nadia? Give him a three. I think that's what he deserves. I agree.

I also gave Pac-Man. Oh, there you go. Great minds. DeCord. Yeah, sorry, my French is terrible. Mine's terrible, too. But I love baguettes, so who can say who's wrong here? Anyway, Sohs, are the phantom not gentry

to do. Anyway, let's Let's move along to the anti-punctusate Anyway, let's move along to the anti-penultimate character of this countdown. Next and next to last. Pitfall Harry. Notable for being, again, one of the first character action games,

Pitfall, first characters on the Atari system, which was not really noted for characters themselves. He was in Pitfall, and then Pitfall 2. In Pitfall 2, kind of like the Pac-Man, Peckland, was heavily inspired by Pitfall, the cartoon, Saturday morning cartoon, based on the pitfall game.

You have to rescue your nieces, wild mountain lion quick claw who you see at the beginning of pitfall two it's kind of weird but pitfall too actually a very innovative game open world exploratory you can't die in it you just lose

points for for messing up and running into an enemy you have as much time as you need to finish the game and the challenge is to finish the game with as many points as possible so pitfall Harry was really kind of innovating there pitfall itself even though it's a game where you literally just run

left to right or right to left. Surprising complexity once you understand how the world interrelates and interlocks. So he himself is not necessarily the most memorable character when you see him in the game, but he kind of became sort of an icon in a way, not just for Activision, but just for the idea of video games, like a little running guy. For a long time, Pitfall Harry was kind of like the basis of character action game characters. especially among American and some European designers. So, you know, I think the Pitfall series has largely been forgotten,

and Activision's own poor stewardship of the Pitfall franchise has a lot to do with that, but Pitfall Harry himself, a good egg, much unlike Dizzy. Yeah, Pitfall Harry, Pitfall in general, is one of those games where if you had a 2,600, and you were desperate for something, you know, at least like kind of almost on the level, an NES game to play. That was what you got. The funny thing about Piffa-Herry is that even though he's a few pixels, I could pick him out of a crowd.

And that's not something you could say about an Atari's 2,600 mascot. It's actually heartbreaking just to come back to these games to see how great Activision was at development on the 2600. I guess if Activision ever needs to create a Where's Waldo clone, they can use Piffal Harry. You can... There's also... I'll never forget the South Park

parody where the priest was looking for some kind of canon, the Catholic canon, and he's going... I'm ready going on this great quest, and it switches to a pitfall game. And it's him, there's a little sprite, and he's like, good Lord, snakes. And it's just really funny. So I think about that every time I think of pitfall now,

which it gives points. All right. And, uh, David? I really liked pitfall at the time. I had a lot of fun with that. But I do worry that if we're talking about Pitfall Harry is a mascot, then we have to look at his body of work.

And frankly, there's a lot of pitfall games that just aren't that great. and Pitfall Harry But those are not 8-bit games What? The Super Pitfall on NES is not it-bit? Oh. Oh, that. What the hell is that? Is that like...

Yeah, okay. No, you got me there. I forgot about that douchebag. I do appreciate Jack Black and a pith helmet. That's a fun image. He was the master Takahashi of his day. Yeah, in a way.

But I also think back to like, okay, Pitfall Harry or the guy from Jungle Hunt. I like the guy from Jungle Hunt better. Yeah. He's cool. Pitfall Harry to me is a lower status mascot from a very good game. Pitfall Harry never got sued for ripping off the Tarzan yell, however. That's true, even though he ripped up where it.

Yeah, I'm just saying that one of these characters has gone to jail and the other is not. Pitfall Harry can change. Pitfall Harry, still a free man. So how do we feel collective group about Pitfall Harry? Let's hear it for Pitfall Harry on one. three, two, one. All right, I saw a peak there at 77.1. That's not too bad.

All things considered pitfall hearing, especially since I gave you an 11, which is not great. Not terrible, but also not great. Not terrible. Nadia? I gave him an 8. Eight.

