Retronauts - 737: Holiday Special 2025 - Video Power

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

It's that time of the year again, so hang your stockings, haul home a coniferous tree, and pack the required survival gear for another harrowing trip to the Retronauts Holiday Cabin in Parts Unknown. And for this 15th outing, we'll be taking a long, mostly confused look at Video Power: the Captain N also-ran that assembled a team of C-list protagonists for some poorly animated, Acclaim-promoting fun. (Before being completely retooled into a game show the following year.) So listen in as Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, and Drew Mackie as the crew assembles and attempts to learn the true meaning of brand integration. Cover art by Nick Daniel. Retronauts is a completely fan-funded operation. To support the show, and get two full-length exclusive episodes every month, as well as access to 100+ previous bonus episodes, please visit the official Retronauts Patreon at patreon.com/retronauts.

We want orange. Give us the orange. We want orange. Bring back the orange. You got it, Canada. Booster juice orange smoothies are back by popular demand. The original, the marathon, and orangeicle smoothies are back and bursting with tangy zest of oranges. They're Canadian favorites. Orange, you glad they're back? Only for a limited time. So squeeze the day, smoothie lovers, and head to a booster juice near you now. Booster Juice, Canadian-born, blending since 1999. Christmas, and you hate Christmas, we all hate Christmas, yeah. Christmas cheers, it's already here, still at Grandma's Fruitcake from last year.

Oh, hello there. Once again, I didn't see or hear you come in. My doctor recently diagnosed me with a rare condition known as temporary door blindness. Welcome once again to the Retronauts Holiday Cabin and parts unknown for yet another annual holiday special. And this year, I... Forget it. You know what? Forget it. It's the 15th time I've done this.

Fifteen, and after shining the spotlight on so much video game kits, Drek, and garbage, I'm not sure I can do this anymore. I have attended a Pokemon Christmas bash and a Sonic Christmas blast. I had a reverent Congo Bongo festival of lights. I've seen how Pac-Man, Super Mario, and Earthworm Jim celebrate the birth of Christ. And now I'm so depressed, all I want to do is sleep. You know what? Why don't you just hang out over by the new? vintage grandfather clock I've recently had installed.

I'm just going to curl up by the fire and take a little nap until the whole holiday business blows over. And don't rifle through my drawers. Oh, Mackey, Ghost of Retronauts. Good God, could it be? The ghost of one-up.com? I can't believe you're being depicted in a way that visually makes sense. If only everyone out there could see it.

These are the misguided ad deals I forged in life. And tonight I come there. Uh, yeah, that's great. Can you close the door, please? I'm not paying to heat the entire dark treacherous forest. Thanks. Oh, sorry. Uh, anyway, Bob, unless you want to become an old outdated and long-forgotten media format like the wretch you see before you, the true meaning of Retronaut's holiday episodes must once again touch your heart

Tonight you will be visited by two hosts Wait, these are hosts, not ghosts And there's just two of them But we'll get to do some time traveling, right? I mean, I'm dying to know what Christmas of 1991 was like And maybe what kind of font they're going to use on my tombstone No time travel is totally made up But what isn't made up is the spirit of the Retronaut's holiday

special. With the help of these two hosts, maybe you'll have what Sonic the Hedgehog once called an extremely Merry Christmas. Peace out. Wow, he just disappeared. He faded into the ether, and I think he still owes me some freelancing money. Well, whatever. As usual, when it comes to anything a ghost tells me, I'm going to choose to be cautiously optimistic. Oh, those must be the two hosts, I was promised. Oneup.com's prophecy is coming true. And now to welcome my guests and not tell them about my recent insane visions. Well, come on in, guys. Come in.

Please. Please. It's windier than a bear out there. Oh, thank you, Bob. Oh, man. I'm freezing off in my avatar, Fire and Ash, collectible hoodie. Oh, it's very nice. And I'll tell you what, in honor of today's podcast and the subject matter,

I have baked cookies in the shape of a seedless mascot. So please enjoy these Blinks the Time Sweeper Snicker. snickerdoodles. Remember Blinks? He sweeps time. And now he's sweeping up by hunger. Blinks is still available. I'll let you know. If you're looking for a mascot character, he's looking for work. Okay, so you guys have come in, the door has been close.

Snow is actively melting off of your bodies. Let's have you formally introduced yourselves to our audience. What's going on here? Who's here today? Confused useless tomato, Drew Mackie. I'm here. Hi. How's it going? Thank you, Drew. Drew, formerly a potato. We'll talk about it soon. Who else is here today? Hey, I'm ready to narc on all of you guys. It's Anthony Gilbert.

Yes, he's like our friend, Max Force, or whatever his name is. I wrote it then. We'll get to it. I did go by Max growing up, so. Oh, that's true. This could have been a relatable cartoon. You could be a policeman and not a podcaster. A weirdly genteel policeman.

Yes. If you followed the video power path in life and many of us fortunately avoided that. So yes, the topic today is video power, the syndicated program about video games. games that ran for two years in the early 90s. It took two different forms. We'll talk about all of that very soon. So that is the basics for this podcast. And it's a topic that not many people have covered.

I notice online this is not a popular topic even for Kitch Value. There are like a few very light articles written around the turn of the last decade, like around 2011, 2012. Like, oh, remember this? And there's not a lot of detail. But this has always been kicking around in my head. Like, I have to do video power sometime. But other subject matter would take precedent. But this is my 15th holiday special.

And that means we have to get around to video power. I want us to give our histories with this show. Let's start with Henry. Henry, it sounded like from our conversations earlier, you have watched the video power program. Yes, yeah. I definitely would chalk it up to having early morning drives to school and waking up at like 6 a.m. on some days,

because this feels like 6 a.m. stuff for me. or at the very least 7 a.m. And, yeah, I watched it because it was video game cartoons. But even in my, you know, childhood, I had to, like, put it, push it down in my rankings. Like, I also got it slightly confused with, you pointed out to me later, like, no, no, no, you're thinking a game spot, a game pro TV. I was getting that mixed up with it. But I definitely remember what. A better show, but also still not very good.

Please continue. Yes, yeah. But, though, when I first watched this as a kid, I didn't know. most of the characters in it even though I was playing the NES all the time but just seeing a video game like review on a TV show did keep

my attention for a time you didn't know quirk you didn't know quirk everyone knew quirk everyone's favorite video game quirk I unfortunately knew who all these guys were because Nintendo Power indoctrinated me but Drew I don't know about your history with the video power program do you have you ever

seen this before in your life is this new to you my history began when you asked me if I would be on this podcast, and I was like, I've never heard of that. Is that a problem if I've literally never even heard of this thing, much less like watched it? And you said no for some reason. So now I'm here. I watched the episode.

We're recording it like one. I started watching at noon. I was taken aback by the low quality and ugliness of it. And I am dying to know what giant secrets you're going to reveal about it. Because just to like give it away, Bob told us not to research. You were going to present all the research on your own as a surprise. I'm guessing there's like a true crime angle to this or something where like someone died horribly, but I really could not imagine what you're about to tell us.

Johnny Arcade has not yet been brought to justice. We're praying for a miracle. Just a pile of bodies behind him. Now, Drew, I assume that your experience is much like our listeners. I assume most of our listeners have never watched video power, even though it was available in a lot of markets. it was on for two years. This is not a Hollywood dog scenario. We covered that pilot on what a cartoon. It aired once. Someone finally put it online in 2016, and then the rest of the world finally got to see it. This was a daily show for two years. And it's never referenced. No one is ever talking about Johnny Arcade. Nobody is podcasting about it. So we are breaking new ground by touching this topic that we honestly shouldn't touch, but we're going to have a lot of fun with it. Sorry, Drew. Do you think there's a reason that people generally don't talk about this show? I think because the main attraction is the power team

which is the cartoon segment in video power and honestly it is so bland that it's even hard to find kitch value in it like you can with Captain End the Game Master so we're going to make the most of that big segment of the cartoon by explaining like what the intent is behind it where it could have gone where all these characters are from

but honestly I think the power team is just so bland and nobody wants to remember it even for the camp factor. Right, right. It sure it ends up to me. It sucks. Yeah, it sucks. I was trying to be a little more flowery, but yes, you're right. It does suck.

In my experience, similar to Henry's, I love seeing video game representation on television. I love seeing my hobbies reflected back at me. This is when this was hard to do, to see a video game being played on television. So I was attracted to that. I knew it was a cut rate, Captain N. Captain N had started the previous year. We covered that last year on this holiday special. And I basically had the same reaction to this

that I had to the Super Mario Brother Super Show in that, oh, the live action segments are kind of what I'm here for and I have to suffer through about 15 to 18 minutes of a bad cartoon to get out to the other side to the stuff I've been waiting for. And in this case, I like

the Mario Brothers. I like seeing them on the screen, but in the case of video power all the characters on the power team were from games I either played and didn't like or from games I didn't want to play. They are a very odd collection of characters. They've chosen to be the anchor

of this show. It's funny, too. I should have watched this when we were having not a good time watching, you know, like a Super Mario Bros. Super Show for some podcast. I should have been watching Video Power to let me know like, oh, it could be so much worse

with the hosted segments. Yes. I mean, at least the Super Mario Brother Super Show just relied on public domain stories or pop culture stories like Robocopper Mad Max. There was something to fall back on here. There is nothing to fall back on. And we're going to see what the problem is with the power team segments when we get to that section. So, yes, kind of liked it as a kid, not really. Just something to watch before school. But the following year, it transformed into a game show. And even though I wasn't really big into the kids game shows, I much prefer to watch cartoons. It was kind of bummed out when Double Dare came on. I like that version of it more. That's how bad the power team was. the power team is that lame I didn't look up the

I remember watching the game show back in the day I remember always preferring Nick Arcade but that might have just been I was a Nickelodeon like super fan you know yeah it might be better than Nick Arcade because it's some parts of Nick Arcade are not focused on games like the trivia questions where on video power the game show

which we can still cover so don't worry everything is focused on video games the questions that are being asked Like every bit of the content is video game related, so I do like that aspect of it. So like I said, I am once again torturing myself by picking a subject with no documented history, much like Hollywood Dog. But this aired more than once, and there's more than just a handful of facts to find because of that. And there was never any official home media release of video power, and why would there be? I mean, Captain N got a video release, but that's because it was just a cartoon.

There was no live action segments. it was presenting itself as a Saturday morning cartoon. But thankfully, some kind maniac uploaded most of video powers run to the Internet Archive. You can find it very easily. That's how you can access the episode we're looking at today. And because the only versions available are VHS rips, the sound quality is going to be lower than you would expect from a podcast that we're usually on. So please forgive us, but there is honestly no better version of video power that exists out there until we find the master tapes somewhere. in the Sabon warehouses.

We have to, you got to break into the wild brains or cookie jar warehouse. And maybe you can find the masters for the cartoon. But I got to think they threw out the live action stuff on this. It was like filmed on video like, like in 93 tops. Yeah, Saban put like Power Rangers promos over the original footage of video power. Some people might argue that having no version of this available is the best version of this, actually. The opposite of film preservation should happen to the video power of film masters or video masters. There's no film was ever involved in this, except maybe when they were making the cartoon.

So, yeah, that is an issue with the video power recordings. But one plus about these recordings is the fact that the local commercials have remained intact. And there are some great ones. And this episode's place in time is very pertinent to something that Henry and have spent a lot of time covering. So, like, that is going to be an interesting little Easter egg in this episode. We'll get to that very soon. Yes, I did like seeing all the commercials in this let me know that, like, oh, I was like,

I had just turned eight years old when I was watching this. And you guys would have been freshly eight as well because, fortunately, we're all the same age. We're all white guys who are the same age. It's the important thing for a podcast. But so, but I was like, oh, this is all the things I cared about. as an eight-year-old. I was perfectly advertised to by this for sure. Same here. And I've already defined video power. Just a reminder

that this is a syndicated show aired for two seasons. First season is this creation we're talking about today where it is a bad cartoon sandwiched between a video game review and a preview reviews of hardware, tips and tricks, things like that. And

that rolled out for I think 33 episodes daily for a number of weeks. So that is the version we're talking about today. again the next year it came back as a game show with a completely different format. Yeah, it seems like a good scam that they only animated like, well, I don't know, you probably have the number, Bob, but I would bet they animated half as many as they used and just re-ran them twice, but made poor Johnny Arcade have to record 33 episodes of stuff, probably at the lowest

non-union rates they are charging child actors. Well, records about this are spotty at best, but I will say I found a source that said there are 33 of these episodes, but only 26 power teams, which may be why Johnny Arcade gives the wrong title when he intros this episode of the power team in this episode. I just took that as just the general sloppiness of the show, because he also previews one other thing you're supposed to see in the episode, and then it's not in it, right?

I don't remember, we'll get to it. It's got to be somewhere in these 5,000 words worth of notes I wrote down. And like I said, the main attract. here is a cartoon segment called the Power Team. So this just came one year after Captain N. the Game Master and the Power Team turns that premise on its ear by making it

much less interesting because the question it poses is, what if video game characters came to our world? So it is kind of like the original prose version of Captain N that was published in Nintendo Power. And this premise doesn't sound entirely flawed until you realize

all of the characters come from a claim published games of the era. none of which are that great. So I want to go over the cast of characters here as a tease to what we'll be covering very soon on this podcast. So the power team consists of number one, Bigfoot, the monster truck.

He is not a video game character. You could have went to see Bigfoot at a monster truck rally, but he had an NES game in summer of 1990. Frankly, I was a bigger fan of Gravedigger. That was my monster truck of choice. I'm not sure about you two. I was a big, Bigfoot fan. I had a

big foot toy. I don't want to say big, But I remember renting a couple VHSs of, like, Bigfoot's greatest hits. And I regret making my mom take me to see Bigfoot one time. We went as a family. And my mom says she still has tinnitus from that night that we saw it. I am just learning that Bigfoot was a real existent monster truck. I was not a car or truck child. That's probably the gayest thing about my upbringing is that, like,

why would I want to watch cars? So I'm going to pass on this one. I didn't have a favorite. It seems like 1990 was a real peak year for Monster Trucks because we have the Bigfoot game. The Simpsons have the episode Bart the Daredevil where they see Truckosaurus. I want to say the Robosaurus pilot was probably greenlit around 1990. We covered this on our live show for Talking Simpsons when we covered Mr. Plow because the, this is so complicated, but the actual robot dinosaur that Truckasaurus is a parody of, It's called Robosaurus, and at one point, there was a pilot commissioned about, is it a dead child that turns into Robosaurus?

