Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - The PAX West 2019 Live Show With Special Guest Mike Drucker!

Episode Date: September 11, 2019

A special treat this week, as the podcast went up to Seattle, WA for the PAX West convention over Labor Day weekend! We were joined by professional comedian/writer Mike Drucker, as he helped us deconstruct The Cromulent World of Fictional Simpsons Video Games! From Slugfest to Dash Dingo, we deconstruct the first decade of games created within the show, so enjoy this podcast recorded LIVE at PAX West 2019! Support this podcast and get dozens of bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! This podcast is brought to you by the streaming network VRV: home to cartoons, anime, and so much more! Visit VRV.co/WAC to sign up for your FREE 30-day trial and kick a little money back to your friends at the Talking Simpsons Network!  

attention talking simpsons listeners we have a special mini-series just for you we're going through the entire first season of king of the hill and you can only hear it if you're a five dollar and up patron at patreon.com slash talking simpsons we're giving the talking simpsons treatment to all 13 episodes of king of the hills first season and if you want a free sample you'll find the first episode available for free in the talking simpsons feed patreon.com slash talking simpsons it's the only place you'll find the first episode available for free in the talking simpsons feed patreon.com slash talking simpsons it's the only place you'll find the first season of talk king of the hill made you go click click click click click click click it's real easy man why hello everybody it's henry gilbert in here at the start i'm back from pax but bob is still having some fun in seattle

i'm here to let you know that first off, our PAX panel went great. Thanks to everybody who came out to see it. You're going to get to hear it in just a second if you weren't there. But one quick thing to let you guys know, unfortunately at the place, they had a little recording trouble with us, meaning that the folks who were working PAX, who were very nice and very helpful, we we really appreciate them but they couldn't record the podcast for us through their sound system as we had hoped before we came there on the plus side though we ourselves were already recording in video form the same panel with our wonderful guest mike drucker all about the cromulent world of Simpsons video games so we have this video that I think had pretty good audio on it all things considered we had been promising you guys a PAX

podcast Mike Drucker did a really great job as our guest and we wanted to share all of that with you even though we couldn't get the direct recording through the venue, I think our recording worked pretty well. So that is what you're going to be hearing. If the audio is a little less good than what you heard in our previous live shows, that's why. But I still think you guys are really going to enjoy it and still get the gist of it. So please enjoy our PAX 2019 panel about fictional video games in the world of The Simpsons.

And next week, look forward to our regularly scheduled episode where we're going to be talking about Mare to the Mob. So press 787 to start this podcast now. I heartily endorse this event or product. Welcome to the Podcast panel where condemned criminals

Dig each other with rusty books I am one of your hosts, the disgraced Bonesporn champion Bob McEgoose here with me Over here Hi, I'm Mike Drucker, and I'm your guest tonight. Yes. And who else do we have? Larry the Looter speedrunner, Henry Dober. Hello! And this is our past YS19 live show, everybody.

Woo! And the topic for today is the prominent world of fictional Simpsons games. You want excitement? Just pick up your stockings! the prominent world of fictional Simpsons games. You want excitement? Then shut the fuck up, Stunkey! Yes. And in case there's any confusion, we won't be talking about real Simpsons games, so if you're a Bart vs. the World superfan, you must leave now.

In fact, just leave now if you're here, because I hate that game so much. It's terrible. We'll save you time talking about the renault and Simpsons games after the arcade games. Yes, but all of them are 1991. But yeah, because the Simpsons debuted in 1989, there was a new medium to make fun of, and that was video games. And they've done it so much over the past 30 years.

We'll be going over the first 10 years of the show as video game parodies, but joining us is Mike Drucker, and he writes for the TV. Woo! but joining us is Mike Drucker, and he writes for the TV. Yeah! Yeah! Clap for me! And also used to write for the video games. I used to write for Nintendo. I was in the localization department. I worked on Kid Icarus Uprising. Yeah, that worked pretty fine too.

Yeah, that'll work! Well, Mike, behind the scenes as a comedy writer, have you ever written a fictional video game into something? I haven't. I wish I had that ability to. I've pitched video games. I've worked on more than one show where I was like, we should do a VR experience. And everybody's like, no. So that's about as far as I've had with writing a fictional video game. What's, like, the game on literacy in most writers' rooms, like these days? Pretty good? I think a lot of TV writers, I mean, especially with our generation, like a lot of them play games, but they're not necessarily in-depth fans of games.

So they'll be like, yeah, I have an Xbox and I'll play FIFA, but they're not like huge, huge, huge deep fans. Or their knowledge ends up like 1997, where it's like, they're like, my favorite game is Final Fantasy VII. And you're like, have you played any since then? No, I became an adult. So you don't get as many people but I love to play games. People become adults. No one in this room, right? Yes, I mean we're gonna see that in our clips where in the very beginning of these steps it's a very boomery take on video games from the boomer writers. It is very much a those damn video games kind of take but as we get into the bone storm era it is the the Gen Xers, the cool Gen Xers who are actually playing the damn video games. We're just going to be going through the

first ten seasons of Simpsons to see how much it grew from jokes written in 1989 to all the way to 1998 and the systems kind of grow with them and you can see their literacy grow with time. The first one they did, they didn't do any of the shorts so because I think that was just all Mac Manny's childhood. He didn't play video games. But then the very first fake video game The Simpsons was in the sixth episode Moaning Lisa which is mainly about depression but there's about four minutes of video games in there. We used to have all of the clips from the Slugfest game in this package and I think it's about half the episode. Yes, yeah.