And diamond. 15. Oh, no. I feel like you talk these characters up and then you're like, slam. I said I don't care for him. I said, you know, I said it. But Jack Black. I like Jack Black.

We're ranking Jack Black? I'm not writing Jack Black. I'm not writing Jack Black. I just thought, okay. Although frankly, Jack Black's star has slipped very much. Oh, that's true. That's true, that's true, that's true, but. That's not a hear or they have this conversation.

Yeah, okay. Fair enough. So that's Pitfall Harry. Okay, good. Two more to go because I'm running out of steam. Time to get through. this. Let's power through. Here's a character who I don't know about Steam, but he's full of snot.

The star of snots and boogers, it's Cubert himself. Thankfully, they did not call Cubert snots and boogers as they originally intended. For some reason, I used footage of the Othello multivision version of Cubert. The guy in the panel that I said that was actually a myth, although Warren Davis, the creator of Cubert himself. I guess he would know, but nevertheless, I find a certain charm in believing that they might actually have called the game. Snots and Figures.

What did he have to say about that, actually? You mentioned that how, okay, I don't remember exactly specifically, but like they were wondering, well, the Nose was, the Keyworth's nose was because the other creator of the game, wanted a character that would shoot out of his nose because he thought that was funny but it wasn't telling me these snotts though okay

he just shoots random other stuff out of his nose I mean I've I've had those experiences when I was a little kid I got a peanut stuck up my nose and took a while to get out so we've all been there

we can empathize with Kubert shooters were popular back then yeah yeah just use this guy who shoots out of his nose just peanuts hey it's the Jeremy Parrish character all right What about you, Diamond?

I like Hubert. I like Hubert. It was definitely an early favorite of mine. I do appreciate that when you're playing Hubert, rather than eating anything or fighting anything, your only goal is to make all the colors the same, which for me as a young, maybe slightly obsessive child. I appreciate that.

Oh, everything has to be green, okay? We can't finish so everything's green or blue or whatever the color is of this level. It was the precursor to unboxing. I really was. I also, let's be honest, in an era when no one could even say damn on TV or hell,

this was canonically a game that's a little guy who curses when he loses, which I think that was supposed to be the name of the game went point, right? Just the symbols? Yeah. There's a mini-replicade that recreates the prototype version of Kubert,

and it does have a marquee that's just the string of... How are supposed to pronounce that? Yep, that's it. In the previous panel that, like, he the president felt that people would figure out how to say it in communication

like the people would speak to it. Okay, fair enough. The people would speak to Kuber. Everyone would get in touch with their own internal Phenom generator. But yeah, I really enjoyed Kubert and I'm really

shocked that he ended up going for Josh Gad in that movie, but you know, that's not 8 bit, so we want to talk about that. Yeah, Kubert is one of the early recognizable characters that really The game is really hard, but Cubert, the character himself,

is very endearing. He's just like this orange ball, basically, with feet, eyes, and a nose. He doesn't even have a mouth, yet somehow he can still curse. It's like, you know, I have no mouth, but I must curse. But I must say the F word. Yeah.

Good times. Yeah, he just, he kind of transcended video games for a little while. He was in a really terrible cartoon. Oh, so bad. That we should not talk about because that would just drag him down. But he's also shown up in other media throughout, more recently, like

pixels, I think that's what you're talking about. And wasn't he also in Reckett Ralph? Yeah, okay. He's out of work. Much more charming there. That's, yeah. So that's right, he's out of work. But we love Kubert, and I hope Sony eventually realizes that they own Kubert and that they can do something with Kubert because Kubert is due a comeback. I agree. Yeah.

I would absolutely, I like Kubert. I think he's a perfect, he's just a great character design. He has that slight fuzziness to him. He has that, there's something very fun about the way he bounces. Like, he kind of goes with the bounce. He's got the cute little snoot. He's got these big eyes, and he swears me, he screws up.

