Retronauts - Retronauts Holiday Extravaganza 2017: Donkey Kong Country's "The Kongo Bongo Festival of Lights"

Episode Date: December 22, 2017

As another year winds down, it's time to return once again to the Retronauts holiday cabin in Parts Unknown. And for 2017's celebration, we've dug up one of the few remaining video game cartoon Christmas specials left for our annual festive discussion: Donkey Kong Country's "The Kongo Bongo Festival of Lights." So, boil up a boozy batch of bog nog, cozy up by the fire, and listen in as Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, Chris Antista, and Matthew Jay explore the winter solstice customs of hideous CGI apes.

Hello, fellow Retronaut. As you may know, it's time once again for this year's holiday special, and as you may also know, we've had some recurring safety issues the last six times we've done one of these. So for the seventh and hopefully not the last annual extravaganza, I've invested nearly all of our Patreon funds into teleportation technology. With just a simple pull of the lever directly in front of you, you'll soon be transported via wormhole to my holiday cabin in parts unknown for yet another festive celebration. Oh, and you will be exposed to all known information throughout time in the process, which in some cases has been known to cause complete insanity. The safety suit should protect you from most of it, and you'll be happy to know that by listening to this tape, you've waived all rights to sue the Retronauts Corporation, so we're totally covered there, and we'll see you soon. What your country can do for you? For you?

Later, he gets the rebound. Presses it to the man, shoots it, and boom, there's a diner. Oh, hello there. I'm just going to assume that all of your molecules were put back in the exact right place. And if not, we've got plenty to spare here at the holiday. cabin. And please, take a complimentary copy of Mr. Magoriam's Wonder Imporing with you. After all,

they're not going to throw themselves away. And I am here to celebrating the holiday season with Master. That's right, due to popular demand, my robot friend Steve is back, and this time he's going to sit in for the entire episode. I have preloaded my jokes file

with plenty of laughs for the retronauts friends. That's right, Steve. We've had so much fun these past few years, but it'll be finally nice to have you sit in and... Steve, is that noise coming from you? Master, the boss wants to see you in conference room B. Boss, conference room B?

As far as I know, I'm one of two bosses, and this cabin doesn't even have a conference room B. Steve, shut yourself down while I figure this out. But, master, I wanted to be on the show, show, show, show. Okay, it's time to figure out just what the hell is going on here. Huh, this door wasn't here last year. Wow, it is really hot in here Hello, Mr. Mackey, please have a seat.

Uh, uh, am I supposed to know who you are? Well, thanks to certain rollbacks in net neutrality, I've recently purchased retronauts, and I left a very important role as chief executive branding manager at ZimZam.com to do so. Uh, ZimZam? I'm not sure what that is or what it means. Neither do I, but I did create. dozens upon dozens of important meetings. The all-hands of 2015 will go down in history. So, can I help you with anything?

Mr. Mackey, above all, I'm devoted to delivering snackable content to our core 13-year-old demographic. I'm not especially familiar with these podcasts of yours, but an analyst I've hired has told me they're upwards of 90 minutes long? Well, you know, we have been doing this for 11 years, and I think our audience... Well, I think we need to get these things down, to two minutes, and couldn't this office be

more fun? Why don't we get some TV set up in here and some speakers playing the hottest hits from the 90s the 2000s and today? I only play music during these holiday get-togethers. If it was playing all the time, I'd be too distracted to do my job. Yes, and about that. Is there a way I can hire

someone to do what you do for free? Of course, they'll be paid in exposure, and the occasional free t-shirts. For free? Listen, I don't think that... Mr. Mackey, I'm good at business, and no business has ever grown by pay. We measure our success and money, after all. Listen, my friends are about to show up.

This is the seventh time we've done this holiday thing, and it's kind of important to me. Can we figure this out after the show? Yes, but while you're podcasting, can you think of some things to deal with Game of Thrones? People love Game of Thrones. Uh, sure. I'll get, I'll get on that. Steve, Music. Oh, that guy I'm so mad

My voice is starting to get hoarse I might even sound different For the rest of the recording Fine, whatever That sounds like my guest And the show has to go on Come on Come on in guys

How's it going? Sorry if I sound so hoarse I just had a meeting with a new boss And I'm kind of shaking up a little bit We'll get through this We'll have a good time like we do every holiday Let me introduce everybody here Who's across from me?

Hi, I'm Matt Jay. What are all these chains on the floor for? Don't worry about that. You'll find out after the podcast. After I stop recording. Who else is here? Pixelated banana, Chrysanesita. Yes, bananas are the currency in the world we're going to be talking about.

And who else is our final guest in the Christmas cabin? Inca-dinkidoo's favorite son, Henry Gilbert. That's racist. I think it is. So, yes, it's been a common retronauts tradition that every Christmas I invite all my best retronauts guests to the cabin. and we talk about a bad Christmas cartoon that's video game related. Unfortunately, we've been through all of them to date, except for this one,

and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel with Donkey Kong Country. See what you did there. Oh, shit. I didn't mean to do that. God damn it. Well, today we'll be talking about the Donkey Kong Country episode, the Congo Bongo Festival of Lights, which aired on December 23rd, 1999.

But first, I want to go over Donkey Kong Country and Junkie. general, both the game and the TV series. It's your favorite, right? Oh, I love it. It's better than Mario. It's better than Zelda, better than Sonic and Bubsy, and better than a punky skunk. Well, better than Bubsy. Almost as good as Donkey Konga, too. Yes, almost. Say, it ain't so, I will not

go. They've got that great, happy birthday remix in there, so yes. So Matt is here, and I'm sure Matt hates this, but we always point out that Matt is younger than us. But he was the intended audience for this cartoon. never saw this cartoon. Really?

I saw it on Fox Kids when I was too old to, I mean, frankly, I think I've always been too old for this cartoon. But Matt was the appropriate age for Donkey Kong Country of the TV series. I had a driver's license and was just, like, waist deep and poop. I was nine. I was nine, and I was too old to watch this stupid show. I don't know. I mean, did you watch it as a kid to Matt?

I watched a lot of it. So you know how when you were a kid and, you know, you don't care. Just give me all the garbage and put it in my brain. You don't have a lot of agency to, like, if I don't like the show, what am I going to do? There's two channels that show shit I like. This was one of those shows. So you know when you're a kid, you have those shows where you're like, I don't like this, but it's on. It feels crazy to me to be a kid, thinking about being a kid with something like Netflix.

Like, I don't like this. Kids would do whatever they want. Yeah, I mean, I hated Inspector Gadget. It was a frustrating show. But I watched it over and over again because it was on. It was a cartoon. Did I actually like Hey, Dude? I don't know.

I don't know if I did or not. Probably not. I bought one episode for my PSVD and I haven't watched it yet. Oh, my God. story. You, are you a melody guy? Oh, fuck yeah. Okay.

Biller's an idiot. Who was the Burnett on the show? Brad. Brad. Okay. I was a Brad boy. You know a lot about the show. I do.