What is the deal with this, Henry? I'm only remembering, like, very basic details. A father loses his son, and the son loves Robosaurus, and then the father can transform into it via the spirit of his son, I believe. Yeah. Yes, and the TV movie is called Steal Justice. Yes. I've listened to like every episode of your guys' podcast, and I feel like, I'm hearing this information for the first time.

I did not know Truccasaurus at any real-life correspondent whatsoever. Maybe my brain just blocked it out. This is news to me. Yes, unfortunately, Truccasaurus, more memorable than Robosaurus. Simpsons really own that ad space, or sorry, own that SEO with its parody. So we have Bigfoot. We also have Quirk, the Star of Game Boy Puzzle game. He is this very radical tomato man.

He originated from an Atlas designed Japanese game. called Puzzle Boy, where he was not a tomato, he was a potato, and then Atlas would bring over the sequels as both Amazing Tater and Spuds Adventure. So when acclaimed Puzzle Boy, they changed the titular Puzzle Boy into a tomato called Quirk. I don't know why. I cannot answer these questions. Potato, tomato, let's call the whole thing off.

Yeah. Sorry. I guess a tomato looks more interesting. Like, it's bright red versus, like, you know, potato. Brown. They put cool sunglasses on him. They gave him shades. I think they were just trying to take some of the cool spot vibes. He just is cool spot with his spiky green hair is the only thing that makes him like different from cool spot. That's his tomato stem, right? Sure. You know, I'm just getting that. I didn't realize that was part of the motif. I think it is. But also what does

quirk actually do? Like he doesn't do anything in the episode. He does nothing in the episode. It's like a puzzle block pushing thing, right? I feel like in one or two episodes he actually does push blocks around and use his abilities, I want to say. Yeah, he pushes blocks in an overhead Game Boy puzzle game. That's all I know. In this episode, though, he is fairly useless. So we have quirk. He's number two.

We have basketballer Tyrone from the slightly over-the-top sports game, Arch Rivals. So this is sort of a predecessor to NBA Jam. It's a two-on-two basketball game in which violence is encouraged. So you can, you know, you can commit fouls without any real kind of punishment. that is the hook for Arch Rivals and there was an NES version that is not that great. I remember the cover art for this.

This is as close as I came to experience. It's very memorable, well-designed cover art. Yeah, it might be a Jack Davis illustration. I'm not sure, but it is of that style. And you might be asking, like, what does basketball or Tyrone do? Does he throw basketball? The answer is yes.

Yep. He will throw a basketball in this episode and that's kind of it. They're both the comic relief in this show, I guess you'd say. But yeah, arts rivals might be the second most played of the games represented in here because it was more of like it feels like a sleepover game to me

like friends had it or it was rented for sleepovers but it was not I was not much of a sports gamer back then until Mario started playing more sports later sure yeah we also have Curos which is how they pronounce it he is the protagonist of the Wizards and Warriors

series of NES games this is more about the second installment which is called Iron Sword so that is I guess notable for being the one Wizards and Warriors game with Fabio on the cover. He is the cover model of that game. And that was the newest game at a time, but none of the sequels were developed

by Rare, and I kind of like the first one the best. So, yeah, none of these games are really worth playing. And then finally, we have Max Force from the over-the-top war on drugs game, NARC, and the final boss from his game is the Big Bad of this cartoon series, though, unlike in the

arcade game, he is not a giant head-on-wheels that fires out of its eyes. Yeah, Mr. Biggs is pretty boring. in this comparatively. It's so funny to take from NARC, which was such like this edgy, edgy game. And he's, they're the most boring part of this, honestly. Yes. It shows how shallow the well was for what they had to pick from. I guess we use this video game about like exuding criminals on the street with a shotgun rather than actually, I guess you can also arrest them, right? But like, but like you don't play it to bust them.

You play it to kill them. Yeah, it's very tongue and cheek. that it is made seemingly to cooperate with the war on drugs, but it has a very Robocop kind of sense of humor about it and vibe to it. So we'll go over the credits of the cartoon segment when we get to it, but I'll say that the animation is not bad. It is kind of on par with Captain N's better episodes

and it's anime because the animation comes from a studio called KK, C&D, Asia, which I looked into this. This was a partnership between Deke and some former folks at the animation powerhouse TMS. and as a reminder, TMS worked on some of the best looking stuff you would see on kids TV in the 80s and 90s. But this studio, they have some somewhat impressive credits. For example, they worked on most of the real Ghostbusters.

They were a big real Ghostbusters studio, and that is a very good looking show for its time and for what it was. We've covered so much deke on what a cartoon. Yeah, now I don't know if we've come across that production company before. I can't remember. But that definitely sounds like the arc of like, In 85, 86 or so, Deke can afford TMS, but TMS is starting to get priced out of them because they're getting paid like for Tiny Tunes. So it sounded like Deke could only afford to hire a skeleton crew of people they could pick away from TMS. And then they send probably, they output like probably half of it to Korea out of the Japanese studio as subcontracting.

That would be my guess. Yeah, this is kind of a cheaper TMS that does. pretty good work. And I want to note that the one movie, it looks like they produced in Fool, is called Penguin's Memory, A Tale of Happiness, which is available on YouTube. It is subtitled. And this is a very strange movie because it's a psychological drama about war-induced PTSD starring those lovable Suntory penguin mascots for the Suntory Liquor Company. So if you are just skimming through it, it doesn't matter that they're penguins. They're playing out a realistic, gripping drama about what war does to human beings. Well, in this case, penguins.

I think I've seen a couple of those out of context, but I did not know what it was from. I'm looking this up. I'm looking at it. And it is playing off of the fact that the Suntory beer commercials, they started these penguins, and they were super melodramatic. They were like very, very dramatic over the top, not really doing anything with the fact that they are very cute 80s, blue Japanese penguins. Bob, I know you're a big fan of blue anime penguins. What is your preference?

The Suntory Penguin or Don Penn of Don Quixote penguin? I honestly think they are all ripping off the Suntory Penguins because they all have the exact same design and I think Suntory arrived there first. But Don Pan's got a jaunty hat. I mean, I love Pentaro from the Perodius games, but I'm like, well, you're just a centauri penguin.

It all goes back to Suntory. I didn't, I did not know this. Okay. This is just my guess. I have not done the history of the Centauri Penguin. Maybe for the 20th one of these. We'll have to do that because that penguins are related, right? Sure.

So unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the Power Team segments only last around 16 minutes. So we fill the remaining time with these host segments from gaming personality. Johnny Arcade played by actor Stevie Pascoski. And he is the platonic ideal of who you wanted your older brother to be around 1989. He is a very cool Gen X figure. He's skateboards. He knows Madonna songs. He's really good at video games.

He has all the consoles, everybody. And it seems like, believe it or not, this guy did not drop off the face of the earth after this show ended. This is his second role in the business. So he picked up more film and TV roles up through 1994, dropped out of Hollywood for about a decade. And since then, he's had more than a handful of credits in TV shows and movies, real ones, though nothing since 2020. So this guy, you'll hear a lot from him. he survived video power. This is just a very young, I assume he was a child or he had just stopped being a child at this point.

So we should not hold video power against him, the things they made him do. So I actually recognized him because I have watched an episode of a sitcom he was on called Franny's turn. It is actually Chuck Lorry's first sitcom. It was abysmal and very short-lived. But it starred Miriam Margoyles, who is the gay lady from the her. Potter movies. Like, if you saw a picture of this British actors, you recognize her right away. She plays Frannie, the mom, and he plays

Frannie's kid. And somehow Chuck Lorry got past the unsuccess of this and made a a billion more shows. But, yeah, it's this kid. And then Laura's, Laura Palmer's friend from Twin Peaks, who doesn't get murdered, like the one who's like in a coma for like most of the show. She's the other. It's a

very, very bad, strange show. But this kid has an unusual name. So I remember looking him up. didn't clock what video power was but was very stoked to see him again and honestly I think he's doing a not terrible job he's like actually kind of making this work in as much as he possibly can

it's a they're asking kind of a lot of him just to shoulder all the camera stuff on his own and like own the camera and I think he actually doesn't suck at least game pro TV hired a Bill and or Ted to be standing next to the other guy but in this case he's doing everything alone he is he's acting against himself in these little barely sketches, these barely comedic

sketches. And yeah, he looks like he is trying to get into it. And yeah, I really respect him for not changing his name because I looked up to see where he's from. Well, the name apparently is very North Macedonian. So that is a Greece adjacent country. And

you know, props to him, he never picked up a white bread stage name as far as I know. He's always been Stevie Pascoski. Right. That's why they made him have to be Johnny Arcade in this. I feel for him too, because I want to assume he would had maybe just turned 18 or something

just because he'd have to he would have had to have filmed like probably 10 episodes a day at least of these reviews like he's having like no way is Deke renting out this you know filming location for more than two weeks

to film all of this stuff I feel like all the video power was filmed in a week yes yeah well just like all the all the Super Mario Brothers things also felt that way just felt yeah yeah Like the double dare shot, I don't know, 20 shows a week or something crazy like that. They really put these people through the ringer back then. We could actually figure out how long they would have had this space for because if all the dates of the video games he's talking about are from her specific range, I would basically prove it, right?

Yeah, I guess so. They all seem to be from or around the summer of 1990. So I guess that's when everything must have been filmed for the launch of this show in the fall of 90. But I don't know, release dates are kind of fuzzy. but if a listener out there wants to do the math, I welcome it. But also, yeah, games back then, if it came out in that year,

it's like, well, it came out. Like, it's the new game. Like, we didn't, nobody thought of it. Super Mario Bros. 3 was like a new game to me for like two years when I was good. Right, right, right. And yes, Johnny Arcade is the host of this show.

He often dresses up in Spirit Halloween costumes to play different characters, many of them from pop culture. He will debate himself. He'll do a lot of fun accents. He's really using his entire bag of tricks on this show because he is carrying the entire video power program

on his back, this actor. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's, uh, I, he has to do, uh, or the same job YouTube reviewers had to do 20 years ago of talking to yourself for sketches for the job of reviewing something. Yes, he invented this idea. Yeah.

So we've explained the premise. Let's go over what we know about the production. Uh, so very little verified data exists on video power. I don't have a full list of episodes. I don't have air dates. All. Although this one I could figure out based on some searching and a few facts about things that are promoted on this episode in the commercials. But we are covering number seven and it is the power team segment known as turf wars. That's the cartoon segment.

So if you want to look this up on an archive or on YouTube perhaps, we are covering episode seven. And for those of you not in the know, these series would usually try to shoot for 65 episodes. So it would have 13 weeks of uninterrupted weekday episodes before they would eventually cycle back. But here it sounds like we only have 33 in this first season. But it is made by Saban Entertainment notoriously cheap. We've covered them plenty of times on what a cartoon. I'm sure it's come up on retronauts. But these guys notoriously cheap.

I feel like eventually they will get around. They'd be dragging their feet. They would have to get these big orders out at some point. But here they're like, I don't want to commit to that many. And they're already getting away with only 15 minutes. of cartoon in an episode and that's already like that's after they did this

scam already with Super Mario by their Super show but at least with that I think they did get out 65 for the first year like they they had with Zelda included yeah I think I think that one had

the full 65 or at least 52 in this case though if you were watching video power every day every weekday you got six and a half weeks of new content before it started over again but I'm not even sure if it started over again maybe they only ran these once

there's no way to No, I was there, but I don't remember watching reruns of video power, but maybe I just lost interest. I don't know. I mean, you probably saw, like, you know what, I'd rather watch an old episode of Super Mario Brothers I've seen 10 times rather than this. Yeah, there had to be some other option. So we have to ask ourselves who is responsible for video power. And that person is named Alan J. Bobot. He is given the created by credit.

And this guy is less of a gaming personality, more of a kid's entertainment mogul, because he created Bobot Entertainment and 1985. And for about a decade, he had a syndicated programming block known as Bobot Kids Network. And on the What a Cartoon podcast, we've covered some of these shows that aired in this block like Mighty Max, Street Charks, and Captain Simeon and the Space Monkeys. So some of these are very high quality shows for the time. Some of them are street sharks. It's funny that Mighty Max was 10 times better than a toy show needed to be. And yeah, Captain Simeon was actually like really good. I remember when he watched it. It made a sad. that it was like, or at the very at least like, oh, this is a B plus. Like, I did not expect this. I think they were trying to keep, they had to keep up with like pinky in the brain

and animaniacs with smart writing. And they, unlike this cartoon, for instance, they actually paid for the big name LA voice actors who did all the cartoons instead of cheeping out with probably a bunch of Canadians like video power does. Yeah, I think since we've covered Captain Simeon, it has gotten a physical release. Those were things that we covered in the past

that only had VHS uploads previously. Can I point out that Street Charks is bad, but it's also really homerotic. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's bad, but it's more fun to watch than the power team as well. There's a lot more going on there.

So Bobot is currently known as 41 entertainment and they're still making things. So recent programs they've made are things like Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures and Skylanders Academy. So they have made big shows. They're still making shows based on video game licenses.

But unfortunately, this is not as fun as street sharks and does not have the writing quality of things like Captain Simeon and Mighty Max and I don't know if Bobat is a video game fan it seems like his response to video games being popular kids like this we have to have a video game show on the air make it cheap so wild that Bobat

Bobat was working at Deek and then also so is I am Saban and then both kind of leave to make their own stuff and then I think I feel like all three of them just ended up being owned by the same thing eventually. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure. Saban is not a thing anymore, right?

Man, I do think, no, I think it is a thing but for other stuff because at the very least, the Jay and Silent Bob return movie from five years ago, that was released by Saban Entertainment. So I know they were, Saban was releasing that movie. Yeah, now they're known as BVS Entertainment. And I don't know what that stands for, but they're no longer Saban. No, it's Winnavista Studios Entertainment. So they got bought by Disney at some point.

We did Power Rangers not that long ago. I'm trying to remember my, yeah. So the BVS is a weird subdivision of Buena Vista, which was the company that really is like Ducktails and Tails been weird kids, but now it's been split up into different groups. And they're in Burbank somewhere. A Bobot, I guess, apparently still independent-ish. I think it was acquired by something, but it still is around in some fashion. and I'm sure Alan Bobat is still cashing those checks.