What's not relatable about that? You know, so, yeah, I am pro-Cupert. I think Cooper games are great. Again, on the 2600, that's one of the only great games he could really count on. It occurs to me that you could actually argue that Cubert and Opa-Opa have the same profile, but Cuber

is much better. Is Cuber trying to kill his father? No, but just, you've got You've got the same shape. You've got the top of the, and the little legs. But, you know, Cubert has eyes and a nose in his expressive, whereas Opa Opa Opa is just a blank. So he's more trustworthy than Opa. Yes. I can understand that.

But Cubert doesn't cry, unlike Opa Opa. No, he swears. Swear is like a pirate. All right. All right. Okay. So, anyway, Cubert, yeah. Let's hear for Cubert on three, two, one.

The breakout star of the evening with 91.3 decibels. Again, my Apple Watch is going to freak out if you keep that up. So, Diamond, where are you putting Cubert on this list? I have Cubert at 8. Eight. I have him at 9. At 9. And I've got him at 12.

Oh, well. Someone's a hater. Yeah, that's right. That's what I'm here for. He's cursing at me, and I take it personally. Hey, you play better, you asshole. The character who actually let us in this evening, it is slime. Yay.

Everyone loves a slime. That's not slime. That's Loto's descendant. That's a slime. That's actually a red slime. Or a she slime. Or she slime by modern parlance. There's also blue slimes.

There's marine slimes. There's metal slimes. There's heel slimes. Dragon slimes. Yeah, there's so many slimes. And all of them came from this little guy who looks like a little onion. And one of the most brilliant. video game character design choices of all time.

When Dragon Warrior was under development, Dragon Quest, the designer of the game, Yuji Hori, sent over a bunch of sketches to the character artist, Akira Toriyama, who recently passed, is better known for Dragon Ball, and many other series like that. He sent over sketches that looked really like something you would have seen in wizardry or might and magic, like very Western-style characters. And slime in particular was just this sort of amorphous blob, kind of horrible.

If you've ever played Final Fantasy, the original, if you remember the slime there, it's like dripping from the ceiling. It was kind of that thing. And Akira Toryama looked at that and said, no, that's not good. This basic enemy should be happy. It should be delighted that you're going to kill it in one hit and take its one point of experience and one gold piece. It should be adorable.

You should love to encounter these guys. It should become the cutest little thing ever. And so he based it, I believe, on the shape of the little poo characters from his Dr. Slump cartoon. Like the little soft serve swirl poops that show up everywhere that RLA is obsessed with, simplified that, streamlined it down

to this little teardrop shape with a grin. and this is an iconic image of not just Dragon Quest but of video games in general if you spend any time in Japan you cannot avoid seeing a slime somewhere like if you go to the Lawson's in Akihabara it is like a Dragon Quest permanent takeover I believe just slimes everywhere

but this is the representative character of one of the most popular franchises of video games and longest running franchises of video games in Japan. It is just the slime. It's such an unlikely character, but there are cartoons about slimes.

There is an entire video game series about slimes called Slime Mori Mori or Rocket Slime that Diamond put together an episode about not too long ago. The slime is everywhere. The slime is everything. It's just, it's one of the iconic images of video games like the Space Invader, like Pac-Man.

I guess like Mario if you want to go there but anyway that's the slime I am such a Dragon Quest nerd that I'm sitting here thinking how did you get that 62 gold you must have taken the king's money

and done crap with it perhaps yes yeah so I totally agree I think Akira Toriyama was one of the best monster designers in the history of art

the entire history of art since 2000 whatever that BDC anyway yeah I just think it's a great design. It's funny. There's even a Captain N episode where they go to like the Dragon Quest

World, where they called it. The Land of Dragon Warrior, I think, is how they called it. And they actually do encounter the slimes, but they're, as you describe them, like those wizardry slimes, like they just didn't, I don't know why they didn't They missed the point. An abomination is what they've grew. Yeah, but

yeah, you got to think about Toriyama's thought process here because you kind of put it, you know, you said it out loud. Hi, I can't wait to be killed by you. Every slime and Dragon Quest always seems happy to meet you even if you're going to kill them. Like, slimes are just, you know, Dragon Quest has always been kind of like a gray with the morality of its monsters. But slimes are always usually kind of on the human side, even if you just are there to boot them across the day. They're there to help you get started.