Hey, dude. But Matt, tell us about what you know of this series. I need to know from a, from a millennial perspective. You're a true millennial. We're all like in this weird borderline area where there are no rules and nothing makes sense and Gen X looks down on us and millennials are afraid of us. So tell us what you think of this show. So this show, so when I was nine, I played video games, but I didn't, like, I wasn't a knowledgeable gamer or whatever.

But I was still like, this show's too late. Like, this is 1999. They've, by this point, there were, what, three Donkey Kong games and, or Donkey Kong country games. We have not entered the age of Donkey Kong yet. And, uh, DK64 was before this, right? It was, it was 99. And yet this whole show, like, there's no Kitty Kong. There's no, like, it's all from the first game.

The continuity of the series that it borrows from ends at two. So it has Dixie Kong. but no Baby Kong. Is Baby Kong or Kitty Kong? I think it's Kitty Kong, actually. Either way, they're unrecognizable. They change the designs. I checked.

Oh, no, they're all wrong. The designs are all wrong. When they were making the show, they were like, how can we make these designs even ugly? And how can we make Donkey Kong's ass offensively supple? It is huge. It's in the opening. You can see just a giant ass.

He's not just that. But like, so there's a lot of musical numbers. Oh, yeah. So that's not limited to this episode. No way. I don't know. I didn't know this until Henry told me that one of the voice actors was cast on OKCO because of their singing performance on the show. Really? Well, so on OKCO, they had a one-off episode where two characters fell in love and they do a basically a somewhere out there type song moment.

And so when he's thinking of casting somebody to do the singing voice of the regular character on the show, Rad, that the creator of the show Ian Jones Cordy normally voices, he's like, well, who's a great singer that's getable? the singing voice of Donkey Kong from Donkey Kong country. That's right. There is a speaking voice and a singing voice and they're very different. And the singing voice is like a sexy R&B black dude.

Yes, yeah. It is. It's like a seal almost. This is all very much when you find out it's a Franch production. Oh, Canadian. Well, a lot of different countries.

It has the, then the R&B makes a lot more sense that it feels like a very outsider's idea of like, I've heard these R&B songs from America. I like that style. Get pure West.

to make the opening song. Yes, in fact, so we're getting ahead of ourselves. So this is based on the games. And if you do not grow up in the mid-90s, the games were huge. Yeah. Couldn't be bigger. Couldn't be bigger. This helped Nintendo win the console worth in the 16-bit era.

Nintendo fool people in the thinking their S-NES had the power of an SGI workstation within them. Yeah. While Sega was giving you expensive hardware add-ons, Nintendo was like, no, we'll just cheat. And make people think things are going on that aren't. And that has been their gimmick for. forever from like arcade punchout up until this time. You want Toy Story graphics?

That was a thing people ask for. Toy Story graphics. And Jurassic Park. And they will pretend that these pre-rendered, basically photographs of polygons are polygons being made in the game. And you got to give it to rare for being so good with the tech to fool people like that. It's basic animation, like faking 3D. I mean, essentially it's all like animated gifts moving around a static background. But it looked on an SDTV in 1994.

It looked. It looked like toy story would. I tell the story all the time. My first girlfriend, I broke up with on the last level of Donkey Kong Country, too, because I, like, leave me alone. Like, this is important. I rented this. Well, and the Donkey Kong Country fit a lot better with the Play It Loud advertising campaign than

even say Yoshi's Island or Tetris attacked it. This was a monkey, and monkeys are wild and crazy. They throw, well, bananas. They can't actually throw shit in the commercials. But it really fit with their Play-A-Loud branding. Same with the ports of the Donkey Kong country games to the Game Boy Color or Game Boy regular that looked even shittier. Which is the one I grew up with. Donkey Kong Land, I played a lot more than Dark Kong Country as a kid.

The music in those games was all like amazing chip tune versions of the SNES. In some cases, even better than the SNES music, which was great. I crap on the DKC games because they absolutely are not as good as, say, Yoshi's Island or Super Mario World. Contemporary 2D games made in Japan by the Nintendo. team, but they're not terrible games. I'm not playing some of them recently. They feel very flashy

by that I mean, the Joby program. And it's, there is something about the same reason I don't love New Super Mario Brothers. If you can make that game every eight months, it's probably not that great. Yeah. And it also, I felt like they fucked it up from the second game where it's like, I play Donkey Kong games

to play as Donkey Kong. For two and three, they take Donkey Kong away from you. For three, they even take away Diddy. It's Dixie and Dixie. and kitty in three. You can visit your hero, your namesake at some point in the game. I was a ditty man. I still am a ditty man. Chris is a ditty man. I am. It's the first

only amoe I purchased, really. I have two ditties because of those donations, but I love ditty for some reason. And then after the Kong games, they made rare make Donkey Kong 64, and that was the last rare donkey con game. They did make the Dixie, the Ditty Kong racing games as well. But then

Nintendo took over and made kind of half Donkey Kong country games with the Kong the Bongo games. Jungle Beat and a bunch of other weird barrel blast. Mario versus Donkey Kong, which is a takeoff of Donkey Kong 94.

But they still use the pre-rendered graphics to kind of fool you. They deviant it from a guy. I love the first Mario versus Donkey Kong and they hate everything else. Yeah, they're like, no, we wanted to make lemmings. Like, I didn't want you to make lemmings.

I want you to make Dong Kong. We have enough lemmings in the world. But can we talk about how bizarre that is because I wanted your Nintendo knowledge on this? one big thing the characters talk these just i don't know what nintendo characters don't speak yeah and they especially don't speak in western media and how did this get through how did this come out if there was like a weird loophole that rare could license this instead of nintendo i have to imagine but like if the credits are like created by shigir miamoto he's like he's credited

on the production he never saw this this feels this feels but it aired in japan it had a bunch of merch apparently. Yeah, well, I think like they tried to hide this from English-speaking countries because it debuted in France two years before the dub aired in America. So this is a French series. But like, you know the stories of like Nintendo had that anime cartoon. They hated it. They were embarrassed for the Dique cartoon. There hasn't been any, anything that's not Pokemon. Soon. It doesn't happen. Soon the mean means people will be making a Mario movie, but it is surprising this made it through. But this got through. It's so. But it's, they clearly didn't care that much about donkey going anymore because they basically gave it a rare. I wonder if it is. I wonder if it is.

is that they just made a deal in France and other countries with the idea America would never see it, but then eventually they're like, ah, the money's too good. Let's just license it to Fox Kids, formerly the Family Channel. And it's 98, the heat is off Donkey Kong Country. We can just, we can safely air this. Man, did I love that channel when it aired Fox Family? Holy shit. Oh, totally. This was a big push for that network, too, and then eventually moved to the, it became part of the slew of four kids, Yu-Gi-O stuff. Oh, God, yeah, yeah. But it was still like a garbage deposit of like everything I love that was canceled. because the channel just started off every morning after Pat Robertson, Bobby's World and Pee Wee's Playhouse. And then the team will rip off.