Possibly. He's still alive as far as I know. So I tried to look up information about the production team, but the writer, the director, the producer of this episode, basically only did this. So this was a New York production. I'm guessing it wasn't quite as easy to just jump to another job. So they're not in L.A.

Not a lot of things are being made in New York. I guess even now fewer things are being made in New York, but maybe they just got local people who were like filming the news to make this. or just they went to the junior college and went to the telecommunications department and was like we need interns but let's get them on our show so the live action was filmed in New York interesting man so was there the writing credit there's a writing credit for the actual animated part of the episode there probably was not a writing credit for the live action segments was there there is a writing credit for the johnny arcade stuff there is a basically like the video game consultant role a producer a director I looked into all of these guys and nothing. This is either their only credit or they did one thing right before or right after

that no one has ever heard of and it's a very small scale thing. We'll cover the creative talent behind the Power Team episode when we get to it. But in terms of who made the wraparounds just people who have disappeared into the ether or they filmed video power

one week and then got on with their lives. Must have worked just in, yeah, like you're saying news maybe because you feel like if these were like, you know, MTV Studios adjacent filming people or Nickelodeon, they'd have some credits out there for stuff people would bother archiving. So that's basically everything about the first season. And I

mentioned the second season is a game show. A lot of these have been retained. I think there were more of these episodes than there are of the first season. And like I said earlier, it is kind of like Nick Arcade, except it's all a video game related. And what I really remember about this is the final segment where a kid, the winner of the game show would be clad in this Velcro covered costume. And he would go through a gauntlet of NES games basically a maze

and what he walked out with stuck to his body were the games they got to take home when the show was over and as someone who got a game for Christmas

a game for my birthday and rented in between that that was a fantasy like what if you could just have NES games stuck to you

and you got to bring those home after the game show is over that's amazing is the game show port shouldn't hosted by Johnny

Arcade or they fire him and get someone I think Johnny Arcade is still the main guy but then they bring on other fake game personalities. There's like a game master where the audience, who I assume were all plants, they try to stump him, they ask him a question and he immediately answers. I'm like, well, there's no way you knew this ahead of time.

This is all scripted. You know that it probably is a much smaller win than you'd get on Nick Arcade, but making it more like the toy run aspect sounds a lot more fun than the green screen confusion or frustration of watching kids play the Nick Arcade final round. That was always... Yeah, it did remind me a lot of the Nickelodeon Super Toy Run, which was an annual contest in which one kid got to run through Toys R Us, essentially do supermarket sweep, but in a toy store. And whatever you could fit in, you could, well, you could fit it in multiple carts because some, I remember like 10 or 20, 10, 15 years ago on YouTube, somebody uploaded like a full just like B-roll footage of, from a news reporter who was at one of those toy runs for the kid. The kid filled up like at least three shopping carts of stuff in the time they had. I would get so frustrated as a kid watching that.

I would think you fool. Just go to the video game section. They're worth the most money. They're the smallest items. Just fill your card up as much as possible. You can sell these after the fact and then buy whatever toys you want. You can just, yeah, just spend your entire time grab every single slip that is on there. I wonder if they tell you you can't do that or something.

I wonder there. If that was outlawed. I need to go back and watch that footage to see if the kids ever go. down the game aisle or if they were told not to. So yeah, the second season is a different show. We don't know how much of it they made. Most of it is lost media. But at some point, we probably will cover the game show version.

And while I don't have the theme song for this version in my head, I do have the theme song for the second version in my head to this day. It is a very CNC music factory coded theme song about video power. And I think there's a little wrap in there too. So the human brain is weird. I can't explain it. But I have carried the theme song for Video Power Season 2 with. me these past 43 years.

Will you sing it for us? I refuse. But I will let our listeners, please look it up on your own because it's a brainworm. And it's very, very, very, very 1991. So now we are going to get into Video Power episode seven. And we are going to cover everything that this video file contains. The promos, the commercials, voiceovers during the credits. That's a very special segment.

We'll cover that very soon. Well, about in an hour from now. But I do want to note that I just watch being John Malcovic for the first time in 25 years. So seeing the promo for the John Malcovich movie Making Mr. Wright, which is a high concept 80s comedy starring John Malcovich with a full head of blonde hair. It blew my mind. I did not clock that that was John Malcovich in the picture there. I was like, well, that's a man with hair. And that certainly can't be John Malchavich who's been bald his entire life.

He must have. I was going to look it up. And I was like, nope, Bob told me not to do that. any research still tell me about it, so I'll just wait for that. I was thinking, is this like heartbeeps? What's going on? Now I need to see this John Belkevich film, which made no money. Nobody has written about it, but it's part of his filmography. He didn't just make prestige movies. He was out there making his own version of like mannequin in the 80s. It's on 7 this Tuesday on Fox 29. So apparently, at least according to the file name, this episode aired on October 9th, 1990. And given the Simpsons Season 2 promotion, this checks out. So, this is a Tuesday and then on Thursday October 10th I believe or sorry October 11th that is when

Simpson season 2 begins that is when Bart gets an F is the episode that is screened and that is the most watched Simpsons episode ever I think we were both counting the days until the new like a 14th episode of the Simpsons aired like you have to

remind people that there was a time there were almost no Simpsons and you were bored watching the reruns all summer long. Yeah, there was a time in this history of ours where there weren't enough Simpsons episodes and you had to wait five months between episode 13 and episode

14. Instead of now, when there's still, I would say, about 100 plus episodes I haven't seen. And I've tried to catch back up on my fallow 20s seasons period. It might be maybe a few more for me, but we'll eventually get through all of them, Henry. So yes,

that is when this episode is launching, a very pivotal time in our lives. And when we see the intro, honestly, this is what the term MTV style editing was invented for, because there's a whole lot of quick cuts between video game footage filmed off of TVs, Johnny Arcade being a cool 90s team, and also clips of the power team. And they've got this really late 80s border around the footage, like right out of the saved by the Bell intro. So this is so early 90s. It's not even quite the 90s vibe yet. We're still kind of in the mid to late 80s vibe. you might have already planned to go through the video games that are glimpsed in the intro video game by video game and if I'm jumping the gun on this I'm sorry but is Moonwalker one of the things they show in the opening credits briefly yes there are two Michael Jackson jump skaters in this episode of video power so I was confused by this because I was like well I know a claim didn't have anything to do with Moonwalker so I'm like oh this show is not just promoting acclaim video games which would be terrible but I can imagine them wanting to be

to do that if they could get away with it. But it is interesting that they're putting games that they do not own in the opening credits at least. Yeah, I think they're trying to be fair. And as much as they probably wanted to only talk about acclaim games, I think the FCC would get involved if this was the acclaimed show. It's hard to remember when there

were even light laws on these things in TV, but I do think they have to be like, this can't this will count as just a full paid advertisement if it's only acclaimed games in this thing. So maybe that's how they get it.

Or also, it lets them have some variety in the promise of what they're going to have there instead of just like the, you know, dozen or so acclaimed games that are not licensed games in most cases that they could show. Right. And the show is called video power. And they're using the term power very sneakily. Nobody owns the word power, but Nintendo very much made the word power part of their marketing. There's Nintendo Power. There's the phrase, now you're playing with power.

There's the power glove. So if you are a kid in the late 80s, early 90s, you see power, you think Nintendo and maybe you think there's some kind of endorsement or this is a trusted source, much like your precious Nintendo power. So they know what they're doing by using power, I think. So was it just NES games that they were featuring or was like Sega games like Genesis games also being featured on this? There are Genesis games and I believe Game Boy is covered as well. And then by the time we get to the game show version of this, the Super Nintendo is. out and it's really early stages in America

this was a rough time this is a rough Genesis time is seen by one of the ads later this is the before Sonic era but yes this is the celebrity endorsement era of the Sega Genesis essentially and it's worth noting that GamePro TV launched a year after

this it apes a lot of the same style but I feel like it is the better show still kind of embarrassing but we don't waste our time with this bad cartoon and honestly it's been almost a decade since we covered it I think it's time to revisit GamePro TV. Maybe not for a Christmas special, but at some point in the future, I do want to go back. Because I recorded those.

I had a much better time with GamePro as just a fun source of video game footage, learning about games, and not necessarily giving me great criticism about video games, but more variety of coverage, I think. And to show me things I would never see before. And I want to know, what did happen to J.D. Roth? He is a very successful production guy now. I think he owns his own production company. the other guy, now he's a mystery I want to know more about. As I recall from Gabriel TV,

another interesting thing it had on video power was that I think they like went to trade shows. They'd like go on location or at the very least you'd like get to see him going places instead of just this one set and talking about the stuff he got sent instead.

Yes, to answer your question, Drew. He was the CEO of production company that he sold to the Dutch. So what he does for a living now is count his money. Good for him. He seems to be doing well. So yes, GamePro DVD launched a year after this. And we're going to get into the show proper. We have the intro. And in case you didn't know it was 1990, there are two giant clues initially. The first things you see are Johnny Power, sorry, Johnny Arcade in a Dick Tracy outfit, skateboarding onto the set while singing Madonna's Vogue. That is the most 1990 combination of elements you could possibly get. We were all there. It feels almost like, boy, is this allowed fair use

that he can just like start singing Vogue? And he's even, I got to give it to him. He is wearing this like, you know, rough costume, skateboarding in and then singing like singing Vogue and sort of Vogueing as he's moving too. Like he's working hard this kid. Yes, all while in this plastic Dick Tracy outfit. So that is the vibe here.

Now let's hear what Video Power is all about in our first clip. Now that's Video Power. Today we're going to take a look at Dick Tracy, Rescue Rangers, Shadow of the Ninja, and a brand new joystick. Oh, yeah, we'll also be checking out the Power Team, but first, let's kick it off with a video power review. Dick Tracy, the game for the NES, looks real cool. No, I'm not putting down the gameplay, the game's fun. It keeps you on your toes, and it's really challenging. But I just think we should deal with the graphics for a while.

Remember the makeup in the movie? Pretty awesome, huh? I mean, those weird-looking guys like Itchy Mumbles and Little Face. What an ugly group. But what great makeup? Well, all those guys are in the game, and they look just as cool. Here, check this out. It's the part called Mugshots, where you, Tracy, get to choose who to go after. The information you get under the Mug Shots will tell you where the character was last seen.

Then it's up to you to track them down. And if you think this level looks great, way do you see the others? When you hit the streets, you see some great overhead shots of the city with the car feeding to the scene. As gangsters riddle you with bullets trying to slow you down. Yes, Hunter, you're right. He mentions Rescue Rangers coverage. We don't get it. I was hopeful that you could confirm for me, like, right, there is no Rescue Rangers in here.

Like, that's the sloppy editing of this. Like, did they just not, did they have to cut it for time, but then they couldn't refill the intro or cut it from the intro? I don't think they're doing second takes on this show. ever. And you know what? I'm going to add this to the goofs page on IMDB. It deserves it. The number one goof is someone made video power. Man, do I feel for him having to like do this in a voice, like do a character voice for the whole review of Dick Tracy? Yes.

And then do a variant on that voice when he gets into an argument with himself. Well, I know what he's doing. It's the gangster voice. See, I'm a gangster. Pow, pow, pow. But if you watch Dick Tracy, you realize. this is what Dick Tracy sounds like. Here's my impression. Hi, I'm Dick Tracy.

I'm going to fight crime. Look out, mumbles. I'm going to get you. That's the Dick Tracy impression because Warren Beatty does nothing in that movie. He sucks. And he's held him under Lock and Key for over 30 years now. Yes, everybody is acting to the rafters except for the star because I think he's embarrassed to be in the movie, even though it's his dream project. It's also, hey, is that why he's singing Vogue because Madonna's in Dick Tracy?

oh you know what yes yeah that's yeah that's what i was guessing also it's interesting that that was like mainstream popular enough that like you could be into it without seeming gay because there was like there comes a point where like men would not want to sing vogue because you singing it makes you appear gay you know but here it's cool enough to not be gay i also yeah this isn't it funny that it still always comes down to like graphics versus gameplay like that's that's the break down, but I feel like that was like 20 years of video game reviews. Yeah, that's the only rubric

through which they review games. And he argues with himself about graphics or gameplay. Now, more about Vogue and Madonna. Vogue actually came from the Breathless Mahoney album. Oh. So Breathless Mahoney is Madonna's character in Dick Tracy. She released an album as Breathless Mahoney

and that is where that song, I believe, first debut. How? I did not know. I just thought it was just a Madonna song. Man. How am I telling these gay guys, new facts about Madonna. Honestly. Not a Madonna gay, unfortunately. Not a monster truck gay, not a Madonna gay.

There's a lot of things that I just don't do. I'm the rare Madonna straight. No. But yeah, stick Tracy. Have either of you played this NES game? I have, but I want to know your opinions if you have. No, the movie made me sad, so I didn't want to play it. I definitely think I rented it, but I also can't judge it too much because I think I

just played it as a kid. And it could be either a bad game or one, I simply didn't understand how to play because I only think I at 8 or 9 understood like three genres of video games up to that point. Yeah, I will say it was very ambitious. It's not good. It's not a well-designed game. But I was obsessed with it just like I was obsessed with the Who Frame Roger Rabbit NES game because it was that era's version of an open-world game or at least trying to do more than have a character run from left to right.

So there's a city. You can kind of go in every building. And there's basically like early GTA-style gameplay. but none of it mish us together very well but if you are eight and it's 1990 you have not seen anything like this so you're poking and prodding at it trying to figure out how everything works

and it honestly doesn't really work that well Who did it? Who did this game? This is a sculptured software I don't even know that company They made a lot of not very good games Most of them are they sound like a for hire licensed company of the many out there Yeah

Yeah and this is published by Mindscape I'm trying to look at other things They've made that are potentially known but they're mostly licensed stuff. I think they made virtual BART. Let me look. Yeah, so they made virtual BART. So we have covered that on Retronauts before.