So we'd be here all day watching those clips which would be fun but we unfortunately had to sign them. But yeah so Slugfest was the first clip for buggy lee so let's give that a watch I am not. It's just that I couldn't concentrate with that in front of the record. Thanks, Tom! So this game, this episode invented Fatalities three years before. Yeah! That's so fun. Yeah, it's an invention of Punch-Out that's two player, which didn't exist until the 2009 Wii Punch-Out. And yeah, Slugfest, you can tell that they started with the idea of like, Bart's better at Homer at some game, and they just worked backwards from there. Right. Also very of that time, very boomer idea that you still use the joystick. Yeah.

One button does it all folks. Come on! It's a, you can see the set top box in the other shots too and it's totally an Atari. Like they didn't learn a game system after Atari. But clearly some, like the artists played Punch-Out! Like that background there, that is the audience in Punch-Out!! like that background there that is the audience in Punch-Out!! yeah and also similar to Punch-Out!! they have in that it's Mario who's the referee they have a similar guest character cameo yeah that's Akbar and Akbar and Jeff

or Jeff it could be Akbar or Jeff and they figured out how to do player characters years before they were ever in a videota. That's why it's lacking the casual racism that made us love Punch-Out!! And yeah, the joke is like, what if a video game was this final? I think most of the early parodies are the joke is, what if someone actually made this game, and now we have the things far beyond the parody. Right. I do remember, this came out when I was I think four, and I distinctly remember saying this because I already love video games, but I remember being so scared by this. Just the idea of, in a video game, as a boy, he killed him and he danced on his grave! Totally missed the joke entirely, I think for the first three years of The Simpsons as a child. It was just horrible. Like, I was scared. I think a common theme in these early clips is going to be decapitations, too. Is that right, Henry?

Yeah, there's a number of decapitations in it. I think, too, you'll see in a lot of the early ones, their favorite joke was the game over screen. That was their favorite thing. I think they, in most cases, thought of the game over screen first and then worked backwards from it. And this was also the episode where they first went to Noiseland Arcade, which I did like that they made sure to show that there was an arcade version of Slugfest and a home version. That felt very informed to me. Yeah, that's also, when they go to Noiseland Arcade, you get to see the background of the game. They never play, but Robert Boulay Destroyer. Yes. And he used to not be tasteless before he was destroyed.

That's not the case. That's sad. At least he got to be on the Simpsons before they destroyed him. The next one they did right after that was in Season 2, first episode of Season 2, Park Gets an F, where they also used one of the background gags

from Noiseland Arcade in the first season to joke about escape from Grandma's house. Whoa! Take that, Grandma! Yeah! You have reached the level of an incredible grandchild. I know you're going to be happy today. Yeah.

Bart put in a $500 bill. I never got that many tokens at Aladdin's Castle before. Uh, for a five. Yeah, the escape from Grandma's house and getting shotgunning of Grandma, that just is normal now. You wouldn't bat an eye on it. I don't get the point of that feed, though. I feel like every one of these games will be saying this at the indie showcase booth. Yeah. But so far there has not been a Simpsons game jam for things like this on Yishio or somewhere.

There's a version, like 10 versions of this in the message board thread somewhere this is a weird also mr. Burns gender swap characters oh yeah it's his major turn yes hundred and forty year old mother it seems like a single screen game to just or also reminds me of like a LucasArts adventure game or Sierra adventure game of just trying different things but the difficulty level of most of these ones seems a little unfair to Bart though I think it's that's just coin munchers that's how they were then it's it's also so weird to see high scores on these things like that again really dates it but I think the artists really do such a great job of making up arcade cabinet art.

Yeah, that's a bit Atari-style content. And the really great Bart's slap of the joystick when he walks away. There's some really creative gameplay animation there. Okay so the next one after that is Touch of Death which that comes from the season 2 production but season 3 and this one I have to check the dates because I always remembered it as a Mortal Kombat parody but it is not. You can spot Robert Belay this story in there. This is one of the rare ones where Bart wins in the video. He pretty much always loses in arcade games but yeah touch of death that game came out like that was in 1991 probably

written in like late 90s or early 91 so it's like a year or two before Mortal Kombat comes out but they Mortal Kombat was the first game to have like a Bruce Lee clone yeah so it's sort of like a Double Dragon-y, Kung Fu-y kind of game. The Touch of Death seems really OP. I feel like is that like a specialty thing that you charge up? Yeah, a lot of these games are just like a UI too.

That seems a lot harder to animate all the buttons, but Touch of Death has its own button. It's like the uppercut button in classic Punch-Out!! in the arcades. So the next one after that was in season 3. Now that one does not have a name, we're just going to call it Hyperspace. You went through the right and then you just went through the left. Yeah, move those... watch out, Joyce! Now, oh, oh, oh, oh, here comes the left! Move them! Oh, oh, oh, oh, move them! Where's the hyperspace? Where's the hyperspace?