They sacrifice themselves so that you can get some gold and go buy some better stuff. And they do reassemble quite easily, so maybe they're not dead. They're helping you out. They're being a bro. Yeah. it's good times Diamond really quick I think we're running out of time actually

Of all the mascots we've discussed today And indeed of most mascots we haven't even discussed today How many of them have their very own Video Game controller Where you hold the mascot and play video games Because slimes have that Slimes have had that for I think several generations now I think they start with PS2

And probably three and four And probably five somehow at least in Japan Do people play with that? You can't you turn it over It's because the things look terrible But do people do it? No it's an awesome awful way to play, but it's so cool that you can do it.

So I think the slime should be heralded for its versatility and the fact that, yes, like you said, there are slime videigans where you get to play as a slime. Honestly, between that podcast and the one we talked about Toriala's passing, I feel like we've already had two podcasts this year where the takeaway lesson was, slimes are good.

That's a good, that's a good lesson to learn. So final vote here. How do you feel about the humble slime, the friend to man and beast? They probably taste like mint. I don't know, but that's my guess. On the count of one, three, two, one, go for it. All right, we got a 95.4 in there.

Someone really belted it out. Way to go. As for me, I mean, if you've been looking at the column here, you can see, slime is my number one pick. Oh, nice. I love me a slime. They're so great. What lovable little guys. guys, they're just the best in all their myriads.

No, the count must continue. You have to get the Supreme Court to stop us. All right. Diamond, where do you stand on the slime? Two. Wow. I feel like a reub now, because I guess... Are you a hater?

Well, a six. It's not a hate. Six. But there's so many good masks guys. It's like an upside-down Pac-Man. All right. Well, actually, based on our scoring numbers here, that still puts slime as the number one mascot character. Oh, my God.

So now we sort by score. So we can successfully say that going from worst to best, it's boomer, no surprise there. Nobody likes the boomers. Sorry, old people. Konami man. Poor Konami man. Dizzy.

Sorry, UK. Mappi. Moai. I can't believe Mapy's that low. Okay, Moai, Master Higgins, Alex Kid, Pitfall Harry, Bentley Bear, Clarice, from City Connection, Cubert, Opa, Opa, Frogger, then Pac-Man, then Donkey Kong, then Mario, then slime, and tied with slime is Mega Man. So, that's a worthy tie.

It's top of the rankings. It's all blue with some color variants available, but blue is the color. So thank you, everyone, for you. taking part in this 8-bit mascot Ranking Hoot Nanny, I'm glad that we have definitively determined which mascot characters of the 8-bit era are best, and no one can ever argue otherwise because it is official now, and you have been a part of history. So thank all of you for shouting and cheering and clapping and so on and so forth. It's been great, and I really enjoyed all of your participation, and I enjoyed your participation as well, and my own participation. It's great. We're

all great. I love you all. Thanks, everyone. We'll be around the show floor tomorrow at various times, so you can stop by our booth and say hello. Thank you for scoring Slime. So hi, Jeremy. I'll say you're welcome. And, yeah, other than that, thanks again for being here.

And we'll see you next year. We are Retronauts, Jeremy, Nadia, Diamond. And you can find us on the Internet and listen to more podcasts that work like this and many that don't, many more that don't. at Retronauts.com and on iTunes and so on and so forth. Look at that. I still call it iTunes. Thanks, everyone.

Good night. Bleu, blue, the love is blue. The sky is blue when you come. Bleu, blue, the love is blue. The love is blue

when you bring my mom. Foo, fool, The love is Foo, Foo like you and fool like me Blue, blue

The love is blue When I'm blue When I'm When I'm Toes When I'm That I'm

When I'm I'm When I'm I'm You Thank you.