Yeah, but this also reminds me of the stuff they parody on the On Cinema show. But basically, like, you have to give five stars to everything. Like, I would love to trawl through just all of his reviews and see if he ever didn't like something. Yes, yes. There's no, I mean, as far as I know, no negative criticism. By the way, people will yell at me if I don't point this out. They also develop the Star Wars trilogy of NES games, or sorry, super NES games, which I hate, but I know there's a lot of fans out there. I played the shit out of them all three of the Super Star Wars games.

I played them so much. And also they were basically made to play with a super, with a game genie or at the very least codes. My experience was I would rent these and say, well, this game has one level in it, and I can't finish it. They were torturous, but at the time when there were so few Star Wars things back in like 1994, I was excited to play anything with Star Wars. So after these initial thoughts about Dick Tracy, Johnny lets us know you can interrogate people in the game. Honestly, I looked into this via game facts. Not really a huge feature, but he's way into this. And then we get a split screen argument with a different version of himself doing a very similar voice to the Dick Tracy voice.

He didn't have two old criminal voices, so they're just kind of going back and forth in the same voice. And it, like you said, Henry, it's graphics are gameplay, and they can't decide. And instead of giving us a score, Johnny says, you make up your mind about what's the best part of Dick Tracy. That's great. It's always a great when a review tells you like,

well, what do you think, though? Like, that's a reading rainbow would, that's the same style of review as a child on reading rainbow. Yeah, I mean, this is similar to the bad answers I would get in the games press when I was interviewing someone and you could tell they were trained to say this but oh this element in your game

it's possibly controversial what do you have to say oh my response is the player should make up their mind as to what I think yeah it's in that it's just like any random YouTube reviewer

of movies or video games that they all have to have like a sketch where they argue with each with themselves as their other game character or as their other reviewer character yeah and instead of saying make up your mind

they say, do you like Dick Tracer or you don't? Sound off in the comments below. Is the segment that we watch, is it packaged as a review or like news? Like, this is a game that's out there. I believe it's called a review. It is good. We've seen the text review on the screen.

Yeah, the one at the end, I think, is labeled preview. I have it open right here too yet. Yeah, video power review. The review is on screen for half a second. That's why it was hard to freeze free minutes. They don't want to commit to that. So the review is over. No score was given.

We're just told, decide for yourself. Well, I'm not given enough information about this Dick Tracy game, so I really can't do that. And now we're into the stuff section. So Johnny goes from his gaming desk that has all these consoles on it, to his gaming couch to show off the

Suncom Tech 50 controller, which he defines as a hand controller. I've never heard this terminology in my life. I think what he means to say is a joystick, but can anyone make anything of this terminology? I've never heard it before.

If I was going to mention what a hand controller was, it would not be what he's describing. What controllers wouldn't be a hand controller? I guess if for like the NES dance pad or whatever. Unless he means like power glove type things or the worst versions of power glove that weren't made by Nintendo. That is like literally a hand controller. But yeah, it's like, or you'd call the flight stick. Like I thought he was calling it a flight stick at first. Yeah, this is a flight stick.

It basically is. But I don't think the producers know what a flight stick is. I'm not sure if that terminology is widespread, but this is a joystick that it's also in the shape of a flight stick. I don't know what games are supposed to play with it because they don't really show, like, what are the best games this interfaces with? And we can hear Johnny tell us more about this paid product placement while not really showing us how it functions. Here's a clip. You grip it like you're flying a jet. It's really comfortable.

Someone definitely thought a lot about the design of this before they built it, because it's really easy to use. It clicks so when you move it, so you know exactly how much movement you're getting. it's perfect for the action adventure games what more can I say okay now it's time for the power team when we return we'll get the video power edge and lots more so stay with me all right today's episode is called the day Johnny State after school

let's roll it well it's not called that anyways but I do like how he says what more can I say and I'm thinking you could say a lot more because you're just telling me it clicks it was designed and it works well with action games well I'm thinking there has to be at least one game where you fly

some sort of craft you can mention like oh it's great with this shooter or there has to be some kind of rudimentary flight sim for the Genesis at this point in time. I'm really stuck on the fact that all the descriptions and names for the different the game controllers it's really easy to confuse them for sex toys. It's actually flight stick. I never

heard flight stick before now but that really sounds like it should be a sex toy brand. Here's the list of things too. This feels like Paola that came in late. Maybe they had to cut Rescue Rangers to fit in this payola here for in there. Also, titling, this should be called

like power stuff, but it's just stuff. Stuff. It's this vague noun. Yeah, that's such a weird artistic choice. This was not a popular accessory. This is the first time I've heard of one of these things. Right now, you can get one box for about 20 to 30 bucks on eBay. This is not, I mean,

I guess they made enough of them to the point where it's cheap, but maybe it's just not very good and that's why it's cheap. It was the wild west of third party controllers back then. Do you think that it's actually payola or do you think they put out a notice to like all the people who are making stuff and they're like we're doing this show if you want your stuff featured you have to send us a free version of it and this is just what they got you know that seems a lot more likely

where they're they're soliciting game companies saying we're making video power if you send us your game we will feature it on our show nothing bad will be said about it uh or your hardware we just want products so we don't have to find it ourselves yeah i could see they just uh this could be like the fourth of these controllers in a row they've done just to fill out stuff with something to talk about that is not first party related. That'll get a third

party that will allow them to have their thing discussed on the show. And it honestly sounds like poor Stivvy is doing some improv because I don't think he was told what to say about. He's like, see it clicks. Someone clearly made it and it works with games. What more can I say?

This is actually why I asked if there was a credited writer for the live action segments because to me it felt like this person who's the host and star is being used as an uncredited writer, which he almost surely was. Yeah. But like that just kind of makes me think that like this kid was working his ass off to like try to make this work. And he was probably working harder than anyone else involved. Yeah, maybe in the future we can track him down and we can have the definitive video power interview that did not come together for this special. On on the Dick Tracy part, he hit to me his eyes look like glued to cue cards on that one or a teleprompter. Yeah. Absolutely.

Absolutely. I think that is a product of this, them folding a lot of these at the same time across the same span of like a few weeks maybe. Also, in these clips, I can really hear his New York accent now or his like tri-state area accent. So yes, we go into commercial break number one. We will be covering the commercials because they are fascinating. And the first commercial is for a series of Tiger Electronics Handheld games, adaptations of popular console games like Afterburner, Double Dragon, Heavy Barrel, Paperboy, and Lee Trevino Fighting Golf. they show very little gameplay which I think is very funny it's mostly a kid like jumping around while playing one of these

and as a kid I did not like getting these these were a last resort for video game entertainments so never a fan of these I'm not sure about you guys oh they were absolutely why would you ever want to spend time with that

especially when the Game Boy came out and you could take a Game Boy with you in the car those Tiger Electronics looked and sounded terrible yes this was the fall season right after the Game Boy released in America they were digging the Tiger grave at that point. Yeah, it also

like couldn't even compare to a 1983 game and watch games because those at least had better gameplay within the LCD graphics and also weren't as like hideous. Like they, it was really just about looking good in a box and tricking kids

with just, you know, stickers of what the characters were going to look like on it. The only reason, and they've been now selling like, you can buy new releases of some of the classic. I've seen the Transformers and Spider-Man ones on eBay of like retro throwback

newly built ones, not like vintage ones. And I think the promise back then was, oh, Mega Man 2 is 50 bucks. Well, you can play the tiger version for 1299. Yeah, and it's the, I remember the ad for the Ninja Turtles one. It was like the Ninja Turtles arcade game shrunk down

into the palm of your hand and it's a tiger thing. I have a point actually, before we go to commercial, we have the bumper that's like we'll be right back. And I want to point out that this is actually an extremely important usage of those bumpers, which were legally mandated to have to go there to be able to distinguish between children's entertainment and advertising that would run during the children's program. And I think everyone our age remembers this because every cartoon is like,

now back to the show. And the reason they did that is so kids understood that like, this is not part of the show. This is an advertisement. You're not supposed to watch this with the same brain as you're watching the show that you're tuning in for, even though we mostly did. But in this instance, the difference between the TV show we're watching and the Tiger Electronics game is virtually nothing because they're very similar graphics, very similar vibes. If anything, the only way to be clear that you're no longer watching the show is that the Tiger Electronics game has a higher production value than the TV show. And these commercial breaks are just like full of video game commercials and it would be very easy to not understand the difference if you're a little kid. And then we slide into the commercials for the alcoholic or perhaps just unemployed parents at home. Because, I mean, speaking of alcohol, we have the ad for the Minnesota School of Bartending.

This was getting me interested in the idea. Only 40 hours, I can get my degree in Mixology. Screw podcasting. I think we should all move to this place and become bartenders in the metro area. Seems like a much better lifestyle. Video game theme bar. We can do our podcasting face-to-face with customers. People in Minnesota, they can't stop drinking.

They need it. Yeah. Now, Drew, you had questions about this next commercial, the Century Furniture commercial. And I have some answers for you because I had to watch this three times. I had the same assumption you did And I was like, well, why would they do this? This is dangerous. Yeah.

First of all, this ad is assaulting. Graphically and like tonally, it feels like someone's yelling at you the entire time. And yeah, they're not sending people to a condemned warehouse somewhere. No, because the appeal of this ad, I mean, this is frankly TMI. They don't need to let us know this. Century furniture, their warehouse is being condemned. It is unsuitable for business. So they have to get rid of their inventory.

and you're not going to that warehouse. It's being moved to a liquidation site. I don't think that site is crumbling to the ground, though maybe that's part of why you're getting these couches for so cheap. Right. Okay, that does sound slightly better. The price to move. I want to check in with Henry about these wacky action turtle wind-up figures

because there are, I think, three different TMNT toy commercials in this video power episode, and I love all these toys. It made me kind of want to, like, get my hands on them just because they're so well designed and so colorful. And we weren't that deep in the turtles quite yet. This was like year three of the cartoon, but they're already getting pretty wild with the toy designs. Yeah, I was taking accounting of these. Of the three commercials, I only had toys in one of them. And this one I did not have. I think because I usually was against wind up toys because my imagination, I needed the arms to move how I wanted them to move.

And if you look in like Leonardo's arm movements, it's like a helicopter motion. It'd be hard to pretend with as a kid. So those were lower on my list of the toys of turtles I'd ask for. They show off a few of them. There's a big line of these. Oh, go ahead, Drew. I said, it's so weird to hear Henry say that he didn't own a toy. Yeah.

My jaw hit the ground. Well, I love this creepy crawl and splinter guy, but this came from an entire line of toys that I think launched in two waves. So we have rock and roll Michelangelo, sewer swim in Donatello, we have break fight and Raphael, wacky walk and mouser. Frankly, it just walks, nothing wacky about that. Sword, slice, and Leonardo, and

slice and dice shredder. So they are all designed around you winding up the toy with machinery that is going to break down very soon, I think. Those plastic gears aren't long for this world. I do think looking at the, it's funny, they pick shredder and splinter and no other turtles

but Leo in the thing to focus on, though. I like the Splitter one is my favorite. I like that he's doing like, you know, a military crawl and he's going to like pop up and you, if his neck couldn't move, that be one thing. But I like that his head can move into standing position too. It's just fun to watch that little rat crawl across the ground. So that is the commercial for TMNT toys. We'll see more of those soon. And we end this series of commercials here, this first break, with an ad for the 90s revival of the Hawaiian Punch. And I want to say that as a society, we really lost punchy. But in general, I think they realize we don't want a mascot that punches people in the face when they want the product. I want to say at least 10% of the children in the audience would then hit their little brothers. They would set them up for the same thing. Do you want a nice Hawaiian punch? And the guy would be like, oh, yeah, that sounds delicious.

Punch right in the face. Was that not a thing at your school? That was the thing at my school. It never happened to me, but I assume that it was a classic setup for getting punched in the face. It would very much at the boring people that I went to school with. I thought this was hilarious. We were more about the Hertz donut. Ah, yeah.

Or the punch buggy was the big one in my school. Until then, then it shifted by middle school. It more became, what's the capital of Thailand? And you get it, you get it right in the crotch. I've heard that kids in school now aren't even punching each other in the face anymore. It's really too bad. Woke children. Yeah, the Hawaiian...

We need more dodgeball to straighten them out. Also, the Hawaiian Punch, very unappetizing, like, can of Hawaiian Punch, too, in those commercials. I don't know. Something about a tin can in the 90s doesn't look as appetizing that. I love the mascot and stuff. We just can't have punchy anymore. Hey, look, I chose Kool-Aid man and my Kool-Aid points as a kid, and I did not move away from my loyalty to the Kool-Aid brand. You had your chosen sugar water. Also very violent, breaking through walls, you know? Yes, he's too destructive to appear in a power team cartoon, that's for sure.

He's more about property damage than punching people in the face. He knows what he'll get in more trouble for. That's kind of like a misdemeanor in some cases, but if you hit someone in the face, it's assault. Punchy can't vote is what I'm saying. So after the commercial, we then start the Power Team episode Turf Wars. And before we go into this segment, I do want to go over the people who made it. There are other credits for these people. So this is written by Steve Hayes.

So if IMDB is correct, and I think it is, it seems very likely. this guy born in 1931 started his career in the 50s as an actor and I really want to know his story because it sounds like he seemingly disappeared from Hollywood for 20 years only to reemerge with what seems like his claim to fame so he has the story by credit for the moderately acclaimed 1979 time travel movie time after time

and from there he goes on to work in TV dramas and then ends his career working on kids cartoons for the most part. Wow, man, that reminds me of the head writer of the fantastic fort cartoon we covered who like he worked on All in the Family in the 70s and then by 1994 he's he's on kids cartoons and our guest on episode, Mike Lawrence, he pointed out like, nobody does that as their intended career path. Yeah, but these seem very easy for him to write because he wrote for things like Rambo

Alf, the TV cartoon versions, G.I. Joe, the Adventures of Super Mario Brothers three, but I will say he wrote one episode of Batman the animated series with another writer. That episode is called Be a Clown. So he has at least one very esteemed credit to his name. Oh, that's one of the earliest ones, isn't it? It's the one where the mayor's son likes the Joker. Yeah, I think it's episode six or seven, and we never covered it on our series because it's one of the few ACOM episodes that looks like crap. And I think it's one of the few, like, I also remember it coming up because Tim Curry's, Tim Curry's,

he did do the track for it for the Joker at first and it has like there's like a laugh in it from a machine that's like one of the only surviving Tim Curry moments in the show I want to say so yes good on him for at least writing that it's with someone else

seemingly still alive and his last real credit is on the late 90s steaming action show Acapulco heats though they made a TV series out of time after time in 2021 I think or 2019 and he gets credit on that. And by the way, that was created by

Screams Kevin Williamson. Whoa, what? Time after time was by Kevin Williamson? The TV version. So they made the movie in 79 and then many, many, many years later because no new IP can be created. Kevin Williamson is attached to this time after time series,

which is a, I guess, a mini series or something. I don't think it was made to last. Is it also about Jack the Ripper? I think so. I think so. But he gets credit on that. Huh. That is, that is news to me. I'm learning so much in this episode. That's why I wanted to surprise both of you.