And we had all the Saban shows. Like, that's where Power Rangers went to live, too. All the Haim Saban shows, which that guy's a piece of crap. Like, he's, if you wonder why the X-Men cartoon looks like dog shit, it's because he wouldn't spend an extra penny on it. Read the old history. Where is that posted? That was an Hollywood reporter. It's also a very good article on Lasertime, podcast.com.

Oh, yeah. Thank you. I wrote that. I cannot write that at all. So I want to go over some basics about this series. There are two seasons, 40 total episodes. The first season is much bigger. There's a lot of this, by the way.

So reboot, which came out in 1994, beat the series to the punch as being the first fully CGI kid's cartoon. Roli Polly Olly, I believe. Roli Polly Oly? I thought it was the first CG cartoon, but I'm pretty sure reboots. It can't predate reboot. Reboot's 94. Yeah, it's pretty early. Reboot also.

Discovering that looks better. Roli Polly Oly. I mean, it was. It was still too early to do this in a series, but because DKC was a very CGI-looking game, it's very fitting. Unfortunately, this does not use traditional animation. It uses motion capture, which made it, I read on the wiki, it made it ineligible for an Emmy.

This was not going to win an Emmy to begin with it. What are you even talking about? Look at the animation Emmys. You think that until you look at the list of them, and you're like, oh, anything animated can win an Emmy. That's true, but even they have some standards. I don't think this could sneak in, especially this episode. No one voting for those has watched, and they just tick a box.

My kid likes that crap. Yeah, my dumb-ass kid likes that. I only see him twice a year, so. So as Matt pointed out, it's a musical series. Each episode has either one or two songs. Nobody asked for this, but I think it's a way to pat out the source material. I don't know if anybody asked for this, but this was a mild Nintendo tradition with their shows. Because the Mario shows were very, very musical.

No, we had taped them, and then we had to export them onto tape for the Super Mollinger. Mario World cartoon. Every episode contained a unique song. Like a cover of a popular song. No, it was, they were... Sometimes there were covers. I remember Yoshi's looking for you. Looking, looking for you.

Great. My parents were so loved hearing that come out of a key man cassette player every day. This series has what I call like cheap theme jokes where they're not real jokes. You just apply these common terms to everyday things and you have a joke like, I'm going to drive my banana car to the palm tree festival. Can I just want to talk, it should be the only reason I'm here, because I could barely pay attention to this episode. It's a struggle. But just to talk briefly about Novana, the people who made this cartoon, because I think this was part of a wild experiment from them because they're a Canadian animation renegades responsible for, they're guaranteed to be responsible for something you love or hate. There's no joggernaut that came out of there.

They're a Canadian company. They're owned by the same people who own Telatune. So if you're Canadian, odds are you watched this show there. You watched it on Teletone. That seems like a conflict of interest. I mean, Cartoon Network owns Hanna-Barre Barber. Yeah, that's right. What is it, an elephant?

It's a polar bear. Yeah, polar, okay. So you'll, if you see that logo, you'll recognize it from a million places. I would call them most famous for care bears because they ended up getting an entire movie out of that. But like, Eek the Cat, Beetlejuice cartoon. Man, I, Jesus. Adam's Family? Do they make that?

I don't think they made, I don't know, but like the, they made. It's Hanna-Barberra, actually. They made, oh, shit, you're right. Almost everything. Like, about 50% of the animated product you've seen on television. comes from Novana in some way. That are like Loramor, I don't know. But they've done a lot of you.

You've seen that polar bear type of thing at the end. And we just talked about it on our Christmas episode. They're forever intertwined with Christmas because here's something you won't know about. A cosmic Christmas, a very good, somehow still Jesus-y Christmas special from 1977, but has aliens in it. That George Lucas saw and said,

hey, you want to animate my Boba Fett from Star Wars Holiday special? That would be great. So, Novana are the first people to bring Boba Fett to life in the Star Wars Holiday Special. It's the only good thing in the Star Wars Holiday Special, and even it sucks. Okay, what we're missing is Nelvena stepped in after the fact to make the show, quote-unquote, better. So Media Lab is the company who made the deal to make this show. They storyboarded 10 episodes, and they were full of racist jokes, sexist jokes, and inappropriate content. So Novana was hired to basically be script doctors.

This is them fixing something? There was too much work done on the first 10 episodes, so they had to be animated as is. They wrote new scripts around the existing scripts. Are there examples in the thing you're reading? The interview I read with the writer of this episode we're talking about, didn't give examples, but she was part of the staff that helped rewrite those episodes.

So, yeah, the first 10 were rewritten by Nelvana, and I think they just took over writing duties after that. Wow. But you should look up Nelvana, because odds are it'll conjure some memory in your head, some shitty cartoon you don't, you vaguely remember. I looked up a couple others. They did like the Max of Ruby cartoons.

all the Babar stuff in the Oh, so the adventures of Tintin they did But yeah, and I made stuff around the world That Tintin show was good They're like late 80s early in this one I watched a ton of it, yeah It was good show It was well adapted outside of these cigars and guns

Yeah, yeah Later here I did were any of you Else browsing the IMDB trivia for this No, okay I might have This is a ear muff's children Because this was this was stupid Let's see

The show had a large line of merchandise And a collectible card game I read that And manga. And then Candy Kong, Dixie Kong, and Funky Kong are the only characters that look entirely different from their video game. Thank you, ImbD. Some information about the DVD. Oh, and I'm like, this looks juicy.

What does this say? The entire series was thought to be canceled after the studio was bought by Warner Brothers and the Donkey Kong rights reverted back to Nintendo. This is via IMDB trivia page. So then Corey in the House was used as a replacement on the show on the schedule. However, it was revealed in a TMZ interview that Donkey Kong could no longer expand his dong as far as he could before a near-fatal stuff. stunt in the show where Candy and Dixie had to climb his dong to safety from a burning building. The weight of the two was too heavy and resulted in donkey's dong being ripped from his ball set.

I think IMDB needs some better moderation. One out of one person found this interest. So clearly nobody is going to the trivia section for the series. That's how barren it is. Hey, all of our listeners, go in and write your own trivia. No real. I'll give a prize of the funniest one. Bob Mackey's favorite show.

No, don't do that. So, clearly, whoever licensed this, licensed it to the wrong people, then Nelvana just cleaned it up as best they could. Yeah, yeah. And they, I think Media Labs still animated it, but Nelvana took over running dudes. Did they work on Redis Simby a little bit? I don't think so. No.

A lot of now. That was games after. Carbuncle was their Canadian studio. Okay, that's the one I'm thinking of them. So if you know about how CGI animation is made, you can definitely see the shortcuts on display here. Good God. Shots are staged so characters don't have to walk anywhere unless they absolutely have to. King, Kroll never shows his legs.

Characters teleport on this show. They really do, yeah. It's like... Everything happens off screen. Oh, an explosion's about... No, because they said mo-capped, and I'm like, nobody moves like this. What do they mean by mochap? It's like, you animate the arm by move, like with a Wii control?

