The Dogg Zzone by 1900HOTDOG - Dogg Zzone 9000 - Episode 80, The Amico Grift With Pat Contri

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

Seanbaby invites guest expert Pat Contri on to delight and horrify Brockway with the cautionary tale of the Intellivision Amico, the only scam that's also a console!

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Robert Brockway! Ah, Robert Brockway, here's a Brockway fact. I once handcuffed somebody using Gile. I am not talking about the video game. No follow-up questions. No follow-up questions. That would have been my first question. Our guest today is the author of the Ultimate Nintendo Guide. Now in both regular and super, host of the completely unnecessary podcast.

He's the NES punk, Pat Contri! Hey everyone, thanks for having me. There's a little surreal being on the show here. Just because, you know, I was a young whipper snapper reading, you know, Sean Baby's site back in the day, talking about awful NES games. And now I discuss awful NES games and good ones for a living. Yeah, it's excellent. You made a whole career out of the old video games. It's the dream!

Yeah, I guess so. Now I want to talk about how your starstruck meeting me. Yeah, Brockway. I know you from that thing that you did. Yeah! Oh man, it was great, wasn't it? I hear you've worked with Sean Baby, someone I'm fond of. So that's good. That's good for your career. He's number one. He's going places.

I always wonder, I've been guesting on podcasts more the past year. I was on the Chiluminati podcast about a month or so back. They cover like paranormal stuff. And I always wonder, like, should I research the co-host that I don't know? Is that, like, bad form if I don't know what one of the co-hosts does? No, it's okay. It just means you're not prepared. Oh, that's for me. He's got a problematic past, but it generally doesn't come up.

Just don't bring up... I'm going to throw you some curveballs and you're not ready for them. Don't bring up non-whites, cancel culture. God, what else? Women? Oh boy. All the things I love. Yes, it's true. Brockway actually is the voice of reason generally in our internal editorial meetings.

Which is how you know there's a problem. Yeah, that's... There's a real problem and it's going unaddressed. Because then Jason comes on and Jason's the voice of reason for both of us. Right. He's the one... I can't fucking believe you did this. We met at Cracked way back in the day. And then when Cracked died, I had this project I'd sort of been developing

and I was like... I came to Jason and Brockway with it and I was like, guys, what do you think of this 1900 hot dog idea? And then Brockway liked it, helped me develop it into something much more and better. And we've been doing that since what? Leap Day 2020. And then he said... We set some goals for our Patreon and he said, I really don't want to do a podcast.

So I made him do a podcast. Yeah, that's right. That's the origin of the podcast. Well, that's the way to go. I mean, when we started the CU podcast nine years ago, that's only like... People were still discovering what a podcast was. And there was not a huge amount of gaming podcasts at the time. I always feel like...

I'm glad we started then because if we waited like even probably three or four more years, by then we would have been just swamped by other podcasts and no one would have discovered us probably back then. But you are like... You're like a leading collector guy. So I imagine when something happens like when that grift happened where they sold the video game for two million dollars or whatever, I imagine you got a lot of media outreach like,

hey, you got to come explain this. Actually, no. One of my criticisms... And it hurts. Thank you. One of my criticisms at the time of all those articles that were pumping up that market, were responsibly... Katalka did an article, New York Times did an article out of nowhere. They all fell for it.

They all basically just did it on a whim like, hey, look at this dentist guy who's like the biggest game collector just because he started LLC and started borrowing money to buy all these sealed games up. They weren't getting in touch with me. The only person that got in touch with me was Carl Jopes. Carl Jopes said, hey Pat, this seems weird. This one and a half million Mario 64 sale that happened in July of last year. What's going on?

And I started explaining to him things we were discussing on the podcast at that point for like two years, but all the relationships between the people that were involved with heritage auctions, that were also involved with the people at the grading service WADA. And that was the impetus for him doing his own research and doing that blockbuster sort of expose video that happened. I think that was August, September of last year that sort of blew it wide open. And now there's currently the class action lawsuit going on. Right.

There's just shoving money around to like build up a market to sort of legitimize their auction. It will be here all day if we try to explain the grift. But I think I might be 60% done. I was shocked. I was shocked that like none of these people would follow up until you said July of last year. And I was like, oh, okay. So there's no money in journalism anymore. We're not talking about anybody looking into things.

We're talking about somebody seeing a tweet and like screen capping it and writing about it. There was one game journalist that I won't call them out directly from a big site that contact. What do you know? I said to them, here's all the paths to go down to look into these connections between these people. And their response to me was almost like, oh, people are allowed to know each other. And I need more than that. And he said to me, I need more than that. And I said, I'm not a game.

I'm not a journalist. You are a journalist. I'm giving you all the leads and things to look into. And they did nothing with that information. And then meanwhile, Carl, who started as a speed running, you know, YouTuber, he did all this awesome research and put out this video that's been seen by millions of people now. And it's like, he should have done the research this guy, but he didn't want to because he had already done, you know, articles pumping up the market and not putting any sort of journalistic integrity, in my opinion, into his writing. Imagine how many stories, like every new story would die right there. If you're like, ah, people are allowed to know each other.