So that's what Kevin Williamson has been up to. He must have been like a child watching time after time. Well, not a child, but like a teen watching time after time. Yeah, I guess so born in 65, he must have been a teenager. But wow.

So, okay, this guy, well, I hope he at least got the writer of this cartoon at least got some paychecks for them re-licensing it. So it's directed by Stefan Martiniere, which I want to say is a French guy or French Canadian, who knows. But he was previously a big wheel at the Deke factory on shows like Heathcliff and Spector Gadget, The Real Ghostbuzzers, and others. This guy has got a ton of credits, no time to go over all of them here.

But I did want to point out that in the early odds, he moved into the lucrative world of creating pre-production concept art for movies. So after his shameful time in kids cartoons, he's worked on a ton of high budget, prestige, projects like Tomorrowland, Ready Player 1, Guardians of the Galaxy, Venom, and others. And he's worked on prestige TV shows like the Foundation series on, I believe, Apple Plus, perhaps, or Amazon, and the Star Wars show skeleton crew. So he graduated from working on video power. Wow, yeah. Yeah, good for him. And this must have been very early in his career then before he could finally graduate out of the slums of Deke.

Deke Factory. The Deke Factory, yes. We all had a lot of fun talking about Deke as kids. And this was developed by Jack Olskar. So before this, he was a writer on nothing but 80s Drek would go on to write nothing but 90s Drek so he knew what his place in the industry was. But this might be something to Drew. He developed Beverly Hills Teens.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Beverly Hills Teens is something that I did care about for some weird reason. And it's not good, but it is really weird. And he also developed the new adventures of He-Man, if that matters to anyone. I think that was the late, sorry, early 90s reboot of He-Man? Yeah, if you're to watch it, it's the most anime of the He-Man's because they actually like paid for Japanese production overseas instead of the very terrible animation of classic He-Man. And also, it's funny because they have to, he's still facing Skeletor and they kind of redefine Skeletor, but he's still very femme because there's really no way to not make Skeletor very Queenie. But yeah, seemingly he wrote most of Botsmaster so we can never forgive him.

And I will say, I never saw that as a kid growing up, but one holiday season, my wife and I watched an episode and it made me nauseous. So Botsmaster will never be a what a cartoon subject. Okay. I had never, that is one I never watched. I'm happy to have missed that one then. It was a show in which they would command you to put into 3D glasses and then you did and potentially you would throw up.

Oh, man. I was not a 3D, well, 3D rarely were. works on me. So that's probably why even as a kid, I was not checking it out. And this guy, apparently, he's got a really shameful career because he's also the writer of many of those knockoff videos you'd see at the store. So whenever

Disney would release Aladdin, you would see the dollar store version of Aladdin with terrible art. It's like 45 minutes long. Basically, these are all written to confuse grandmas. Like, I know you like Aladdin and look what I found. It's way cheaper and it's the same thing. It's snow white.

You know, it's the same snow white. cares. So he wrote a lot of these and defrauded a lot of poor grandmas. Good work if you can get it honestly. I find no shame in this business. I wouldn't use my real name. I wouldn't use my real name if I was. That's the one thing. He knew exactly what his lane was and he swerved all over it. He was like, I own this lane. I'm in the garbage lane. Out of my way. So we, okay, we open with the Power Team intro, which upfront very bad because this nondescript kid who will later learn as Johnny the arcade. He watches his favorite acclaimed characters leap from his TV screen, which he's using to play a Game Boy game

at one point. Anyways, there is no origin story. It's a bunch of reused animation as each character emerges from the TV. And Captain N had the better idea of, say, introducing its cast, telling the audience where they're from. Unless you watch the credits at the end, you don't know that Max Force is from Narc, or Curos is from Iron Sword, or Quirk is from Quirk. You don't have this. And, yeah, it just, up front, they're not letting you know enough about this bad idea.

So, wait, like, the plot that we're watching takes place in Johnny Arcades universe? In the gang riddled violence world that we live in today. So it's not like the world of Narc that we're spending time in. Yes. That's very confusing. It is very confusing because they're only in gang turf for this episode, which seemingly is where Narc takes place. but the conceit they don't really explain is that Johnny,

because these characters are summoned to his world, Johnny just stays in his room and commands them to do things. That was very confusing to me. I was like, why is he not hanging out with his favorite video games that are made by acclaim?

It seems like I would want to do that rather than just being like, the mastermind. Yeah, he like controls, communication system. He, like, controls the car and everything to, like, he's the one like driving Bigfoot because Bigfoot's like stupid, I guess.

I was okay so Johnny Arcade is the boy in charge of them too so Johnny Arcade I think I called the host of the show Johnny Arcade but I did remember he never says like hey guys it's me blank like he doesn't even introduce himself in the show so yeah it's a real problem that they don't let you know what the premise is or that this is even Johnny Arcade you have to figure it out like gradually through the course of the episode and it's not I don't think he's even voiced by the same guy who plays Johnny Arcade in the live action segments at all it does not just It doesn't sound like him. Yeah. Also, does this mean they all just, like, live with him? Or do they just drive around in the monster truck? I don't know where they live, but it's, it's all about, like, a 12-year-old telling a basketball player to kill gang members. And Captain N is like, he is an aspirational figure. You want to be as cool as him.

You want to be walking around with an NES controller belt and a zapper. Meanwhile, this is like, he's too real. This is just like a loser kid hunched over his computer like we are. Who wants to be that? Here's what I think happened. I think they all came out of the TV and he's like, awesome, these are my friends from video games. I'm going to hang out with them in real life.

It's going to be super cool. And then Quirk also came out. And he's like, actually, I'm good. I'm just going to stay home. You guys can just go do your thing, actually. I'm going to push you in dangerous situations because I hate you now. Yeah, like no origin story is described. It's just through this intro, we learned that I guess six distinct bolts of lightning hit

as Nintendo or other consoles. And that causes these characters to emerge. And we don't know what their end game is, at least with Captain N, again, not a great show, but they're saying, we're trying to get the king back from the mirror world or whatever, and Captain N is the chosen one going to help us. It's very, very, very basic storytelling here. It's just like, well, they show up in my world, and I guess Mr. Big did too, although that doesn't really fit into the intro. We don't know why he's here. It also makes me feel silly for critiquing Captain N for like, man, every character has to have, like, a speech impediment or everybody has

to have like these over the top characteristics none of these people have kind of any characteristics they are lacking in character I will say the cop is kind of like a goody goody Hank Hill character and they kind of have fun with that but other than that nobody is really doing anything especially

Kuros he's naked so that's doing something yeah he's just the naked hunk who can't actually swing his sword we'll talk about the weird anti-violence in the power team soon but they have all of these violent characters who cannot be violent and it's very strange. Yes, so

we don't know how they interact with this kid or how he's part of this team, but they're just in our world now. And we first see them riding around inside of one of the other members, Bigfoot. And it's, I mean, with adult eyes, it's very strange that they're inside one of the team

members, but also, it seems like I'm not sure if this isn't enforced upon these team members, but the black guy and the tomato have to ride in the back of the truck. And I'm like, this is a bad look this is just a bad look yeah I mean it's already bad enough

like well what the only black character in this cartoon is a basketball player like that's so you're already in a bad zone there I feel like they at least have a person of color voicing it instead of a white guy I want to say so maybe they're at least doing better than that

they showed sensitivity in that the gang members we see none of them are black so clearly they were like well that's a bad look but they never thought about like the one black guys the basketball player you cannot actually get in the truck. Yeah, all the gang members are just the, this is why I'm with Drew that you do get confused. You see like this gray, like completely empty city.

It just seems like they are in the video game NARC, not in the real world. Yeah, it does seem like an exaggerated distortion of what like urban life would look like, and that is what we saw in like movies in the 80s. So I guess that's sort of on brand. And then I actually put this in my thoughts on. well, maybe it's okay because I'm not that far away from Skid Row in L.A.

And Skid Row actually kind of looks like that. So I was like, this is not the most unrealistic thing other than like the matching outfits of the gang members. There's too much like realistic fear of a bad neighborhood in this kid's cartoon. It's a really bad vibe. You think someone's about to say something really nasty at any point here? Yes. Even though they kind of just work like the sharks and the Jets as far as what these, these gangs do is they just fight each other. They have nothing else in their lives.

So they're all very afraid of this neighborhood And we find out that Quirk really only exists So people can make fun of the fact that he is a tomato Because he does nothing else in this episode So they're all afraid of the neighborhood And Tyrone jokes So Quirk feels the same way when he sees a bottle of ketchup And I guess he's talking about murdering his fellow tomato brethren

So Quirk is upset about that What does he think when he sees tomatoes in the real world? I'm curious I would want to go back to Puzzle World Yeah I've seen the He has like a tomato girlfriend, right? I think so, yeah. He's not getting any in this universe.

I hate to break it to him. So they're bagging on Quirk. Quirk tells Tyrone to can the tomato joke. So he gets tomato puns too. I assume they run out of these about three episodes in. And this is when Bigfoot approaches a shocking sight. So this peace powwow is happening between these two rival gangs. So let's hear what's going on in our first Power Team clip.

This is an historic day, folks. Mason Taggart here, leaders of Billberg's two toughest gangs have finally agreed to a 30-day truce. Hey, that really is news. What are your feelings on this, Mace? I'm warning you, man. Don't pull any funny stuff. That goes double for you, dude.

The Barons mess up, and we'll be right in your face. Uh-oh. Spike and Joe. Switch to rear camera, Bigfoot. See them, Johnny? Bingo. Must be getting ready to stir trouble. They know that if there's any violence right now,

total war will break out and the cops will have their hands full. What's your game plan, Johnny? Stakeout time. Both gang headquarters tonight. I got a feeling Mr. Big doesn't want this truce to last. Hurry up, Joe. We ain't got all day. Yeah, I really don't know why they're obligated to listen to this kid

because he's sending them into some very dangerous situations. Only one of them is equipped to handle it, frankly, and that's Max Force. He's got the cop body armor. He's got the shield, the riot shield. He is... And not a gun, apparently. No gun. Yeah, well, I mean, he must have all of them, well, both he and the Guardsards and Warrior guy have killed many people.

But he has to have like a body count of like hundreds if the game is real to this guy. But maybe I just assume that these guys, since they come from a game, a world, they just lack, like, they simply can't do things without being ordered around. Like, it's just in their nature. That's a very sad existence. That is. You think they would get that when they come to the real world, but no, apparently not. Well, it's okay with being controlled, though, so, because Max can often, or sorry, is it Max? No, it's Johnny R.K. can often take over his controls.

And by the way, I'm sure you recognize them, but Spike and Joe are NART characters. and Spike is Dr. Spike Rush. He's the guy with like the needle you'll see in Narc. Like, you can see the pictures of the perps. Yeah, so he's named after needle drugs. And Joe is Joe Rockhead. I believe both of these guys are Narc bosses. They look kind of similar to their Narc versions,

although Spike looks a little too much like Egon from the Real Ghostbusters. Although I was just thinking about Real Ghostbusters when I was looking at him, so that made me feel better. That works. Well, Joe Rockhand is a crack addict, Ben, I guess. Oh, I guess so. Yeah, yeah. I thought it's, I would assume that the cartoon's interpretation was more about his level of intelligence.

You actually cut out before he heard his voice, but do you think, what do you think, what do you think the vocal directing prompt was for this character? They just showed him a picture of Moose from Archie. There you go. We don't have many characters that start their lines of dialogue with, duh, anymore. But, you know. Did you guys, they're doing constant eating jokes with him, but he's not like a fat character. He's just like a stocky guy. Like he's like, I mean, those guys eat a lot of calories too.

But if the jokes are like, God, Joe, you're never stopped eating and you're sloppy. It's like, I feel like he should have a fatter character design if that's where we're going. And I think he had a question, Drew. Did you notice that like the, so there's a TV reporter that is reporting on this like gang truce. And he identifies himself as like Mason. And then the leader of one of the. gangs is named Mace. Did you guys notice that?

That's very redundant naming there. Yeah, I did notice that Mason Taggart, I think his name was. He used the phrase, and historic. And he's very proper. He went to broadcasting school, I believe. So, yes, Joe Rockhead actually named after a Flintstone's character. They were being cute, but then they reinterpreted it to be about a guy addicted to crack. And then they dropped the rockhead thing entirely for the TV character.

So I believe this character is not smoking crack. He's frankly too big. Yeah, yeah. He's not acting like he's on crack. Yeah. The crack head's not known for their deep appetites, I would say. And he's standing up straight. He's not like just bent over.

But yeah, he's a classic duh, duh idiot, which, again, if we're just comparing to Captain N, you know, Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo, they're both duh, duh, idiot. Well, I guess, Eggplant Wizard's the smart one, I guess. Yeah, King Hippo is the duh, idiot in this. He definitely is. In their gang. And, yeah, we meet Mr. Big. He is sort of like just your classic 30s gangster character. He's not doing like an impression of anybody, although I think he should be.

And he has a big plan. He is going to blow up the Duke's headquarters so the Baron suspect them. And then the gang warfare will flare up again. And that will tie up the police so Mr. Big can do more crimes. And then that leads to profit, I guess. At some point. Does he not like, does he have his own criminal empire in this universe? Because it seems like he should just use the existing gangs to do crime.

seems like he only has the two guys. He should really enlist the gang members because he only does have the two guys in this reality. Yeah. It's just terrible thing. I would feel like it would be easy to impress them with his unlimited cigar missiles that he seemingly has. Yes, I was very tired of seeing these because he explodes the building using these two grenade firing thingies or like grenades on sticks. And every time he gets them out, you think it's going to be something different. But no, it's like, I've got a little surprise for them.