Whatever was happening was not done effectively. There was like three tennis balls glued to somebody. That's how French people move. I still think it's sort of impressive. And just to go to Batford for one second, we've talked about a lot of other Christmas specials on here. And just last year on our Patriot... We watched Sonic's Christmas Blast.

Yeah. That's one of the worst. things that's ever happened, and it's only three or four years before this one. So this is miles away better than one of the worst things I've ever seen. I mean, this is just more boring than Sonic's. Sonic Blast is terrible. It's insulting to your intelligence. It's the worst.

But this is at least like, there are jokes, and it's technically. I don't know. It just feels like a completely different product. Like animation has changed. Well, from the bad animation standpoint, too, I felt like I could see the mouse cursors moving Donkey Kong's eyebrows. brows. Like, it's just so bad.

Nobody's got eyelids. They have like the whites of their eyes and the pupils blink for them because it'd be too much to animate. There's several times in it where I, it took me a minute to realize they're zooming in on these eyes to make you think somebody's about to cry or he's tearing up. I was like, I can't tell because this just looks like, it's horrible. Yeah, I mean, all the, all the anatomy is like balloon animals made of meats. Yeah.

You can see the segment on like where their arm meets their upper arm and when they're where their butt meets their back. Yeah, stretches whenever they move. A bunch of weird sausage links. It's not right. I mean, this reminds me of the adult swim series that would happen a decade later. Xavier Renegate Angel. That's in my notes.

But Xavier looks better than this. They actually make new props. They actually, Xavier runs around like crazy. And they were intentionally trying to make that look bad. Love, life, living. Good life, love. What is life? I fucking love Xavier.

Like, watch Xavier Runnegade Angel. It's one of funniest things. It made it on the DVD. I have the fucking DVD. I have the fucking DVD of Xavier Renegate Angel. I don't know how. But I will. You have to imagine at this point, this technology was not readily available.

And when they talk about Pixar stuff, like, have you ever been there and seen their server room? It's incredible. Oh, yeah. Because this record, I imagine they were denied, this is an animated production that was denied processing power. Because there's clearly not a lot of characters allowed to be on screen, not a lot of movement, not a lot of objects. Water is a blue carpet. We can talk about it like a game. I think it's because it lacked processing power in order to make that possible.

It still took, like, three days to render one of those frames, though. Yeah. Because it's animation, 3D animation has a lot more, like, weird computer work and time than people realize. But, I mean, ultimately, I was refreshed to know that the cartoons I watched a decade earlier, the video game cartoons I watched a decade earlier, were not any better than this. Nothing happened in that decade. Nothing was made better. Nothing improved. It was still, they still made just garbage.

Yeah, it's very, because I do speak from the perspective of someone, man, kids' animation today is, fucking great. It is really good. It's, I'm jealous of it. You turn on, it was SpongeBob, and I'm sure that's still on and there's something good on Nickelodeon. I don't have that channel, but Cartoon Network. Huh? Loudhouse. Roundhouse. Right. That show is great too. No, I'm on, I'm on, I'm on, I'm on. The creator was recently

fired, so we can feel okay watching it again. Okay. But, but, like, everything on Cartoon Network now is, like, clearly made by people who are like us, who grew up loving this stuff and wanted it to be a little better, and they'll do the best they can with limited budgets. Nothing is made by fired sitcom writers just trying to make a paycheck. Yeah. It's just loving it. And even the shows I don't like in Cartoon Network, like, this is undeniably funny and I can see why a kid would like it.

Good job. And I did not feel that way revisiting anything I liked as a kid. No, anything. So let's get into the actual episode. It is called the Congo Bongo Festival of Lights aired on December 23rd, 1999. And as with the Pac-Man Christmas special we did last year, it opens with a a fun variant on Twas the Night Before Christmas, except they're bananas and whatever the fuck.

Who cares? But we do learn about the ongoing race war in the Donkey Gun Country universe. Let's hear it. What's your favorite part of the holiday, cranky? The truce between lizards and apes. The Congo Bongo Festival of Lights is the one day a year we don't have to worry about that pond gackerel

trying to steal the crystal coconut. The one day a year, It's completely safe. I do like Cranky's voice. He sounds like William Hickey. He sounds like the grandmop of dinosaurs. That's exactly what I was thinking. That's you, but you can just hear the flam rattling around in his throat.

It's a good. It's a good Semitic gorilla. He's very, he's a little bit Jewish, yeah. Of all the characters they had to redesign, I think Diddy is the ugliest. He's the worst voice, too. Yeah, his voice, he doesn't have Nintendo on his head anymore. Can't allow it. So we learn there.

He's basically scrappy dew. I'm not a fan of that. He is. So we learned there, it's not Christmas. It's the Congo Pongle Festival of Lights. Which is the Hanukkah, right? The Festival of Lights. I guess, but also, it's because I never like when the Flintstones celebrate Christmas

because it's like, you shouldn't have this yet. You don't know who Christ is. There's no Christ Kong. There is no Gorilla Christ. Yeah. Jesus, Shale. I couldn't come up with a good rock time for the last second. We see the dark, the dark forbidden God that Donkey Kong worships later in this episode.

But yeah, the Crystal Coconut has introduced as sort of the tri-force of this world in which it holds all the power. And would make it into Donkey Kong 64, I believe. So this did inform this series. This is every episode. Yeah, like, everybody's trying to get the crystal coconut. I mean, it's the smurf berries of the show. Yeah.

They modeled. It was probably because it's see-through. It was probably the most expensive thing they had to model. And they're like, we're going to get our goddamn money's worth out of this fucking coconut. It's got to show it every time. Yeah. Coconats are the one, like, when they're like, okay, we said banana too many times. Say coconut.

We got one other fruit to use. That's it. So we go to King K. rules base, and even he is kind-hearted enough to give his lizard army the day off of the Congo Bongo Festival of Lights, and we hear about his remembrances of his

past festival of lights. And again, these aren't jokes. It's like, I remember eating swamp burgers and French flies. Like, they're not jokes, you're just substituting words. Let's hear it. Their freedom flies. Oh, my favorite part is going back to the swamp lands to play

gator games with all my slithering siblings, We just roll around in the muck all day, drinking bog-nog and exchanging villain's stories. And then later, we'll gorge on one of mummy's homemade mud pies. Oh, I can almost smell it now. That's King K. Rule. Of course, everyone knows it's just like Bowser of that universe. Very famous villain.

And his home is a mind cart level. Yes, and hashtag Gator Games. So this is a plotting issue I have with this episode that the storyline that happens for the henchmen should just be K-Rules. Like, you should focus on the main villain of the show in an episode like this instead of basically finding, like, not even Starscream, like the sub-sub-star scream of the show, and making it his emotional story. I feel like this would have worked much better if the Skeletor of the show was the one. one who went through an emotional journey. Do you know, Matt, does he ever leave? He has no legs, as far as I can tell.