Wait! Where's the hyperspace? We're going to the space ship, not the... I know what! I thought I was this guy's! Oh! I'm in love with Grandpa. I got down on the floor for this? That's good. I like that every game we're saying you can tell

when the writers stop playing the game. About ten seconds in. Uh, but this, this is a weird mix of a game, cause that's like, that's really missile command at the bottom, but then above it's asteroids, so I'm confused by the UI as well in this.

Though they're back to Atari as well they still nobody has an NES in there I think it's all these childless writers who don't have an NES system. What they played in their Harvard dorms in 1978. Yeah the the sentiment I got down on the floor for this, that's a pre-wired gaming thought there. That comes from season 3 of Louise's Pony and me, and that was very much when the writers, Algie and Mike Reese, they really were about filling out space with people watch something on TV, though this was like a rare time with people watch something on TV, though This is like a rare time of people play something on TV. I don't know where that hyperspace button is There's one button on the controller

It's like the Vita is under the controller I just hope somebody got fired for that blood So Also, it's on the same console as slugfest, which like, it must be a way earlier game than Slugfest. The graphics of that, lots of first-time games. So the next one is from another season 3 one. They were doing a lot in season 3 video games. This is from Radio Barks, Larry the Looter. And we also can see the Simpsons versions of Chuck E. Cheese. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh yeah! Is that in the Switch version? The Detacation of Link? Oh, it's the Playmation blood going everywhere. Well, I mean, that's Mario too, they just drew in there. Another Mario cameo. I mean, Larry the Looter, if you suppose, is like Grand Theft Auto way before. Like, this was early 92 in this era. I guess it predicts crime video games and Italian stereotypes.

Crackling Italian stereotypes. Watch out Larry, he's Italian! The sound effects of stealing the stereo and stuff, that's totally on Pac-Man. That's like the sound of eating a pretzel or whatever on Pac-Man. I don't see the point of that game. Are you supposed to jump over that guy or are you just supposed to put in another quarter after that? I think you like telling me I'm a wife and kid so we don't shoot you. And just run the other way. At least it does count how many points you got over time and that cracks it up.

I also thought this was like a reference to the LA Riot, but those came like months after this game. I also like the concept of Mario defending a fruit sandwich shot down somewhere. Yeah. He doesn't know you shoot people when they're running away from you. That's evil.

Also the Chuck E. Cheese having eaten that finally, I think that's also part of the joke. Well, it's similar times as a 28-year-old parody or 27-year-old parody. The joke is, what if a video game was violence? I think, and also, the schools have been saying, oh, video games inspire all this violence and pride, so here's one that is directly telling Bart to commit prides, and Bart's reaction to stick it to the van is like the Joe Lieberman's greatest fear. But I guess gameplay wise, this is more like a Double Dragon type game, I guess? Or like a beat-em-up? I think, at least for the point grabbing stuff. He doesn't grab any chicken, but again, they wouldn't know that.

Gross chicken dinner. He doesn't grab any chicken, but again, they wouldn't know that gross chicken you like. This also just feels like totally arcade-stealing difficulty spike of how do you even pass this kind. It's a little like Wreck-It Ralph, too. Oh yeah, yeah. You know, I think, if I'm not mistaken, this might be directed by the director of Wreck-It Ralph, the Rich Warren. He was definitely there at the time working on the show. The next one comes in broadcast season 3

of season 4, but it's still left over from season 3, early 1992. This one is a very specific parody. I think it's the first one that actually feels like somebody is basing this on a video game they played. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Don't!

Seven seconds left. Homer, can you write some lines with me? Make Bart do it. It'll just take a second. No! Bart, by your own little world, you've forgotten that other people have problems, too. So that's his proprietary bowling and can't-go game. Sort of like the Virtual Boy, because 20% of that library was bowling games, right?

At least 20%. But yeah, they just drew a Game Boy. I mean, that's just the Game Boy. I'm surprised they got away with that. Normally they would have to change a certain amount of that to make it work. But, though a Game Boy game with voice clips, that's not impossible. You couldn't fit one voice... If the game was just voice clips of games, you still couldn't fit one thing saying gutter ball. But you can see the back of it.

It has like a switching... It is a cartridge switching out thing, so it's not even a dedicated machine. Again, fired for that blood but this feels like a joke written by a guy who yelled at his wife while playing Tetris I mean my parents were playing the game quite a lot at the time and I'm sorry to get the Tetris away from them I think what I'm most impressed by is the fact that it has that green monochrome screen. Like that feels like something that you would miss if you didn't play it anyway.

It also has a dot matrix display right above the screen in tiny tiny letters. That's right. That's, yeah, AMP select start hits all the right buttons. The prop designer had an early launch that day. I mean, I appreciate the accuracy there. Yeah, just seeing this clip, it makes you feel pretty awful for Marge. But that's how you're supposed to feel that whole episode. It's blanchy blah. The Simpsons will be right back. make trips like this and do these live show appearances thanks to the support of the folks at patreon.com slash talking simpsons the talking simpsons network is supported by tons of great patrons who for five dollars a month help me and bob keep this going and they get tons of extras like patreon exclusive podcasts for mini series about the shows the critic futurama and king of

the hill plus two dozen exclusive interviews with folks who have been working on The Simpsons as early as the very first shorts not to mention it's supported by the $10 and up folks who get to hear our premium podcast once a month What a Cartoon Movie where me and Bob talk about a different animated feature film once a month including

Rocko's Modern Life Static Cling Batman Mask of the Phantasm Akira and many more Please check out all that stuff at Patreon.com Talking Simpsons But yes, the next one is also from season four, from an episode written by Conan O'Brien, New Kid on the Block,

and we're back to the Arcane Parodies. Oh no, here comes the conservative judge! The detainee! It's not working! Alright, you can turn the button. Now! Oh no, you're in Texas! If I hit the reverse button one more time I would have made it. Oh boy, there you go.