And it's the same thing. Every time. My biggest compliment to the animators, the overseas animators on this, is that I think their best stuff was effects. Like every explosion is like, oh, that's pretty good explosion for the budget in this show. They knew how to animate explosions. Sometimes this show really turns into a real literal slideshow of characters, like with, I want to say, like, three drawings per second at most. Well, I mean, they also had no budget for the opening. Like you said, it's like the same clip over and over again.

So Mr. Bigg blows up the building, plants a jacket to make. the dukes blame the barons but the jig is up when half the power team arrives on the scene in this next clip you think what take cover for us there's only two of them this is turning out better and better looks like we're too late fellas we're better get max force and cure old i'll do that you and court keep mr big pin down Big foot. I'm all ears, Johnny. All tires, you mean.

No. But we really don't see Johnny Arcade at any point after the intro, I feel like. It's just voiceover at this juncture. Was it confusing that there was only two? It was just Tyrone and Quirk showing up where the place got blown up. Because Johnny Arcade tells them, he's like, we're going to split up and we're going to monitor both of the gang like headquarterses but then because tyrone and quirk are riding in the back of the car I just assumed that the other two guys were still in the cab of Bigfoot but like they're just

gone and it happens off screen and they have to go away to get them and it seems like really bad like both storytelling and like visual storytelling yeah where it's like oh this was not made clear at all that like you split everyone up or like when exactly that happened it's it's too confusing for how simple of a story this is and honestly when I rewatch this I realized the Okay, now I know why I was so bored by this as a kid. So much time is devoted to watching Bigfoot drive from point A to point B when they could just cut to Bigfoot arriving at the new location. And I think they made the character with that in mind.

Like, this is a 60-minute cartoon. Write 10 minutes. We will figure out a way to have Bigfoot drive around to really fill this out. I feel bad for Bigfoot that when they're saying like, oh, it's the power team. There's only two of them. It's like, but they're in Bigfoot. Shouldn't that count is three? Doesn't he?

It's a living car. He should count as one of them. He's a person, kind of. Even though a teenager controls him. Honestly, the entire time I'm watching this, I'm just like, Bigfoot, run them over. They cannot actually do any real violence in this cartoon. It's very funny to see what their fights amount to. We'll talk about that soon.

But, yeah, ultimately, you're in a monster truck. Monster trucks only crush things. I don't understand what the problem is here. Yeah, run over Mr. Big. I mean, I guess Mr. Big's missiles could hit them, but it's like, well, better dodge him. and it's always going to be a problem unless you have max force around also it's talk about cheap too it seems like so they're only facing narc bad guys they can't face bad guys for i mean i guess they'd only other be from wizards and warriors because like would

they face an evil basketball team from arch rivals i guess well that would be great you know evil blocks from quirk yeah but yes there's a high five bigfoot drives away and then we get the beginning of an exciting action scene that really has strange pacing so Mr. Big fires a grenade. He'll do this a lot in this episode. From one of his sticks, it lands. Tyrone and Quirk kind of jump away from it very casually. This is not exciting in any way.

And this is when the animation really breaks down because we're losing our in-between drawings. Mr. Big is finding the two characters again, firing another grenade. This is his only move. It lands on a two-by-four, and of course, Quirk jumps on this, catapults it back at Mr. Big and his goons. And then Tyrone does his one thing, and that's throw a basketball. We don't know if it's a special. basketball, if it's a magic basketball, but it simply just bounces around a lot and just kind of gently knocks over the three criminals in an inexplicable way. I'm not sure exactly what happened here

because it is just a tossed basketball that is losing momentum after bouncing so many times. Well, again, it's more than quirk did. Yeah. Well, consider again, like, in all of these things, you can't just hit somebody. Like, nobody can hit. It has to, maybe by bouncing off of enough things, by being a super ricochet that is no longer an imitatable act of like if he just threw the basketball like directly at him and it bounced off Joe's head

and they fell over a kid can imitate that at home but a super ricochet can't do that there can be no direct contact in this cartoon that's something I definitely noted when I was watching it has to be a projectile

that is bounced off of something or a projectile is fired at something and the re-crushes you the guy who has a sword can't actually swing the sword at anyone he has to shoot beams out of it, and the cop has just a shield, as far

as I know. Just defensive weaponry, the max power has. Not max power, Max Force. I wrote that Max. We just call him Max. Yeah. We just call him Max Power. It's fine. I wrote down Max Power a lot before doing a fine and replaced, by the way. So after that whole lot of nothing, Bigfoot

arrives to pick up Curos and Max Force. They peel off to join the rest of the team. And then we come back to Tyrone and Quirk. It seems like their enemies survived a basketball being thrown at them, so they're okay. but they're dodging Mr. Big's grenades once again. The basketball attack really didn't do a whole lot. So let's hear more of their plate in this next clip.

Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, something's wrong with the picture. Yeah, we were supposed to keep them pinned down. Somebody hit the prize button. Can't we reset this thing? I'd love it. I blow up a building the start of war and end up warping these jokers back to their game worlds. Must be my lucky days. Uh-oh, time for a little smokescreen action. That's his other move.

His cigar can camouflage him. He escapes through smokescreen. So there's an element in this scene I feel like should have been introduced in the intro. And that's that Mr. Big has a magic Nintendo cartridge that can warp them back to their game worlds. We talked about this earlier. If I was cork, I would jump into it because he's in a world now where his tomato brethren are harvested, murdered, and turned into goo. This is not where you want to be if you're tomato. Is Mr. Boss using a Tengen one?

It looks off, it doesn't look official. We don't see one side of it. It is gray and rectangular. But again, I did not know there was a threat of returning. And it seems like the ideal path for all of them. Why do they want to be here answering the demands of a 12-year-old from his room? Yeah, it seems like they miss. The, well, could you even go back to know that you were in a fake reality, can then go back to it again afterwards?

I mean, Tyrone just comes from a reality in which they play basketball. He could have a family. He probably misses his friends. At the very least, his teammates. Yes. I miss talking to someone who was not a tomato. Yes. I like riding in the front seat of a car.

Sometimes. Maybe Tyrone rides him back because he's very tall. That's the generous guest that I'm going to. put out for that. So it's hard to tell in the recap, but in what we just listened to, do NARC and Kuros show up? Is that with them joining the group?

Bigfoot is going off to get those two. Yeah, he's about to warp the big boss is about to warp them back to the game world and then Bigfoot shows up with the cavalry. Yeah. And the grenades that Mr. Bigfires

bury them rubble. There's not a lot of dialogue in this show, so you're hearing a lot of sound effects. I'm trying as best I can to describe what's happening. But I watched this twice for the show once while taking extensive notes, and it's still hard to figure out what exactly is going on, who is where, and what the end game is here.

It's not a role-written show. Again, this makes Captain N look like Batman the animated series. Absolutely. Really does. There's more of like a game plan there. There's more of like a through line here. It's just like, I don't know, waste 16 minutes, but we're only right for 10.

We're only going to pay you for 10. Do you think there's a cartoon where a female character shows up? Because I'm guessing no. and also that like a woman did not have any creative input on this show whatsoever because it just seems like they're like this is for boys boys want to see boys they do not want to see girls we're never going to have a female character yeah i think it's a very boy focused and that's why there's no token like princess lana there at all uh but yes we have the team arrive kuros is then deflecting the missiles with his sword again he's got the sword can only kind of bat things away from it or or with it or fire a beam with it. That's when Mr. Big disappears. And Max and Curros decide to look for their lost friends. They are

trapped under this rubble. They end up squishing them even more by climbing on the rubble. And Johnny Arcade tells Max to use his scanning device to find him. And surprisingly, the show doesn't waste our time by showing us that. They easily could have it. Right. You're right. Well, so Johnny Arcade doesn't even do anything.

Also, this is where Quirk could do his ability is to push things, to push bricks. Yeah, yeah. He's failing entirely at the one thing we know Quirk can do. But, yeah, they spring from the rubble fully intact without Max Force having to use his scanner, which I think there's probably a note in the script, like, please waste 45 seconds if you need them. You can easily just have him running a device over this pile of bricks if you need to.

So, oh, Drew, go ahead. My notes for this scene is specifically the limit to saying that Narc and Kuros look like a gay couple who accidentally got their wires crossed and dressed for two different fetish nights. they were there off in terms of what theme the Halloween party had Yeah So the Dukes arrive on the scene Immediately fall for Mr. Bigg's plan They're very dumb

But Max Force tries to intervene at least In this next clip Wait a minute The Barons didn't do this It was a low-life video game scum bucket Called Mr. Big Oh yeah Then maybe you can explain this

I Um No I can't But don't go blaming the Barrens. Forget it, man. I ain't buying your double talk. Get the rest of the gang. We're gonna put some serious hurt on the Barons. It's all out warm, man.

important note that max force had really no backup plan when they're like explain this max force and he just says well actually yeah you got me just kill the other gang why don't you i don't care i i couldn't tell if he was supposed to be stupid there or if it's like oh can i how can i explain the mystery it's like but there is no mystery to it he just has to say it was planted there by the guy who he watched blow up the building yes there there is a direct answer that he should know at this point. I think he's too guileless to, like, have it cross his mind that, like, someone would be that underhanded. He's just, like, a Flanders, basically.

You need a Johnny Arcade to tell him to say that, maybe. He's like, he had to be ordered to. Shoot them. Shoot them now. Shoot them with your gun. Now. I think that they're trying to make this educational or wholesome so parents don't get mad about kids watching a toy commercial, essentially, because, oh, it's about, oh, the problem of gang violence, and we're going to fight the gang violence. But then they're too afraid of making the gang members scary. So it's a bunch of guys talking in normal voices saying, yo, I ain't got no problem with

the Dukes, man. They have very Canadian voices to me. I don't know. They sound. I'm just assuming all the voice acting is done in Canada to save some money. I think they might be New Yorkers too, but they could be Canadian. Did I, have I mentioned that the designs for the street tuffs are like unreasonably ugly for no reason. Like, my bar

for attractiveness in street tufts is very low and this is not even coming close to clearing it. Like, it is some of the ugliest original designs I've seen in a cartoon. Yeah, they're just all, they're all very one color. That's the theme. Each gang has a color. And they're kind of all wearing the one color each. There's no fun accessories. They're not like final fight

characters. You'll fight in the streets. I, uh, also I'll give, I'll give Quirk at least credit for his line about like, what? We got to press pause. Reset this. he's at least as having something to say about video games and this bland show about like the drab episode about gang violence.

The writer born in 1931 has a cheat sheet. They're like, well, here are some video game words. Warp Zone. Power up. Press pause. Press resets. So Narc tells the gang member. She's like, no, the real bad guy is this,

what do you call it? This video game scumbag named Mr. Big. And like the gang members are just like, don't really react to that. So do they know that there's video game characters in their world? Or is that just something that they're not reacting? Unclear. I don't know if they think this cop is trying to trick them.

Also, like, a big foot monster truck driving around is not street legal. The cops should be pulling them over all the time. I agree. John Arcade. NAR should be pulling himself over. Johnny Arcade could be working with the cops. We don't know. Are we just not going to mention the fact that there is an on-screen promo for Alf in this part of the episode?

And it served only to make me want to watch Elf. like pause this and open alf in a separate tab and then i'm just going to watch alf instead yes um it's very very tempting it's remind this this episode reminded me of alf a better show and the simpsons a much much better show than video power i came alive when i saw elf there he was a big uh when we when i did my simpson's history uh syndication history notes like most of the articles were like will it be as big as alf like alf was doing really good in syndication with kids so that explains why it would be advertised during video power oh yeah these were syndicated alfs that we're going to be

emerging at some point during the afternoon. So nothing is happening in video power the power team segment but it's so poorly organized and presented that I apologize to the listener if they're having problems following it. I've watched this twice, again, took extensive notes and I'm like, well, who is where

and why is this happening? So if you're confused, you're not alone. I'm being paid to figure this out and I'm stumped. Yeah, I'm guessing the cliffhanger. I thought the cliffhanger for the commercial break was going to be oh no they're trapped under the rubble will they get freed but actually the commercial break cliffhanger is

how will we solve the mystery to prove to the barons that the dukes didn't do it or the other way around the mystery has already been solved folks I'm not sure how to break this to you let's get into our commercial break because not quite as interesting we start off with the Days of Thunder NES game I believe the Days of Thunder film was that previous summer I have never seen it

but it is I believe where Tom Cruise met Nicole Kidman and their doom relationship began on the set of Days of Thunder I think it was on a Dates of Thunder themed amusement park ride somewhere And that's as close I've been seeing this Sounds like something of the Paramount Parks, yeah Yeah But yeah, that was the summer of 90, the big blockbuster that year, one of them

There's another Minescape ad, one for the NES port of Paperboy Not a great port, but one I played a lot because a lot of friends had it And I do enjoy the home versions of Paperboy Yeah, that's the last I played it Yeah, the ad has a kid like being very destructive on a bike And it says, yes, try this at home. But then the joke is you will buy Paperboy the game and then played on the Nintendo. Oh, yeah, big thumbs up for the app.

Both ads have a similar, I mean, this is the era of like the bubble tape ads or your parents don't want you to do. Like, but one of them is, well, you want to be in your parents car or a race car. But this one is more like, don't you want to be a cool kid who like break shit? Like, that's fun. And the next ad is for the parents. I will give it no setup. I'll just play it in full. Due to a high demand for qualified technology.

Red Wing Technical College is now enrolling students in Accordian and Concertina Repair. In only nine months, you can learn the techniques of tuning, repairing, building, and playing. Classes begin November 28th. Financial Aid is still available. For more information on a career in accordion and concertina repair, call the Red Wing Technical College, 1-800-49. That commercial could only air in Minnesota, perhaps Wisconsin. That knocked my socks off. And I thought, wow, not just accordions, but also concertinas.