Can Carol? Yeah, can he leave there? I've seen him dance in other clips. Okay. Okay, because I thought that was why, because the person who can leave and go behind enemy lines, as it said, he had to be the star. His functioning legs. Yeah, so the henchman clump has no family, and he's very sad to be left alone on the

Festival of Lights, and he has his own song that lasts for about two minutes. Here's part of it. Good God. No. It's so sincere. They do it so many times. I've always been the only one. I didn't hate this.

How expensive was meatloaf in 19 a die? And I bet they're all together eating pizza mud pies as they're cozy on the sofa watching swamp gas rise. And here's what I think this sounds like, the actual song. Let's hear it. Oh, yeah. Am I right? Yes.

Please don't turn off this musical. I'm singing like this. What is this? Is this from Top Gun? Yeah, the egos cry. With the pizza mud pies. It's from an officer and a gentleman. Ah, yes.

I did have to laugh at the. the, when they cut to him like playing the piano and the candle opera. I was like, wow. That's pretty fun. It's like Elton John meets Joe Cocker meets Billy Joel. And also those other gators like his dancing gators with him. I was

like, this is, the absurdity of this is funny. Way better than any other video game. It was like a seal video. Yeah. And I did find out through constant Googling, there is a Donkey Kong Jr. Christmas thing from Super Cake. Okay. We're doing that next year.

One last thing to do. It's from the Earthworm Jim cartoon. I don't know. The problem is that Supercade is like it only exists off of VHS tapes. Like they look the worst. And if you think it's hard to license, then I found a clip of Cubert just performing a Michael Jackson song. Oh, my God. That thing is never going to see the light of tape commercially.

So Donkey Kong, being the banana fiend he is, is getting everyone bananas for the Festival of Lights. And we are introduced to the uncomfortably sexy Candy Kong. Too sexy. The writer of this episode said she. looks like a burn victim. So let's hear her, and then we'll hear a bit of Funky Kong. Hi, D.K. Hi, Creamy. I mean, candy.

I thought you'd be on the beach setting up the fireworks display. You know how much I love your banana cream pies. Well, not as much as you're going to love the present I got you. A present? She presents. She presents. I can't wait to see what you got me. Oh, I got it.

Hey, donkey dude. Hi, Funky. Going surfing? Negative D-Man. I'm tripping a move to Crankies to deliver your present. You'll be cruising your karma on a high tide real soon. It sounds like everyone got me really great presents. I hope you like Indicamon.

They did remove all the racism. You're right. Yes. Well, that's anybody else. Not Matt. Did anybody else expect Donkey Kong that sound like that? Like, I was, oh, my mouth dropped to the floor and like, he sounds like a kid. He sounds like the hedgehog almost.

He's supposed to be a dad with a tie. Like, he's a father. You hear Funky there, like, that is exactly how I expected Donkey Kong to sound in a cartoon. What's up, dude? I'm Donkey Kong. That's what I expected. I totally agree. There's some weird continuity issues in this episode. Of course, I must bring them up in which in this scene, Funky is showing Donkey Kong

the surfboard, Cranky is getting him for Christmas. And it has his tie-on and everything. And immediately after they see that, they say, oh, cranky must be getting me these glow-in-the-dark pajamas. He just saw the present. Yeah. Cranky's getting him. What the hell?

Right there. Well, Ian notice his ass during that sequence to prove that they intentionally made Donkey Kong's ass more supple and delicious. Well, I feel like the, I think cost-saving measures, like, funky and donkey are the same design. Like, they just swapped hands. Put sunglasses on them. Yeah.

And I would say this can't. is not half as uncomfortably sexualized as she is in a couple of the games. I mean, they don't have the technology to make clothes, so it's more like latex body paint on this character. It's kind of disturbing. Well, she can't be nude like the dudes. It would be a different feel. That was actually, I remember on Robot Chicken, they did a gag about that from Rescue Rangers. It was that all of the guys are bottomless, but then Gadget decides to walk around bottomless too, and everybody freaks out like she's naked.

And she's like, but you guys never wear pants either. I'm just not wearing pants. So Donkey Kong needs advice for his Christmas presents. Because he's buying people bananas. And it turns out like, which that's how fucking stupid he is. I don't like what an idiot Donkey Kong is. It's like getting people gift cards on their island. I got you something I found on a tree.

Yeah, exactly. But so he turns to his dark god who thankfully does not need any animation to talk. Oh, you got to help me in can think you do. I'm desperate. What did I do? Look into the heart of your enemy to discover the greatest gift of all. So inexplicably, this African god is named after a Jimmy Durante reference. Ah, rick-a-dic-a-dic-do.

I don't know why. Oh, God, yeah. There's actually one of my favorite ones, songs that I'd seen in a clip package of songs for this show. was Donkey Kong demanding Inka Dinka tell him how to know everything. I want to know the secrets that the crystal holds and all the magic power that it brings. I'm the big Cohoona. I should know what's going on. Inca dinka tell me everything.

Wow. Okay. That animation's even wilder than in this episode. Yes. It looks like he's being electrocuted like Mr. Ed or something to move his mouth. But we should point out, I didn't mention that the animation in the second season is actually better. Like, they improved the technology, but this looks bad. This looks really, really bad.

Yeah, I just can't. I can't tell exactly if it's bad for 97. I can't think of another CG animated show. Reboot looked a little better. Well, there was also Transformers, Beast Machines and Beast Wars. Oh, that looked terrible, too. Yeah, but their trick on that was they were robots, so they could be stiffer. They didn't have to move their eyes at all.

I would say the Optimus Prime Gorilla looks better than any gorilla in Donkey Kong. We're still pre-Jimmy Neutron, which was kind of a breaking point. The high point for computer animation. Well, the trick with Jimmy Neutron was they just made a movie and they're like, well, we got these assets already. You're right. Aaron Carter can take a song. Put a bow on it. So, DK meets Clump and they find a common goal in mind.

Then I guess I am the only one all alone today. Aren't you behind enemy lines? Well, I was just, uh... Oh, well, to be honest, I come out here every year to see the fireworks. I just love them fireworks. Well, there isn't going to be it. No fireworks! That's all I got!

Sorry, but I have to find presents for all my friends first. Well, say, uh, being a truce and all, maybe I could help you find them presents. You mean it? Affirmative. And, uh, maybe in return, uh, you'd let me have a front row. seat for them fireworts. It's a deal. Yeah, I mean, Clump is just seconds away

from having a most his lack no funeral Christmas. It's his head in an oven. I actually do. Right before that scene, Docky Kong is like complaining how sad he is and Clump's like, oh, you're alone like me. He's like, oh, no, I have lots of friends. I'm not a loser like you. I'm in a big bed with my wife.

I do love the line of club saying like, that's all of got! I've hit rock buttons. As a total Pollyanna, Clump's story, did get me a little bit. I was like, all right, Clump, I feel for you. No, it was not a fun character. I just barely remember from the game.

What, you take, like, two stomps to the head and you ever see him again? They name every henchman who was now an individual character in the series. ...and... ...and... ...and... ...and... ...the... Hi, this is Ben Dominic, the host of the Federalist Radio Hour.