See you around! I think if I hit the reverse button one more time I would have made it. Oh boy, there you go. Cheer on! So if you listen to the music and look at the main character, this is the sequel to Larry the Looter. Oh yeah! It's clearly from the same creator. With a similar political bent to, like it's a very political game. I feel like they wrote the joke originally

in Just A Platformer about escaping from death row, but then they rewrote the dialogue to be all about remorse, pleading insanity, all the way through the legal system trying to get out of death row, not jump over guards. And that's like an early version of the Rich Tenzin there. It's like, maybe he made the game and put himself in it. But it has the big sort of punch out arcade uppercut button as you change your venue, but then you slap it in the wall. That's the big button. I mean, that's another one where it feels like they wrote the game over speed first and went back where it's like, wrote the game OST first and went back.

They reused the Larry the Looter music, but they did write 8-bit chiptune out of Yellow Rose of Texas. I'm curious how they made chiptune music back then for this stuff. Do you think they just went to a band in town? I think it was next to the dog barking button on the Casio. And also interesting about the placement of this, this is at the, instead of at Noiseland, they are at the Quickie Mark. Where they're playing it is usually where the new game machine is, which is one of the most distracting props in the whole show. Like, if you ever see in the Quickie Mart, next to the cash register, there's

a sniper game and nuke, just a big thing, orange thing that says nuke. It really, like, draws the eye. So it's, uh, but for this one moment, it replaces the nuke machine. So my guy's a comedy writer for television.

Does the nuke arcade game feel like a placeholder joke? We'll come back to nuke. It does feel like a placeholder joke, but now I like to head-cam it that it's one of those Soviet-Russia arcade games that you read about. And he just imported it. The Quickie Mark Foundation wouldn't spend that much money. I also like to imagine that the judge is using the hammer from Smash. Oh yeah! There's not great hit detection there. Or is he just standing back from the hammer? Should have edited in that music actually. I mean, yeah, it seems like he's doing donkey

count jumps over people, so it seems kind of like BK but the next one so that's the last one the Al Jean and Mike Reese years they were very much about arcades I think Merkin if you'll see in his two ones he was much more interested in the violence than just the arcade scenario of it though the first one is actually a very non-violent game. This is now literally every game I buy on Steam. Yeah. They're saying, if you could tell-tale about the rights today. Yeah, it's the first dialogue for me. I can't believe it was there. I mean, so, Mike, is Dinner with Andre still the go-to joke of boring movie? No, I don't think people...

Sherlock, how many of you have remembered Dinner with Andre? Yeah, that's not most. No, it's definitely not. Not boring movie. I don't know if there's a boring movie thing right now. Well, I guess maybe English Patient was the 90s. English Patient 90s. I don't know what anything was after that.

People just stopped watching movies. I think so. The Dinner with Andre gag, I mean,'s a great gag on Martin too, that Martin is the one child who would want to play it. Like no line for his name either. But I wonder what the fail state is in that. I would have liked to have seen the game over screen from there. If Andre just storms out of dinner. Well, Tell Me More is the only quote on it.

The rest are like Witty Von Moe. So I wonder if that's randomly generated. But yes, while Martin is enjoying that, Bart is playing Panamanian Strongman. You're getting much older than me. The next window! We have to stop you to drive. Oh, my money. Don't say that out loud! You're going to get your bills and the money and check your portal. Good luck, Ray.

I'm sorry, you'll have to leave! So, I- it's hard to tell if Panamanian Strongman is supposed to be... Is it a Donkey Kong game where you play as Donkey Kong? I don't even see how you could win at that. Unless Bart... Bart really wasn't doing anything in there. For as focused as he was in front of his joysticks, he didn't make a move. Did you notice that in the shot he's not holding anything in his hands? Oh, yes. It's a magic joystick game.

You just hold your hands over it. Though it also, I mean the way he's holding it, it looks like it's a twin joystick game, but then later you see it's just one joystick. So, maybe he's gonna like jam his hand on the other one? I'm gonna be honest, my dinner with Andre seems more fun. It does. It's less boron drugs propaganda either. Trenching insight, that doesn't work on Panamanian strongman. I mean that gag there is also, I mean it's about Manuel Noriega, that's the gag. I mean it's extra funny that HW, I feel like that's an extra gag there too, that HW Bush is kicking him when they were pals until they were not pals. Yeah, and somebody had to, some writer had

to be in an arcade because that was the area in which every game would have the blue splash screen when there's no use drugs signed by the department of the FBI's head or whatever. They're the lead guy, the lead jerk. Yeah, that's... You'll save us. No, it's even better to have H.W. Bush, like, kick a corpse on screen. I really like that. Give me little grunts. By the time this episode aired, like, he was out of office, too. So I think that shows the game was made a few years earlier. So Bart's going retro with this North Island arcade. And also they don't realize the, yeah, you just, if you run out of money at the arcade,

you walk around and then feel in the coin slot things to see if anybody left one. I think that maybe happened once for me. What did your kid have? Oh, they, you never, well I never, this warned me to not say out loud I was out of money. But also I never went there unattended. My mom would have just said, okay we're out of money, you're gonna go. She would, she would be the squeaky voice team. One more thought I had about the Panamanian Strongman is that the box, the art on the cabinet has Uncle Sam there too. I wish we had seen the stage where you fight