I thought it would be two separate schools, like two unrelated schools with different philosophies entirely. Between the commercial for this and the bartending, which would you think is a better financial prospect, gentlemen? I feel like in the long run, the accordion and concertina repair field did not really pan out. People still want to get drunk. But I think polka, unfortunately, the demand is at an all-time loan. It makes me sad because I do enjoy polka. why it is just the most fun music even though it was the theme of the nazi party you know i i would think the learning how to repair the the technical skills to repair that

maybe it's transferable to something else but uh they though it it does feel very specialized to one area of the world yes now i'll tell you i'll tell you drew why i like accordion music and polka because i grew up in an area with a gigantic polish population and we had two a m polka stations. So if you're just bored and turning on the radio, you would often just turn on Polka as a goof and then think, you know what? This is actually kind of catchy. So some part of me thinks, could I do it? Could I become an accordion repairman? I have to call the Red Wing Technical College today. You can call that number and see what it comes up, I suppose. I want to find out who's there. My family is Swiss and my grandma would make us go to Swiss picnics, which are

like Swiss cultural exchanges where there's Swiss food and accordions playing the entire time. And even over the time I was a child, the noise of the accordion drove me mad. Yeah, I just find it in chanting. Maybe it's my secret fascist leanings. I'm not sure. In both of these like get a job ads, like they're so cool to see in that like this is what the sad or the lonely people unemployed watching kids cartoons are seeing. But like I feel like today's manosphere, they take advantage of desperate men and put them into the Manosphere things

when they really just need a trade job like bartending or repair. They need to go to vocational school. I think we've really lost vocational school as a people for a place that folks can go to with no direction in their lives. And then find a direction. Just learn TV and VCR repair like Sally Struthers

tells you to and you'll get it together. We all want to make more money. And then we have more Ninja Turtle figures in this next commercial. At this time it's a line of vehicles. And I was also enchanted by these because to me, the term toilet taxi is much like cellar door. It just evokes so many feelings and memories, but I just, I want to use toilet taxi in something. Yes, it's a, what a yellow snowball launcher

is on it too, right? Yeah, so there is a built-in pee joke in your toilet taxi. I had some turtle vehicles, but I did not have that one. I had the one that shoots the pizza manhole covers out and the cool skateboard, but just to check, did Henry own these? I did not have those toys either. I see. So we also have a suit of fed commercial. So if you don't want to get a bartending degree or repair accordions, you can just take a bunch of suit of fed and see how that works out for you, perhaps get married. And then we have the classic Genesis does what Nintendo don't add for the Sega Genesis. And this is the, you're right, Henry, this is the pre-Sonic era in which the appeal of Genesis was these celebrity endorsements. So

we see Michael Jackson back when you wanted him to back your product Joe Montana, Pat Riley and Buster Douglas, all with their own games, all for the Sega Genesis, and they are totally dissing Nintendo. Nintendo never acknowledged the competition. Genesis watched

by saying Nintendo is garbage, this is what you want. You want these 16 big games. It made them seem really sexy and cool then, but they don't yet have the Sonic versus Mario angle that can really pull it together. The Buster Douglas is my favorite. to them because he's like they wanted to get the guy who beat Mike Tyson to you know like oh well they

have Mike Tyson on the N.S we've got the guy who beat Mike Tyson but then Buster Douglas did not have a very good career after defeating Mike Tyson. I'm not sure what happened but I think Mike Tyson slipped on a banana peel and that's how Buster Douglas won. I think he was having a good time in Japan before the night before and underestimated and then so that's why after the Buster Douglas game the next year they had to get a Vanderholy field because he was having a better career than Buster Douglas. Well, who doesn't have a good time in Japan? How can you blame him?

He was probably looking at anime figures. He stayed up too late with gunplah that Mike Tyson. He's an industrious guy that Mike Tyson. So that is it for the second commercial break. We go back to the power team. We get another meandering driving scene. This series is just full of them. They eat up so much time.

It's so boring. Tyrone and Quirk back in the truck bed. They're urging Max to drive faster, but Max is a real stickler. He is like, the Hank Hill of this show he will only drive the loud speed limit so Johnny R.K. takes over takes them down a shortcut

the shortcut ends up being a dead end but we see one of Bigfoot's abilities sort of go up on the scissor lift but the lift doesn't carry him over the brick wall the lift lifts up the chassis then sends it crashing down which makes the monster truck bounce over the wall the logistics of this confused me

I had to watch this a few times I'm not sure if either one of you understood like what was happening in this scene yeah I'm just playing it back now what I think is that perhaps like an accordion but like it gives him energy up and then he bounces back down

and when the chance he goes down it bounces the wheels up to go over it but this is also where I was thinking like this is where the non-violence lameness of this show is it's just a brick wall run over it and destroy it that would be fun to see instead of like no no bounce over

it no destruction that's true I think they couldn't destroy property on this show I mean, obviously not glass, but even a brick wall can't be knocked down. It just maybe would inspire kids to knock down their own brick walls. And it's a monster truck. It's supposed to destroy things. That's why kids love them. Not on this show.

So Johnny Arcade takes over. We end up over the wall. This is all Bigfoot can do. Although, yeah, like in real life, Bigfoot can crush cars. It's all about destruction. And then we go to the Barron's headquarters and we see the Duke's boys confronting them about their exploded base. So let's hear what happens in this next clip. This is your jacket, ain't it?

Yeah, but the Barrens didn't hit your place, man. We ain't even been on your turn. Bologna, you and your creepos. Hold it, all of you. You're making a big mistake. But a super caught. No, let him talk. What kind of big mistake?

Mr. Big Plank of this jacket so you'd break the truce. It's an old trick. You fell for it. Wake up, guys. He's using you. Nobody uses me. Me neither. What do you want us to do?

Give me 24 hours. I'll prove that Mr. Big was behind this. Yeah. You got it. How do I look? Like you just stuck your finger in a toaster. Hey, Goldie Locke. That's not funny, Quirk.

This is serious undercover work, work that requires utmost attention to stealth and deception as well as the ability to... Oh, man, would you chill? So they are now dressed up as gang members in these very final fight gang member outfits to sell their ruse to Joe and Spike. To be clear, the world's only sentient tomato is dressed up as a gang member, so no one recognizes him as the tomato that's a fill. with the video game do-gooders. Oh, yeah, it must be some other guy. Yeah, it's the other tomato. There's two of them, I guess.

This one has different sunglasses on. Love hearing the barons and the Dukes go like, hey, nobody uses us. So what do you want us to do? Take off, you hoiser. Yeah, that guy's very Canadian. These gangs are very dumb. And so they're trying to imitate these gang members,

the power team. This is when Joe and Spike arrived on the scene. We get more fat jokes about Joe because he's got a chili dog in each hand. And we don't have too many dialogue-focused scenes in this, so I did clip the next scene. Let's hear Max and the gang try to pull the wool over Spike and Joe's respective eyes. What's going down? That he's chilly dogs, one thing. Cute, real cute.

How come you do they ain't at war? Mean, you haven't heard? The Barons and Dukes aren't fighting Because there's no more bad blood between us The word's all over the street That right? Well, we'll see you Next up, the Barron's headquarters

This is gonna be like taking candy from a baby Who's baby boss? Forget it, my spree! soon as we trash this dump The gang war will start again Then there'll be chaos in Hilberg And we can move in and take over

Boss, you're brilliant I know He's getting very Harvey Firestein there But anyway, I looked up Milberg or Hilberg It's not a NARC location So that's the setting of Wherever Johnny Arcade lives

I think he lives in the suburbs And this is the downtown mill or Hilberg Okay Yeah, all right So yeah this is It's a very multi-level plan here that they, but I guess it's helpful for them that the gang operation they're up against is three guys. So they only have to fool two guys to then trick the, them. And they're very easily fooled.

I mean, one of them is obviously dumb, but the non-dum guy should not be fooled by this. Especially when he meets the only guys they know who, like the power team is barely disguised here. The tomato after a tomato. Yeah, the tomato's a dead giveaway. So this exchange happens. Mr. Big once again lifts one of his gleaming grenades into the frame. It's his only move. He's like, I got a special surprise for them.

It's like, yeah, it's your grenade. You keep showing us these. We've seen them before. We know it's your only thing you can do. He's about to fire his 20th grenade of the episode. This is when Bigfoot emerges from the darkness. Headlights blazing. My demand is, please, run him over.

But he can't even run over a brick wall. So Bigfoot could just kind of park gently and turn on his headlights. And wait to be, like, bombed by the cigar grids. grenades. Yeah, and then when the, I guess Bigfoot does push them over with his bumper. The enemies can at best be kind of nudged over with a bumper or a basketball

and it knocks them over. One of them lands upside down in a trash can. And for the next bit of action, I'd rewind a few times to watch again and see what exactly is happening because Mr. Big fires a fist on a stick and to block it, Max

fires a plate from his body armor. And I guess they cancel each other out in midair because no no person can directly contact another person directly hit them so it's just like a projectile hits another projectile and that's it that's the only thing that can happen in the show. Oh yeah

I'm playing it back here. When Joe crushes the trash can to throw it at them like it's going towards Bigfoot I'm like okay Bigfoot run this over but no Bigfoot has like one of its axles goes out

a little bit and like knocks it backwards it's like it's a bad. I'm like, come on. You can't crush this? Can't crush a balled up garbage can. There's another lame action bit where Mr. Big Fires a grenade. It lands on Bigfoot's hood and Bigfoot's like, oh, no, but he just backs up and the grenade rolls off.

It's that easy. That would have been like a great joke. Like, oh, it's funny he thought that would work. But no, they're playing it for real tension. Yes. I thought he'd at least like flip it off like he can move his own hood and flip it off of the hood. But no, like it's just

even the slightly interesting thing, happens in this. It's a very repetitive action scene. A Bigfoot screeches to a halt. The team jumps out to confront Mr. Big. Again, Mr. Big fires explosives. This is when Max Force uses his big extending shield. And finally, the smoke clears. And at last, I have another clip to play after this battle ends. We're not long for this world, Shorty. Oh, yeah? Well, check this out, punk. I'm still out of here, boy. Good win's the bad rubbish. You've taught us something tonight.

Yeah, if we trust each other, maybe we don't have to fight anymore. We're just glad we could help. Right, men? You get it! Speaking of helping, how about me and the barons help you rebuild your headquarters, Tagger? Yeah, that'd be nice. And after that, maybe we all could help rebuild the neighborhood of the little. See you around, fellas.

It's very funny. It's very funny to me that the gangs are now helping each other, but they didn't stop being gangs. Presumably they're going to still be running drugs and doing other things, but together, they're now a one singular combined gang. I think they made the problem worse. I like how Max Forrest goes like, yeah, well, best of luck, guys, with your child running. leagues and the crack, all of that. Good work, guys. And we have another action scene, a very light one, because it's a very nonviolent resolution. Mr. Big and his goons get a net tossed over them.

It seems like the barons and the Dukes are going to run out to murder these three men. But then they do a trick that I think is inspired by Super Mario Brothers. They have these magic bricks that grow into a big brick wall, and the brick wall lifts the net off of them, and they can escape that way. So I think they just thought, okay, if kids see this, they'll think of the bricks in Mario, and that's enough of a video game connection to get us out of this episode. So that was my take on the magic bricks. But quirk should have some kind of block power, not Mr. Big. Yes, yeah.

And why do Mr. Big have this ability all of a sudden when all of the rest are like explosive or I guess like a missile punching glove, I guess? Because the writer was tired, Henry. The rider was tired. That's why I have it. How many ways can this guy fire a goddamn? damn grenade. I have to fill 12 pages. And it's nice of the

gangs to wait for those things to build up very slowly for them to get away. And yeah, Mr. Big gets away, but he'll be back because they're no other villains. Now, that is the end of the power team. We have another commercial break. So we start with another tiger commercial. This one is

for sports games that talk. And I think a sports game would probably be the worst kind of tiger game. But this technology is at least kind of impressive for 1990. You can see what they're doing. It's a very much like text-to-speech-style voice, but the technology is within this little device, so I thought it was kind of neat.

I think at least on a baseball diamond, you have a very fixed area there. Plus, as our tribal showed, this was back when you didn't get all the famous names of people. So just having a video game, say, official player stats, like I guess that's advanced for the time. And we've teased it earlier, but up next we have a very important historical document.

I do want to play it in full right here. here they're back oh what a glorious day with a brand new show take one and pass the rest back just oh oh everyone knows you're faking it part and a whole new season bart did you read the book this is crebopple i am insulted is this a book reporter or witch on the laughs start all over again oh please call me papa little ketchup for your buns papa oh thursday night at seven on fox 29 Yes. If the Turtles commercials weren't enough for you, Bart Simpson is saying Calabunga for the one true time in Bart gets an F. That's great. They didn't have to make up a Calabunga. They pulled it from the right episode. And yeah, it is so directed at children. Like, this is the ad for the kids of Bart Mania to be shown before prime time. Also, that now I notice in this ad that clearly this must be in the central time zone, right? Because it's on at seven instead of eight.

Yeah, this is like a Minnesota airing, so they're not getting it at 8 p.m. Like normal people do. And so the last new episode of The Simpsons aired on May 13th, the episode, I believe, The Crapes of Wrath, or sorry, some Enchanted Evening was the last episode that aired of that season. So people were waiting five months with only 13 episodes. So this was a very big deal. It was on on a new night, so they really needed to promote that. So there was a lot of effort being put into promoting a new season. And it worked because, again, nobody watched up Simpsons more than that episode.

that was the highest ranked episode ever Nothing will ever beat it Yeah it was right up against It was the big Bart versus Bill stuff Against Bill Cosby But that was how they were heavily advertising it It was crazy Any other thoughts on this

I'm very tickled Because this really puts it in time Right before season two of the Simpsons premieres I always love hearing Homer say Oh what a glorious day I felt like that was in like every They put that in a lot of syndication ads too And a lot of early commercials

That was a classic Homer clip Not a lot of other kid-friendly commercials, although there is a Pets Unlimited commercial after this that offers kids in the Fox Kids Club some like an aquarium kit for a rebate. Yeah, it's... And a free pamphlet. Yeah.

Get a free pamphlet. Not aquariums. Kids need to learn about life and death somehow, so get him like goldfish that'll die. And if you didn't have enough of the Simpsons, we have a kid in a Bartman t-shirt. Giving his endorsement at the end. Do you think he has to be somebody's kid who is working on it, right?

Yeah, we're someone who won a contest. Oh, yeah, yeah. A commercial for grape nuts, that's fine, I guess. And then more turtles figures. I like these. This is our third commercial. We have the turtles in disguise figures, and they all feature unique toys. So at this point, Bartmania is neck and neck with Turtle Mania.