We're a daily show coming to you five days a week from Washington, D.C., where we interview our nation's top journalists, politicians, authors, chefs, economists, entertainers, and more. If you're looking for a contrarian discussion on news, politics, or culture, give us a listen and subscribe at podcast.1.com, the new podcast1 app, or at Apple Podcast. Here are some useful car tips you might not be aware of. A coffee filter and a little bit of olive oil can clean your interior. Removing excess weight from your car will improve gas mileage. And you can place your key fob to your chin to increase its range. Weird, right?

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Some features not available in all states. A little drum music, if you please. for the hippest tape of them all. Donkey Kong Country, the legend of the Crystal Coconut, now on video. Hand over the coconuts. Based on the hit Nintendo video game, it's the first feature-length 3D animated adventure

and features all your favorite characters. I'm sorry, have we met. So get ready for a thriller of a gorilla. Here comes Donkey Kong. You'll go bananas for Donkey Kong Country, the legend of the crystal coconut. Now yours to own on video. With Domino's week-long carry-out deal,

you can carry out large three-topping pizzas and now medium three-topping handmade pan pizzas for $7.99 each. It's PAN-tastic news. Cut, cut. Puns? You mean pans? Calling all panatics for two layers of cheese on crispy golden crust. So grab your panty packs because Domino's large three-topping pizzas

and medium-three-topping handmade pan pizzas are $7.99 each. It's pandemonium. Pandastico. Carry out only. You must ask for this limited time offer. Price's participation and charges may vary. Now we have introduced a second evil force in Captain Scurvy. When I first watched this for the first time, this is the only episode of the series I've seen. I assume Captain Scurvy was working for King K. Rule, but apparently he's doing his own thing.

That's racist to assume. When we're talking about- All lizards are alike, I know, I know. When we're talking about assets for the show, they don't, they live in the jungle. There are three kinds of animals. Yes, yes. And one of them is a single parrot. There's alligators and gorillas.

That's all you have. For both money-saving reasons and plot purposes, Scurvy is just clump. Like, they just gave him a different texture color. Just how Redder did it. Put a hat on him. Yeah. But meanwhile, his two sidekicks, like one of them, the bigger green one is like, you didn't finish this guy. Like, he's not even a finished design.

He shouldn't be. He's got no back. They can never turn him around. Yeah, that's right. And no real textures on him. It's like, you look the worst of any character in this thing. Yep. So Scurvy the pirate vows to steal the crystal coconut on the one day that,

is the easiest to steal it. A truce would not be respected by a pirate. No, no. He's, because we're scum or whatever. We be scum. Was that what they say? I don't think scum sucking 8,000 times in this episode. So basically, D.K. is rating King K. Rules vaults for presents.

So he's stealing. He's stealing things for presents. But Klump is letting him steal. And there's one joke in this that I love. Donkey Kong is off screen, of course, rummaging through trash that they're not going to render. And he's like, what are these clown clothes for? And you don't see them because when the animator saw that, I'm not taking clothes. I refuse to make clothes.

I don't take like six hours. Fabric? We can't afford that. But after this, we get one of many reprises of this song that eats up about four minutes of screen time because the characters can never finish until Donkey Kong solves the riddle. So here is Clump

singing this song he knows most of. I have great presents for everyone. I wish I had someone to give presents to. A warm house to go home to and knit slippers with webdow. And bog-nog, no made mud pies, and whenever you're sad, lonely as can be, just remember me.

Remember who? I don't know. I can never remember the last pot. All I know is someone saying it to me when I was knee-high to a new. And I can't remember who. So, yes, that's a major plot point in this episode. Also, this is the fifth time you've used. mud pies is a joke. I mean, come on.

Think of a different thing. It's not even funny once. No. We do see an actual pie. We see a banana cream pie. That's right. The candy has made. It looks fucking disgusting. It looks gross. Like, cartoon food always looks amazing and delicious. Pie should look good. It looks like complete shit. It's a pie made of like

eight polygons. Yeah, that's true. I can't tell how bad this is at all. I just can't. It at least is telling a story. It does tale a story. But I look down to do research, and every time I looked up, I'm like, is this still on? Is this the same episode? I got the wrong episode. It took me like an hour.

I'd have to watch this stupid show. And I'd also say, unlike every other cartoon we've watched for this, Santa Claus is not in danger and doesn't have to be saved by Donkey Kong. They did a different story than that. He's out of the equation because they have to make a new Santa Claus. They have to make a Santa Claus. Oh, back man, if you can't find a super pellet, the rain deal will never catch it. Frank Wilker's nowhere near this show.

He's too expensive for this show. So, D.K. is going to be the guy in the Festival of Life Ceremony, carrying the crystal coconut. But, of course, he's hanging out with Clump. And while he's gone, the pirates come to steal the crystal coconut. Let's hear it. What brings your skanky high to come? I come to claim me birthright.

The crystal coconut. Isn't there anything else you ever want besides the crystal coconut? Yay, there be one thing I be wanton. Even more than the crystal coconut. But even a pirate can't have everything he wants. Now hand over to crystal coconut or I'll blow you to bitty. That least he's not stealing the presents. There be more, boo-hmm.

You wouldn't dare. I would, because pirates be your scum. Godfee-Cat! It's a good yell. It's good yell. Yeah, we were just saying, like, no one does a good Gilbert Godfrey impression, except for, like, two people in this episode. Frankie as well.

I agree that. And, yeah, like, Diddy is, like, the screech of this song. I was like, what about a presence? Whoops! Mr. Belding, well, it's good to learn that it was originally in French, because as a kid, as a nine-year-old, I was like, why don't any of their mouths match up? And I assumed they were speaking gorilla, and we had it dubbed gorilla.

Yeah, you can see all these songs in French on YouTube, by the way. Oh, God, no. And they're even more beautiful. So they move on from the vault, so D.K. still can't find a present. So they start writing K-Rules personal library. They render one book that they copy, paste, all over the floor. and at that point Everybody loves books

Yes, exactly And at that point They find out somehow That scurvy is going to Steal the Crystal Coconut And through cameras There's like a camera If I was K-Rule

I would point a camera At wherever Donkey Kong lives That's the smart planning Wait hold on What's the fiction with them now I forgot from the games What's the conflict K-Rule constantly steals his banana

Of his giant pile of bananas The Horde And he has to get it back And then in two K-Rule just cuts to the chase and kidnaps donkey Kong himself. Well, did you fall down that rabbit hole of like what Donkey Kong

is which when the end of his episode? Oh, yes, totally. Well, in Rare's version, Cranky Kong is the Donkey Kong of the arcades. Donkey Kong is Donkey Kong Jr. grown up and Diddy Kong is a guy he is a little kid he adopted because he's not the same species. He's not his son.