Uncle Sam, like a fist fight between Panamanian Strongman and Uncle Sam there too. I wish we had seen the stage where you fight Uncle Sam. Like a fist fight between Panamanian strongman and Uncle Sam. That's in the Panamanian level. That couldn't make it onto the NES. When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops. So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients that we really care about you! Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs!

Weird, I don't remember saying that part! Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care! Did I mention that we care? So, the next one, we just know it by name, but it definitely comes from the Mortal Kombat panic era in Season 6. They're one of those, they'll call you a chick, chicks, huh? Sorry about that, I'm a lightning brother. We will make the next few hours a living hell. Oh, well.

See this, five? This is what I was for. The game where condemned criminals dig at each other with rusty hooks. Do a little housework and you can play for five minutes. When? Yes. See, I'm sorry. Males aren't entertaining. They all follow their video cartridges.

Is that a Neo Geo cartridge? It's an extra long cartridge for extra violence. You can see the concave thing at the top for an NES thing, though. An NES I don't think you could even portray disemboweling if you tried. It just doesn't have the color palette for it.

But yeah, I mean, that's definitely from...they're making a joke about Mortal Kombat now, but through disemboweler 4, which it also sounds a lot like Escape from Death Row, honestly. Yeah, and I guess the joke is they're fighting equal in combat, but then, I don't know, maybe six or seven years later there was a manhunt, which was condemned criminals digging into each other with rusty hooks. That hook doesn't look too rusty on the box art there. I got a thumbs down on the box art. Also, you know, Bart playing the typical gamer of hating women. I'm kidding!

None of those people are gay. That's never been known to me, for real. But I think by the time I saw this gag, I was being a little, as a 13-year-old, I at least was thinking, like, they don't play NES games anymore, boo! I noticed that they got it wrong. That should have been a Genesis card, but I guess they wouldn't even know what a Genesis card looked like then, the writers, I suppose.

Yeah, I love Bart breaking as he looks at the game. Like, that's such good animation. Like, just his, just so quickly shattered. But I loved it. I like him presenting the tagline because he's not actually reading any text on the screen. He's having an out-of-body experience. He's remembering the tagline for the game. Yeah, well we'll see in a later clip. He is very programmed by commercials. So he remembers all of that. Yeah, it should, obviously that should just be the game box.

But I, so do you think that the babysitter, that she owns the game and brings it to everything she babysits at? Or did she rent it just for this? I think if she's babysitting a lot, it's a useful tool to have to break rowdy boys. I just want her to be a fan of the Disembowelers series. Yeah, I think maybe the trick is she's better at it than him. I would like that scene. She's a Jeffrey Dahmer man. Oh, don't owe that.

So those are the only two from the Dave Merkin seasons of 5 and 6. He didn't do a ton of game stuff, I think. But the next season was the ultimate Simpsons game episode, I dare say. And I think it is because Bill Oakley, we've talked to him, if I may name him. We've had a meal with him. He wasn't afraid. I watched him eat a burger just like he does on Instagram. But he talked about how he didn't grow up playing games, but when he became an adult with Comedy Writer money, that's when he splurged on video games and was playing a ton of them.

So, I mean, is Comedy Writer money buying you a lot of video games, Mike? Simpsons residual money buys you a lot of games. No, Comedy Writer, yeah, yes it does. There's nothing funny about that, but I don't have children. I'm going to fucking save for that. But yes, the first one for Bill O'Clean, Josh Weinstein season. This is a dual commercial here for an unnamed game in a game we all remember. Take out your stockings! Whoa! I'm on Netflix, and you can't hear me? No.

I'm out! Mommy! Mom's home! I gotta help! Mommy and Goldstorm are gonna help! Young man, in this house, use a little word called pleading. And in five minutes there would be a very similar commercial in 1995. Yeah, they

really captured the Play It Loud style of commercial there. Not just with the extreme catch phrases. Oh, Santa Claus is more like a Slim Jim commercial. Maybe that is supposed to be Randy Savage. But also, it takes the Nintendo style, too. It is an ad talking shit about another video game. And saying, look at how shitty this game is. Our game is way better.