Turtles will soon fall to Bart Mania. But these are pretty neat toys as well. I like these. And did you have any of these, Henry? All four. All four. All four of the teams. Excellent.

I think my brother and I split them, I want to say. But I liked all of them, but my favorite, well, boy, it's hard to say. I think my favorite, though, was Donatello because I always loved the, when all the turtles wore the, you know, detective outfit, the big trench coat and everything. And then later I find out they only did that because in the comics they did it. And that was their tribute to Jack Kirby doing that with Ben Grimm. The thing was always dressed like that. which was my costume for Halloween this year. Oh, yeah.

I have seen that. And apparently they remade in recent years that Space Cadet Raff figure. Someone republished it, whatever you do with an action figure. Remade it. It feels like a hat on a hat to have Mikey as a surfer.

It's like, aren't you already kind of, I guess he's wearing more of an outfit for it? Yeah. He's surfing above ground, so it's a change for him. So that is the last commercial segment. Let's get to the end of video power. Johnny is outtrowing the wrong episode

of the Power Team. We did not watch the one he talked about. So we get this a little bit of trouble here because he puts on a ninja cow to talk about this ninja game. I will say, though, at least for this first character, he is doing the not okay but passable master splinter voice where he's not actually doing a Japanese accent. It's more of the,

Every father loves their children. One of those. It's just nondescript, halting, raspy voice. You can't assign it to any ethnicity, but it's not white. So that character, I say completely okay. I wouldn't do it. outside of giving an example, but that's what he's doing here. So don't cancel me.

But here's a clip of the guy doing it on video power. The shadow of the ninja is set in the year 2029. When things look mighty bleak, Geruda is your enemy. He's burnt a mighty fortune around New York City. His plan is to work out of there and take over the entire country. It's up to you and the ninja to stop him. Super graphics and game play keep this one moving. You can pick either Hayati or Lady Cahidi to be your ninja warrior.

Shadow of the ninja is laid within five levels of 16 stages. That's thought to keep anyone busy for quite a while. You start on a fleet of derelict ships and end up in the final sports for getting an army is alive. Next, the mad emperor, and I do meet mad. You've got to butt head with lots of different gods, creatures and robots. You know, we're getting a lot of footage, but this is really just the back-of-the-box bullet points, the features of the game. But this is actually a good game.

He's covering the first good game we've seen in this episode. It's, I don't see what makes it all that different from a review. Like, this one is classified as a preview. This is video power preview, but other than saying, like, anything slightly different. definitive at the end. It's functionally the same as the review at the start. You know, with that accent, I feel like he could go into this is a great game for me to

poop on. It does sound like triumph. It's very close. Yeah. I also like, I kind of like the low finess of we watch him put like he gets up from the couch and he's like, but now it's time for a preview and we have to, we watch him put on the

ninja mask while he's talking. And it really shows you what a breakneck pace this thing was filmed at because In a better show with better production values, they would have had him ADR all of this because he is talking through a ninja mask. A lot of this is muffled, especially at this video quality 30 some years later. Maybe it was better when at first air, but still, he's a little hard to understand with the splinter voice talking through a layer of fabric. Yeah, they're not, they're not bringing him back in to read ad copy to sound better. Like this was all, they probably were like in one shot from like, okay, sit down on the couch. And it's the end of the video power. Power team. Get up. Walk over there. Put this on. Say all the lines. Okay. Next thing. We got to get going. Next. And this is why he rarely came up with a new voice when arguing with himself. But unfortunately, he did in this next thing. So I would say this is borderline not okay. And I don't think Johnny Power would want to do this today. But here is the other voice he wheeled out. This is not an Asian man. By the way, he is North Macedonian. There we have the latest and long line of ninja games. Shadow of the ninja brings a lot of new.

and colorful graphics and to play. Ah, so, but a gameplay is the time. But look at the colors, outrageous. Ah, yeah, it is outrageous, but it's the gameplay. The graphics. Uh, the gameplay. Graphics. A gameplay.

Graphics. Dams! Dats! Well, however you look at it. Playing Shadow of the Ninja takes real skill and patience. It's a good challenge. Well, I'll see you guys tomorrow with a major look at Maniac Mansion, Manchin, another power team adventure, and some talk about heavy shredding and

Chrysballis. In other words, more video power. I think he personally really liked that first voice because he wielded it out again, but I honestly think he should have just done the, I made a funny thing from Ninja Turtles. Just admit to what you're doing here. Who's going to get mad at them for ripping it off either? Like, nobody's going to say this. Yeah, also it's just the same bit as the Dick Tracy one that is. It's just like he's arguing about gameplay and graphics with himself in a different character, except they don't even have a different outfit for him for this one.

And also, you know what, he does say something definitive. He's like, but you know what, it'll give you a lot of time. Like, he did basically end it with a review or at least. At the end of the day, this game has 14 levels. And he lets us know it's game over. But you know what? I like he previews the next episode, at least. I bet that preview is wrong.

I didn't look into it, but I bet nothing he mentions his cover. I enjoy the irony, Bob, of you saying, this is borderline not okay. And here it is, because that allows us to make up our own minds for how we're not okay it is. I'm like Johnny Arcade. I'm like, you decide for yourself. Should I have played this clip? Sound off in the comments below. Yeah, I don't know.

I just wanted to show that, like, there is a right way to do this. And I think the splitter voice is just so nondescript. But then he drops into the Ah, soul kind of impression. And then you're like, it is definitely not okay. Yeah. But you teed it up, but you basically had to play it for us. Otherwise, we'd want to know. Yeah, I'm sure the curiosity would have killed you all.

But that is video power. Before we leave the subject, we heard some, you know, pretty objectionable content. I want to bring us back up with a little surprise over the credits. This is all voiceover, by the way. Hello, America. This is Homer Simpson with an important piece of news. Thursday. Guard.

Thursday. All right. I'm telling everyone this news. Now be quiet. This Thursday, there will be new. never before seen episodes of Me! Quiet!

Of the Simpsons. Thursday night, dudes on Fox. BART! Yes, they're really hammering home. It's Thursday now, and you better believe Bart is going to be the star of the season premiere. So they know exactly who they're talking to,

the messaging they need, and how to get it out as quickly as possible via the characters. Nancy Carwright, Dan Castanada, always playing ball. Yeah, they worked a lot. Nancy would do things that even the Simpsons people would be pissed of like,

I don't just mean Scientology but the No, they were having fun Maybe they were even recording that the same day that they were recording

the Simpsons Sing the Blues content because that's coming out in just a couple months after this. That's true. It's thrown together very quickly around this time. They knew if it didn't come out

that Christmas they would be leaving money on the table. They needed a Christmas album. So yes, that has been our episode about video power. We spent a lot of time

talking about it. Did it deserve this much treatment? I think we had to cover it because we covered everything else. And that's why I want to leave us with the question. Like, how do we rank this next to other misguided video game shows from this era? Because to me, this is the bottom of the list, although I'd rather watch this than, say, Super Mario World, the cartoon. There's less fun to be had there. If you watch Super Mario World the cartoon, you get to hear the theme song, which is pretty good.

Mark Motherspot, it's true. Yeah, this is a rough. The, I mean, yeah, this is so below. Anything else that had a cartoon in it, I really, like, even like the pilots for like, the Battletoads and Bubsy, like those were a little better to this than me because also like this, this cheaps out so much, just about everything. And other than like maybe quirk, none of them are that interesting. They're not colorful and they're just in such a gray world, too.

I think you guys are overlooking that mostly naked barbarian. the character he's not very good um i was confused by this episode at like more than one point and if you're making a children's cartoon that is basically designed to sell products and like a human who like was well rested this morning um watches it and they're like wait what's going on you fucked up because like it shouldn't ever be confusing like the viewer should be like gently guided down a very safe path that's how cartoons work and this was just poorly put together and i didn't mention it when we were talking about in some of the clips, the music's actually competing with the vocals. Yeah. And it's like, it's

mixed poorly. And it's like, actually, I can't understand what they're saying. And I'm glad I have Bob to tell me what they're saying. So to clear up any confusion I have. But yeah, not a not a great project here. Yeah, this is not bad mixing on our part. The show is just poorly mixed. And yeah, there's always like just droning synths in the background of all of the dialogue, just to keep

just constant noise and activity on the screen so you pay attention as a little kid in the late 80s, early 90s. But yeah, This is a lesser version of Captain N. And not just that. It's also a lesser version of GamePro TV. So it's a lesser version of two things that already exist and aren't that good to begin with. But we will cover probably GamePro TV again at some point in the future.

I feel like we did a shorter, joker episode. I kind of want to look into the production of that and see how it came together and potentially reach out to people who might have been involved, see if they have anything to say for themselves. But, yes, my final question is, now the power team, clearly we need someone else on it because it is a real snore fest. And I want to ask both of you, who would you put on the power team? What C-List character deserves a spot on this team? Let's start with Drew. I'm going to go with Bayou, Billy. I think he's solidly C-List and has enough of a schick that, like, you can imagine what he would sound like, what his outfit would look like.

You can make him sexy pretty easily. These are all bonus points for me. Yeah, that's what I'm going to go with. And Henry, how about you? I always, as well, because Quirk is like my favorite in this, that he's the closest to like a Japanese cartoony design. I would just have another of those little guys in it like Bonk. I would have Bonk from the Turbo Graphics.

And you'd get to have fun caveman comedy with him that we also hated in Super Mario World, but still, I... Yeah, it would be Uktar. You want Uctar to be in another show. Yes, exactly. Yeah, I guess, you know, I wanted Bonk, but I say this is the air to do it. I say double up on your caveman. Let's have Joe and Mac show up.

Oh, two for the price. They can share scenes together. Yeah, and it's like they can just have the same personality. And we need less characters that have the typical humanoid body shape. We need more quirks. We need more bonks. I feel like that could have rounded out the power team. And it's very much of this era. But yes, thank you, everybody, for listening to another holiday

special. It's our 15th. I hope you enjoy these. They take a lot of time to put together, especially when you have to stare at video power for so long. And you somehow write thousands of words of notes about it. So thank you for listening. I appreciate it. And let's talk about retronauts. It's supported by fans. You can support us at patreon.com slash retronauts. You can find us on Blue Sky's Retronauts. And if you want to sign up, you get these podcasts ad-free. And you

also get access to two bonus episodes every month. And they are full length. And we've done this for, I believe, over five years now. So there are a lot of these episodes that you've missed if you're not a Patreon at patreon.com slash retronauts. And you also get a weekly column in a podcast by Diamond Fight. So if you want to support us, that's great, but we want to give you something in return and there's a lot behind that paywall at patreon.com slash Retronauts. So that is Retronauts.

Let's go around the little cabin here before I send you out into the blistering cold. I want both Henry and Drew to let me know where we can find you online if you survive the path down. Let's start with Drew. I am Drew G. Mackie, M-A-C-I-E, the other way to spell it on Blue Sky.

And I have a podcast called Gayest Episode Ever where I talk about gay episodes of classic sitcoms, both Bob, and Henry have been guests on it. And then I also have a video game history website called Thrilling Tales of Old Video Games where I go super niche on a bunch of weird stuff and sometimes other people care about it

and that's nice. And I just want to reiterate. I feel like I actually learned a lot in this episode. I've listened to you guys both in various podcast formats for a long time. And I am coming away from this two-hour recording with knowledge of Robosaurus, centauri penguins,

which I did not know was a thing, and the knowledge that this show existed in sucks. and I'm better for it. I think we all are from learning those facts. Henry, how about you? I'm on things you do. Oh, well, certainly, yes, especially if you liked me and Bob talking about remembering watching old Simpsons things, then you'll love talking Simpsons in our network of podcasts because that's what we do. But we don't just say, hey, I remember watching this.

We do super in-depth research just like Bob did on this episode about video power. And we are in the start of season six right now on the Simpsons. as well as season 16. We kind of bounce back and forth each week. And we also have a ton of, if you like the holiday content, we have been doing a decade of holiday podcasts every December for What a Cartoon and Talking Simpsons.

Many of it you can find on Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons, including our What a Cartoon movie, super bonus podcast for the highest level subscribers, where we just covered the Peewee's Playhouse Christmas special as our most recent of many holiday anime. fair. And I've been the main host on this, Bob Mackey, the cabin master. You can find me on Blue Sky, Letterbox, and many other places as Bob Servo. It's the holiday season, so I want to promote

the book I have out. It is the Boss Fight Books volume all about Day of the Tenticle, the classic 1993 game. I wrote the definitive oral history of that game, and you can find it wherever you find books. You can get it physically. You can get digitally. The important thing is, you must get it. That is my command to you. It makes a great stocking stuff, or perhaps a gift for yourself, trait yourself this holiday season. But that is it for this episode of Retronauts in this holiday special. Now, Drew and Henry, mind those first couple hundred thousand steps.

They are a doozy. Well, there you have it. Another Retronaut's holiday special in the books. But wait, what's... What's this I'm feeling? It's a holiday change of heart. I don't know what to do. I'm as light as a feather.

I'm as happy as an angel. I'm as Mary as a schoolboy. I'm as giddy as a drunken man. But I must confirm. that this isn't some sort of mania. Are you there? Unattended child. What day is this? Why, it's whatever day this goes live on Patreon. And one week

later on the free feed it is. An intelligent boy. A remarkable boy. Now tell me, do they still have that vast collection of movies on UMD down at the local retro game store? In the bargain bin as big as me? Yes, my buck. Here, take this tunie. Go out and buy Viva Labam, volume

4 on that superior media format. Oh, wait, here's a loony as well. Also pick up Family Guy, the freaking Sweet Collection and make sure you pass that PSP around the orphanage this Christmas Eve. Wow, thanks, mister. Yes, folks, I've certainly learned something today. The holidays aren't about the

terrible subject matter I cover. They're about giving and loving and, most importantly, finally getting my degree in accordion and concertina repair. I'm not sure if you folks know this, but there's been an unprecedented demand for future skilled technicians just like me. And let's face it, podcasting is

a dying medium. And believe me, I have all of my bases covered, so let's say in the future, accordions go out of style. It could happen, but guess what? Bam, I'm right there, and I'm ready to repair one of your several concertinas. So until next time, please forward all of my mail to the Red Wing Technical College. Good night, and may Quirk bless us, everyone. I don't know.