He's a monkey. Not a gorilla. I read altering accounts. That was Rare's version of it. But when Nintendo started making their own Donkey Kong country games, they changed that. On this, the wonderful wikis, which I encourage none of you to go to if you have any

respect for your own time, this Donkey Kong in this show is referred to as Donkey Kong the third because of So he's the son of junior. He's the son of junior. But like where does that cranky shit come from anyway? Well, in the rare games. I remember he made a reference to being

in a situation like Donkey Kong, but I read it as I did the same things. All Donkey Kongs do this. Yeah, like, the first thing you see in Donkey Kong Country 1 is cranky playing the Donkey Kong theme on like a Vicktrolla before Donkey Kong comes in and wraps it up. And he's on top of the girders. In the rare games, they make it pretty clear from the stories he tells that the story

of Donkey Kong, the arcade game in 1981, is his story and he experienced it. If you say so, he also says that Sonic and Earthroom Jim suck. Yes, which is all canon in the world of Nintendo. But more importantly, so Clump realizes that if the pirate Captain Scurvy steals the crystal coconut and K-rule doesn't. He'll be in trouble. So once again, D.K. and Klump team up and their amazing plan is to

trick the pirates into stealing gunpowder to put on their ship and then they're going to kill the pirates with explosions. Yes. Murder them. Murder them. But Captain Scurvy overhears this plan and kidnaps them. They're really stupid. They're talking too loud about this plan. And on the boat, Scurvy

gives away more of the incredible mystery of this episode. At long last, the crystal Coconut. It'd be the only booty I ever be truly wanton. I thought there was something else you were searching for. Aye. It be me long lost brother. Whenever you're sad and lonely as can be, just remember me your big brother, scurvy her.

Now, where have I had a happy four? It happened four times in this episode. That's where you heard it before. I thought it was a tower. That's the ending to Coco. Yes, I know. Nobody else here has watched Coco. No spoiler.

In minutes. In minutes. When I watched this episode, I was like, this is a major plot point in Coco, this very same thing. Forgetting it wiping it away from my brain. There's like a Darkwing Duck episode with the same plot point, too. It's like a pilot, right? This lullaby gives the passcode to this blue, green, blue, yellow, yeah. And so, of course, D.K.'s amazing brain, puts it all together.

After 30 seconds, it's just, like, the camera just holds on it for so long. I feel like they wanted children at home to be yelling at him like, it's the song, Donkey Kong. It's a real door of the explorer moment. But, yes, we hear the song for the last time, but it's a touching duet between clump and scurvy. Are these two of the biggest goofus dupis you've ever laid eyes on or what? Yeah, it's pretty sad Sad, that's it I'm sad

The poem Whenever you're sad Lonely as can be Just remember me Your Big Brother's curvy We are, whenever your son, lonely as it be, just remember me your big brother, scurvy. Yeah, that's it. That's the last line.

But how did you know the ending? How did ye know it at all? Why am I named after a vitamin C deficiency? So there you go. The mystery has been solved. A long lost brother, which the story of how he got lost is pretty depressing, too, that clump burned down his family's house and then they lost everything and he was separated from that. The entire swamp he burned down. Yeah, that's true.

I got to think he killed some people. Yeah. And so Scurvy took the blame and had to become a pirate. Which he wanted to do anyway. Yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean, he was named Scurvy. What else do you do with your life for that? Yeah.

You would have figured scurvy was a fake name that he made up when he became a pirate, but from the song, he's always been scurvy. And so the writers try to get some sort of canned Christmas moral out of it, and here it is. It doesn't really work. Well, D.K., it's not the way I would have done it, but I got to admit, this is the best Congo Bongo Festival of Light's Day ever. Yeah, but all the presents got blown up. Now we had nothing to celebrate Festival Lights Day with. Today isn't about presents. It's about being with family. That must be what Incadinko do was trying to tell me. No. Look into the heart of your enemy to discover the greatest gift of all. And the greatest gift of all is spending time with family and friends.

Yeah. Even villains need family. I think Inca Dickey was saying, pull the hearts out of your enemy and experience the greatest gift of all, conquering them. I am Inca Dinka. He didn't gain their power. Defeat the purple parrots. Yeah, you know, Donkey Kong's present quest kind of gets lost in the middle of this, like that he's a bad gift giver is pretty much forgotten after like minute 10. That's why I never thought I was watching the right episode. We are not following the two plot lines I was introduced to early on.

And at the end, Clump and Scurvy are bonding. King K. Rule comes back and they have an argument with each other. And Clump is like, they're arguing over me. This is great. But the writers are like, you know, parents, you had a baby in like 1990. You're watching this shit. You're bored. Let's give you a Seinfeld reference.

The sea was angry that day, brother. And so was the great white I be fighting off. So I know this is a signful reference. Here is the clip of George Costanza talking about his brief flirtation with being a marine biologist. The sea was angry that day, my friends. So watch the entire clip because it's a great speech that I think Larry David wrote and Jason Alexander memorized in like two minutes or something.

Yeah, you like wrote it right before. He tells that story on some, I think Jerry told that story once a talk show. It's a perfect scene. It's one of the best. And I love when he just pulls out the golf ball. This is the first episode that made me want to watch in living, or Seinfeld instead of in Living Color. I remember watching this mind.

Did you guys think of that Seinfeld line when you heard that? The sea was angry that day, my brother. No, I was like, thank God this is over. I only had to look at the credits for four seconds. I thought of it, but I assumed that it's just a common, that's like it's a dark and stormy night. I just felt like it was like a writer thinking they were clever. Yeah. The sea was angry this day.

Like, that feels specific to me too. And this was the 90s in which Seinfeld was huge. But yeah, that was Donkey Kong Country. The Congo Bongo Festival of Lights is Congo Bongo, the place where they live? I think so. I thought it was a disease. I think it's the name of that. banana-shaped island.

Maybe, but... You see the same establishing shot like eight times in the episode. But, man, that Big Brother Scurby song is sung like six times. I think they kill like four minutes with that. That's true, yeah. You got to write it once. They only, yeah, it's just one verse. Like, it's one verse long, maybe two.

And they just get to repeat it over and over again and have like eight dudes sing it throughout the whole episode. Oh, God. Yeah, it's a lot of filler, a lot of nothing. No Santa Claus. It's no, not Christian. No. But, and I still think the Mario and Sonic ones are worse, like a thousand times worse.

Yeah. Oh, I mean, the Sonic one, it's not only him. Sonic saves Christmas by doing an obstacle course. Yeah, by winning like an Olympics with two interests. And then he becomes Santa. He, Sonic at the end, agrees to replace Santa. Santa's like, you're better of this to me, Sonic. You'll be, you'll be Santa now.

All right, that's extreme. Chili dogs for all. All a good night. Make sure to buy this game that'll never come out, kids. Yeah, so, like, I feel no need to revisit any more of this. Absolutely not. I know we have slightly younger listeners, by younger, I mean, people that are 30 or 28 or 29. Like, let me know right into the comments or let me know on Twitter.

Like, what did you think of us talking about this? Do you have fond memories of this series? Like, I watched the Mario Bros. Super Show and Super Mario World back-to-back a lot. Every day. And, like, there's some weird nostalgia for that, even though I know it's crap. Well into the Club Mario period. I was on board. But I want to know if any of you guys out there have fond memories of this.