And I've watched this episode a thousand times, and only in doing research for this panel did I notice the Goros have six arms instead of four, so they're better Goros. Maybe that protects them on a copyright thing. No, then again, they just drew Liu Kang here. Like, that just was him. Well, technically they just traced over Bruce Lee

when they drew Liu Kang. Yeah, I suppose so. They've got cover there. So in that game, the first game, Like that just was well technically they just traced over Bruce Lee when they drew the cangs. Yeah They've got cover there. So in that game you think the first game the unnamed game do you play as a tank? Like can you choose? It looks like it's a sequel to that arcade game. Was it Death Touch? Oh yeah, Touch of Death. Yeah This is before Fighting Vipers where you unlock the Daytona car to fight heads. Just here. Yeah, they predicted that too. I gotta give to them on that unnamed game,

they really captured the finish-him animation as well, which seems to show somebody must be playing as that tank if it's doing the finish-him animation, I think. And the controllers too, finally somebody learned what a Genesis was as well. Those are straight- up Genesis controllers. So, it's a cartridge based system which is 95 and that's, you know, most... You maybe have a Playstation, but most kids are still playing.

I'm not. Do we want to talk about how nice those kids' house was? Yeah. That was like the McCallister Mansion. Yeah. Those Home Alone kids, they deserve to be robbed. Watch that movie again. The criminals are right.

Their house is like a hotel. They're like, well, you're going to have to stay in the 17th bedroom, Kevin. I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean, that's commercial houses. It's an attainable dream of kids, I think, to get to see, like, oh, they have a fancy place, too. Though, that, you know, one thing they didn't get right about that Play Lab commercial, a girl was playing a video game with them. That would not be seen on television. Yeah, no way. podcast about the evolution of video game ads. You really noted that at about like 84, 85,

they stopped having moms and sisters play games in those commercials. Well, I mean, occasionally there'd be a mom, but she would look in from the kitchen and say, oh, you men, and then you'd walk back to her cookies or whatever, I don't know. Or like an old grandma who's pointing like the mom in the Fresh Prince.

And then I love, like, snap into the excitement and just, bam, shoots a bone storm right to the other game, destroying the game. Destroying such very similar games. Yeah. Well, this has blood dropping everywhere. I mean, the background, like, that's the pit of death stage from World

Kombat as well. Like, they really captured that. Though, again, another thing they got wrong, you can't play as Goro at all in those games. He's an unplayable mid-boss. I think, I mean, if you had a game, you could play as him, sure. But the Bart's reaction, like, they knew exactly how well to advertise it to 10 year old boys there as you can see. They even captured a real game with like 10 two player stuff in it. Though later we'll see, like for as advanced as this game is, you can only enter up to 8 letters on your name. Up to real though, not full till it happens. But Bart is bedeviled at all turns trying to get this game.

He tries to steal it even in one of the classic scenes we've been talked to by all of his video game pals. But that leads to a very heartfelt story. It's one of B and Bob's favorites. As two Bob's boys, we really love that one. But yeah,

once Bart goes through a whole journey, he thinks he's getting the game he asked for. Now, I know you love video games, and I asked the clip, which is the one every boy wants. Oh, you got it! Oh, yeah! Yeah! Thank you.

Thank you. Merry Christmas, everybody. This actually is the Heart Malmo's funny channel. I am Heart Malmo. Now, choose a club. You have chosen a three wood. May I suggest a pucker?

Three wood. Now enter the force of your swing. I suggest feather touch. You have entered our tribe. You have seven, eight, 7, 2, swing. Ball is in. Parking lot. Would you like to play again? You have selected no.

The meme, I think it's maybe two years old now, but I love the meme of Bart opening the gift and it's Battleborn and not Overwatch. This actually kind of happened to me. My grandparents got me an original Game Boy when it came out, and I was so excited. And they had that and a game that was wrapped up and I was like, oh, it's Mario Land. I got fucking Mario Land and it was golf. And I almost did the same thing, and this episode came out after that, but I remember being like, thank you so much. And they're like, let's watch you play golf.

And I was like, I don't want that. Well I think Mario was on the cover of that game too. He was like golfing on the cover. Yeah, but he didn't golf in the game. No, no. Yeah. I love that Arkanoid game too. They just said like, well Mario's inside that pad. Alleyway. Alleyway, yeah. Use your imagination. Mario's always there. He's every baseball player in baseball. Yeah, that present face is such a, that really and you know behind the scenes like some

some clerk at a game store just lied to Marge who got rid of their stock of Lee Trevino or sorry Lee Carvalho's putting challenge and that didn't even come with a scoring pencil. But I said Lee Trevino I mean that's obviously it was supposed to be he had turned I think they did say they approached him for it, but he turned it down. He didn't give it to you. Can we use your name for a video game that nobody would watch? It's a weird reference to this old NES game, Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf. And that's why he's one of the three golfers I know about.

Ah, fortunately I was never. Ah. I did. Fortunately, I was never given to the golf club. Well, I had Nintendo Power to tell me all about it. Tell me it was good. It got their second highest score, 9 out of 10. Yeah, OK, so the command. What's really the destructive command to bleed Carvalho's putting challenge?

One, are they playing this on a PC, or is it one of those like television dial-cads because you have to press 7-8-7 to make the command. And like that, I mean that's a great joke in and of itself because the main thing you do in a putting game is swing the club but you have to press three buttons to swing that club. And then also, you mentioned to me before, Bob, this is a game called Putting Challenge. You shouldn't be able to pick other clubs than the other.

You should not be off the green. And this also seems to be the tutorial, too. In most tutorials, they would force you to be like, no, you can't pick the three wood. It's a broken tutorial in that way. But I also like they, I think they really captured a real gamer thing too. Like, you have this crappy game, it's your only game for Christmas, the most fun you can have is trying to break it.

And that's what Barton's doing. Like, going to the full, using the full power drive like they actually animated like like in Mario 64 they would not have animated such an extreme thing of landing in the bunker going off the stage although I would love to see in Mario Golf say Mario We'll all go to a Mario parking lot. What all those cars look like? Shattertooth's window. Okay, I love you. I'm serious.

God, You Have Selected No is another of my all-time favorites. They're really a power drive. I feel like he's doing an imitation of Tom Kite, who was on the show around this time. Yeah, yeah, it feels more like that actually. I guess, I don't know what Lee Truvino sounds like. He's an Italian. Yeah, the power drive. Okay, last thought too is that it's, like he's talking during it,

so that makes me feel like it's a CD-ROM game almost. Like the amount of conversation you get in it is pretty impressive too. Also, earlier in the episode, they could rent from their comic book store, which, I don't know, the overhead on that just seems too much for a comic book store to rent video games. I think a bunch of those just fell off a truck and he was there. He saw an opportunity. So that was the ultimate video game episode but they

still did a few more after that. This next one is from the Springfield Files which is from the next season. It aired in early 97 but this episode is by Satellite Office. They pretty much just wrote them all in 1995 so in a very 1995 episode the Springfield Files, which is the X-Files crossover, you will not see any X-Files characters in this next one. But this was a cute little gag. What are you doing? This better be good. Game over. What a wreck! Deer and Rehondra is the most boring movie, and the jokes were that Waterworld was the most expensive movie of all time, which that is like the lea- that is so far beyond what an expensive movie is now. I own Waterworld for the Virtual Boy.

Oh, hey! And, not to make a bet, the real game for the Virtual Boy ended worse than what you saw on the screen. Uh, probably the game itself costs more than $40, I would think, or $40 quarters. The first one I came out of was like $11, and I convinced my parents to let me use all of my childhood savings to buy it. And it wasn't the best idea, but I really committed to it for at least a month, pretending it was. You have to believe that. I mean, that's how console wars start. You can only have one system, so you have to boost for it. But yeah, the Waterworld arcade game, that's a $10 game, which that's a lot. That's a lot of money.

I like the imitation of Kevin Costner there. It's a pretty good show. Yeah, he's a hard impression, but it has something to do with the show. What is it supposed to be a parody of as a game? Is it like a Dragon's Lair parody, where like, you take one step and you die? Or is it just a bad game? That's a huge character for a video game, too. Yeah, yeah, it reminds me of Kung Fu, or like a Neo Geo giant sprite game. I think, yeah, the point, maybe he uses up all his energy with one step, and so you have to re-energize him with another 40 quarters.

This gag, though, is so, like, this was written by the folks who were writing the critic at the same time, and this is 100% an unused critic joke. Yeah. Very simple. In the arcade, too, you can see the Panamanian Strongman game in the background too, at Old Noiseland. I also have to say, Milhouse's pants can hold a lot of porters. I'm impressed. So the next one is just one screen from Homer's Phobia. It's the only gameplay of it, so I'm just going to show the screen here real quick. So that is Astro Blaster that Bart is playing there.

It's a sit-down arcade machine that John Waters' character owns, and right off screen you're hearing Homer grumble that Bart is so near a gay man. But the Astro Blaster game, I Blaster game, it kind of reminds me of the Star Wars sit-down vector graphics thing. I think that's where they're pulling the problem. It's one of the bench-based video games. Though I think John Waters' character

is nice enough to set it to free play. I hope so. He seems like a giving guy. And yes, we got but that's how we got an Astro Blaster. The next one, though, that's the last fake game of the Oakley and Weinstein era. Now we come to Season 9 and the start of the Mike Scully era. And we are back to an PC fighting game called Cat Fight.

I was just looking that up. Do you know who published it? I do not. Okay, it was published by the Software Branch of Vivid Entertainment. Yes! Oh, hello. A lot of knowing looks in this room. I just found out about Vivid through this webpage yeah I don't know what's happening but yeah I guess there was one in 1996 okay

maybe really this is the night week 97 episode I'm sure they didn't know about that I do I do like the sexism of shoes yeah They pick shoes as their stage for this fighting match. Yeah, I mean, this is a very sexist stereotype game, but, you know, let's look at the bright side. Bart is playing a game with female protagonists. All representation counts. Yeah. But this feels very, like, taken from Melrose Place at the time. That feels where the gag comes from. Right after this, Bart reveals that the machine only takes dollars, which I really did like that joke because it felt like a parent on the staff realized, had heard it from their

kids, of like, stupid dad, these don't take quarters anymore, games are dollars now. But that's also at the Quickie Mart, it's on the opposite side of Nuke though, so it seems like I'm invested in a new game. But this is by 97 though, this is when polygonal graphics are there, but they're still doing digitized stuff. I like the filter in general, the filter they put over their video games are really cool and it works with 2D I think they have problems in later seasons doing

video game jokes because they can't do polygons and that is definitely clear in the final game from the 10th season of Simpsons this was the one where they did this joke and I felt old.