Are there any final thoughts about Donkey on Country, the TV series? This show fucking sucks. Yes. Thank you. It's a bad show. It's no reason to watch it. I like the songs and how cheeseball they are. And I like bad musicals sometimes.

And also they've hired, at least for Donkey Kong, a good singer who I like hearing him sing bad songs to inca-dink-dik-do about his autographed picture. of King Kong I thought it was I don't I'm trying to think of something that was out during that period I don't know your Danny Phantoms that well also an Elvana thing That was much that was like 2000

I know but like I'm out of that period I'm in college and I'm paying attention other things and I don't I don't know what else is in the 1997 period but it's faster It's it has real jokes It's more self-aware And they're pioneering a technology

That's relatively new to the television medium So it's I want to say I respect it a little bit. I will never watch another episode of that. No, the character's voices is grading and say toads. Yes, there's nothing like that. Oh, Mario. Or also, Sadd it! What are you doing? I had to do that.

Put me out of my misery, sorry. But we also never got a character as like, duh, that's a donkey call. I think by 1998 that was not a politically correct voice to do. And he said, Dawn. Stay out of Congo, bongo.

Do I want those power pellets. I found a lot of problems with Afrodisian. So, yes, thanks for joining us, folks, for another Retron's holiday special. It's been so much fun, and I'm worried about the future, but we'll get to that later. Let me tell you about me. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo, and I will let everyone else talk about what they're doing, because, frankly, I am fatigued by talking about this nightmare program. You can find Matt and I at Lasertime, and we just did, we've got two Christmas episodes for you this year.

One about Christmas alternatives, like Luda Christmas, Futurama's Xmas story, and, of course, Star Wars Life Day. And what was the other one we did? Christmas sequels. Yeah, terrible Christmas sequels. Like Home Alone 3, Santa Claus 2 and 3. If there's a piece of holiday entertainment you even mildly enjoy and it's existed

for 20 years, it has a sequel that has fallen by the wayside. Me on Earth, all of them. They even did and It's a Wonderful Life, too, didn't they? They almost did. Oh, I thought they were going to get Zuzu. There's a trailer for it. And they had to take it down. But they were totally going to make it's a wonderful life too.

With the last surviving cast member. It's just astonishing. I would have killed myself again. And I'm H.D.R.A.Y.G. on Twitter. And if you follow me there, you'll see updates on Talking Simpsons, the show I do every week with Bob and Chris, where we go through every episode of The Simpsons from the beginning, including Christmas episodes.

Actually, well, it'll be probably like April. We'll get to the next Christmas episode. Grift or? Marge Be Not Proud. Yeah. But you can also find tons of other cool stuff on there. Which also has an animated Donkey Kong. Oh, it does, yeah. And Mario. Take it, take it, take it.

The company's fault for making you want it so much. A true classic. So look forward to that in the future, and keep supporting us on Patreon, please, folks. We love it. We need it. We live off it. So as always, there's only enough heat in this place to go around for one person. I must send all of you out into the cold, but it's been nice.

I mean, Chris and Henry have survived. Matt is new to this, but I hope that you don't have to hollow out one of these guys to sleep inside of them. It is not a great time, I think. I'm going for Hank. I know who's one. I think he's supposed to be out on the outside. I'm sorry I had to say, but please get out.

Well, that's that, I guess. You know, Steve, it doesn't really matter what happens next. If this is the end of Retronauts, so be it. At least we got to spend one last holiday together. And my voice is back to normal, which is great and convenient. And Steve, I'm not going to give up without a fight. I'm going to walk right into that conference room, politely wait for the boss to finish his conference call,

and give him a peace of my mind. Maybe podcasts aren't trendy. Maybe they aren't snackable. And only some of them are about Game of Thrones. But what is there for people trying to lower their productivity during a boring day at the office? I'll tell you what, podcasts. What makes a tedious chore like doing your laundry,

just like hanging out with a group of your best friends, while also doing your laundry. Podcasts. Why, even at this moment, as I say these very words, someone is using this very podcast as a way to avoid annoying family members during the holidays, which I'm pretty sure is the reason for the season.

And if those people want a mattress or a box full of stuff, or maybe some prices on use cars, while using the offer code retro, well, that would be even better. And that's what podcasting is all about, Steve. Master, I am moved, but the new boss left and left behind this letter. Dear Mr. McKee, I regret to inform you that as of today, I'll be leaving retronauts to pursue other opportunities.

I'm joining my frat buddy Mitchell over at his startup zongle.com, the only website that lets user store animated gifts in customizable e-lockers they purchase with Bitcoin. We've already secured $32 billion in venture capital since your Patreon doesn't contain enough funds to pay. for my standard golden parachute, I'll simply wish you a Merry Christmas and say goodbye via this note instead of having to make eye contact with someone who's clearly less than me. Dictated but not red. Master, it has a Christmas miracle. Yeah, you know, I guess he wasn't all that bad.

Just mostly bad. To mark the occasion, Master, may I play my favorite Christmas song? Ah, what the hell? You just play whatever song your little robot heart desires. This is a time to celebrate, Steve. Loading music protocol Steve, is this the song from Donkey Kong Country? Yes, isn't it beautiful? Well, folks, it looks like Steve here still needs to learn the meaning of discipline.

And it also looks like it's time for you to mosey on home via Wormhole. If you make it back, have a great rest of 2017, and we'll see you next year. ...height... ...and... ...their... Hello, Hello, new friend. Master shoved me into the wormhole in case any of his guests accidentally end up at the end of time.

But don't you worry, I brought some entertainment to keep you happy for the rest of eternity. Whenever you sound lonely as can be. Hoare, now we should be sitting pretty for the next several thousand years. Just remember me your big mother scurvy Whenever you sound lonely as can be Just remember me your big mother scurvy Whenever you sound lonely as can be Just remember me your big brother's scurvy

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Because Domino's large, large, three-topping pizzas and medium three-topping handmade pan pizzas are 799 each. It's pandemonium. Bandastico. Carry out only. You must ask for this limited time offer. Crisis participation in charges may vary. The Mueller report.

I'm Ed Donahue with an AP News Minute. President Trump was asked at the White House if Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation report should be released next week when he will be out of town. I guess from what I understand, that will be totally up to the Attorney General. Maine, Susan Collins, says she would vote for a congressional resolution disapproving of President Trump's emergency declaration to build a border wall, becoming the first Republican senator to publicly back it.

In New York, the wounded supervisor of a police detective killed by friendly fire was among the mourners attending his funeral. Detective Brian Simonson was killed as officers started shooting at a robbery suspect last week. Commissioner James O'Neill was among the speakers today at Simonson's funeral. It's a tremendous way to bear, knowing that your choices will directly affect the lives of others. The cops like Brian don't shy away from it. It's the very foundation of who they are and what they do. The robbery suspect in a man, police say acted as his lookout,

have been charged with murder. I'm Ed Donahue.