Like, I felt like, not old, because I was 16, but I did feel like I was out of the demographic of The Simpsons they were referencing again. I felt those were babies. It was also the last legal year you can make a joke about the movie A Cry in the Dark. Oh yes, yeah. Because it was for about a decade and longer. It was TV writer shorthand for uh dead baby jokes the ding-dong my baby joke and the entire game is based on that joke yes yeah but let's take a look from uh the season 10 episode lisa gets an a you shouldn't be watching the learning channel you need to take it easy

but i'm hardly learning at all why Why don't you play one of Bart's video games instead? King Ganon says that life is great. Rude as Tigger, you must find your devourer that's living in crystal bodies. Or else we're gonna try to take your crafty, deep dickery down. I am so scared. I don't know, I guess this is supposed to go through the asleep door? Hmm, I don't think that's going to happen.

Oh, I can imagine. I'm still learning in Australian. Oh great, so I'm dead now. Fine, I'm just gonna do the game anyway. Yes, I am four power lines away from the end of Gravity Locks. Hope I don't run into that weird little troll. Hi Lisa! Oh come on! I brought your homework! We have to read this! The Wind and the Willows? It's about a token and a badger and a moor. I draw on mine. Is this my house?

No, it's in the kitchen counter. Choo-choo-choo-choo! Rule the day among us! We'll see about that, buddy. Uh-oh, she dropped the book. Oh, man. Dramatic book dropping. I refuse to believe that Lisa had not read Women of Willows before the assignment.

But yes, that's Dash Dingo of Crash Bandicoot referenced there. They reused that dingo from a previous Dingo Junction fashion store. They came to Polygon, but the isometric viewpoint at least, like, captures it pretty well. Then they pretty much drew a PlayStation, which that did impress me. I mean, this aired in late 98, so PlayStation was pretty established by that point.

But still, it took them until, like, 96 to finally draw Genesis controllers. But it's a wireless PlayStation. You can see it just sits on the bed, not connected to the TV. And also, Lisa doesn't know how to press pause. She's like pressing down and X. Pressing down buttons. Yeah. The collecting crystals that straight out of Crash.

Also the Paul Hogan head is totally Dr. Cortex too. Like it does feel, I think the difficulty curve there seems pretty harsh. Like the first level, you just get hit with like three enemies at once. So maybe Lisa didn't know the attack button at that point. But there was one more scene from Dash Dingo that is very odd to me. That it's hard me. It's hard to really figure out. So that, I mean, that's Crash Team Racing that she seemingly is playing. But this aired in late 98, a year before Crash Team Racing came out on the PlayStation so I don't know where they got that from like that would have been drawn mid 98 at most like I they wouldn't have been advertising Crash Team Racing so it's just such a mystery to me

where they got that from like that that's maybe they drew him into a Mario Kart or something? But it's just really crazy. I cannot figure out where they got that from. But the... I also... the episode really captures how awesome it feels to lie about being sick and play video games. Yeah, it is great. There's also no memory card in that system, so Lisa's just fucking going off the phone. That's why she hasn't stopped for three days. She can't. That's a very tall PlayStation 2.

Well, also to be an accurate PlayStation by 1998, you should have that on the side, because that's the only way to be playing. So, yeah, that was from the NES all the way to the PlayStation era. Really like Atari to PlayStation. The series, I mean, would do so many more video games from there, but we only have time for 10, 20, 30 seconds. 20 more years worth of clips. Lock the doors.

We've canceled the next three. But yeah, that is the end of our panel, so thank you all so much for having me. Thank you. Thank you, Mike Strasser, for being a special guest. Yeah, that is the end of our panel, so thank you all so much for having me! Thank you! Thank you, Mike Drucker! Thank you for being a special guest! What about you, what can we find you?

You can find me on Twitter, at Mike Drucker, or Instagram, at Mike Drucker is Dead, and I will talk about what stand-up shows I'm doing and so forth. And you have a number of panels here, too. Yeah, a number of panels here. I'm doing two Retronauts panels on Monday. I'm doing Dreamcast retrospective and Super Metroid and Castlevania Symphony of the Night retrospective. And tonight I'm doing a kind of funny tournament thing that I will lose instantly.

And we of course are Talking Simpsons. Thanks for coming to our panel. Yes. And we're at patreon.com slash talking simpsons and we'll be selling that poster outside after the show for $10 cash. And we'll all sign it if you want to. So if you want one, you've got a whole bunch of them here. And the artist is here, and she can sign it too.

Yeah, thank you, Nina. This has been great, folks. All right, thanks for coming out. Thank you. We'll all say hi to you outside. Yeah. Thank you. We'll see how you are outside. Yeah. ༼� ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ ༼ � The crowd is on its feet as Hurricane Homer moves in for the kill. Boys, I'd like your attention, please.

Quiet, Bart. This is my big moment. Bart the Bloody Pope Simpson is on the ropes. He is hoping I'll put him out of his misery. Well, you're in luck, Bart. Here comes my right. Oh, no! My game. My game.

I could have beat the boy. Marge, how could you? I was so close. I'm sorry, but this is more important than that silly loud game. You're right, Mom. I just like to use this occasion to announce my retirement, undefeated from the world of video boxing.