They're very much not. That's what all news is about. And saying, I need more than this. Like he, like he wanted me to get a micro recorder like from the 80s and like just and tape these people to having these collusion discussions. So like that's what it was so insulting to me at the time. And I was like, OK, I think this is going to come back in a different form. I haven't said there might be a big YouTuber doing a, you know, a video about this. And then, like I said, I blew up after that.

All right. News is dead. News is over. We're over news. I don't know if it's over, but for the video game realm, there's few and far between real journalists. And it's not like, it's not like, I know there's not a lot of money to be made when it comes to that. But I would expect at some point in time, some sort of ethics to come in in terms of like, well, there's this might be a grift. People are getting ripped off.

There's something going on. These guys are going on porn stars pumping up these games. They might know each other. And it was just sort of the weirdest response ever. It was almost like people wanted this to be true that organically games that were worth $10,000 four years ago are now worth $1 to $2 million. Like they think like, oh, that's Mario. Like that would legitimize video games more in the public eye based upon the value. And that was the dumbest sort of angle I can possibly think of.

Yeah. I think gamers are still a little insecure about like their place in the world. I think, I think we feel really we're nerds and we're not cool enough. Explain some things about the world. So it's funny you mentioned journalism and getting to the bottom of a grift because the grift we're talking about today, people have gotten to the bottom of but it was like almost entirely crowd sourced. And it's very complicated. I'm really glad we have you on the show. But I do at the start of the story, I want to go way back to the retro VGS, which was as a retro game console that was designed by a guy who made retro magazine, which Pat and I both wrote for.

And we were used to market them Kickstarter, both of us were the top names to market it. Yeah, they really were attached us to the project to get interest. And I do want to talk about. Oh, that's very nice. I'm going to bring this right now. Each of you about 25 cents. Thank you. It was probably one of my worst freelance experiences other than just like being completely not paid, which is of course happened.

Every time I wrote an article for them, it would take like six to seven months before like the invoice would before I'd realized like they never fucking paid that invoice. And I'm really bad about that. So I'd be just like, it feels like I haven't got a check from them in a long time. And I check and be like, okay, you guys are like four or five articles behind. And then I would after months of like arguing, like I would eventually get like a PayPal transfer from the CEO of the company. Like they just didn't have their shit together at all. One time I wrote an article about Final Fantasy Tactics and there was a layer of abstraction in that game. I thought was very funny because that game like takes place inside the imagination of a kid in a wheelchair.

And so when I was trying to describe like the absurdity of that, I said machinations taking place. Right. So I said handicapped kid or something disabled. I put it in a like not a delicate way, but someone editing that changed it to daft. I guess they thought I was calling him like mentally disabled. No, we can't fucking do that. So it just sounds like I'm calling this kid in a wheelchair daft for no reason. And I like, it's just, I thought that was such a funny edit.

You can't walk? What a crazy thing to do. Why are you doing that? It's going to devolve in us talking about how awful it was a retro magazine. Did you work with that editor who was terrible? That dude came to me like after the magazine was on hiatus and it was just like, hey, we're paying you too much. Can we just pay you half? And I was like, no, I, that's how much my time is worth.

It's just like an hour to throw together 600 words of jokes pal. And he's like, anyway, and then he like was trying to like low ball me like, hey, dude, nobody really is responsible for this magazine being popular. Like you're just some fucking nobody. And I was like, wait, what? Three or four people like on the Kickstarter. Yeah. I'm under no illusions. Jeremy Parrish.

Yeah, we were all over that. Yeah. And when it came time to pay me, he was like, dude, you're not that important to us. I can't remember how he put it, but it was about as insulting as you could possibly be while also trying to negotiate. So that did not go well. Okay. I feel bad now because I probably brought the brought the amount down. I probably should have unionized.

I only got a hundred bucks an article. Okay. I don't want to interrupt. You probably got double or triple that I'm guessing. It's a great negotiator. I did get $800 for an article. Did you mess with me? I'm not messing with you.

No, he's not messing with you. My dumbass self was settled for a hundred bucks. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I got $50 an article from my column at cracked when I started. How much did you get, Sean? I was on a profit share with a minimum of 125, but sometimes it got up to about 1400. Oh my God. Okay.

So Sean's a name brand though. He's been around for 25 years. No, these are the levels that we're working on. This is how much we're worth in comparison. So my story about that editor was this because I wasn't in the first issue at all after I was promoted as a writer on the Kickstarter. That was me. My argument was to them was like, listen, if anyone bought this magazine or put into this Kickstarter because of my involvement and you're not having me in it, that's not good. And my names on this, even though I didn't know how unprofessional it would be.

And so the guy's like, okay, we'll see if we can get you into issue two. I said, we'll see. And then after that, he said, hey, Pat, why don't you do an article about exploding barrels in video games? Oh, no. I said to him, listen, people know me because of covering any stuff. I would expect they would want me to write about any stuff. And it was almost like I had to argue things that were totally common sense to this person. And this person was just so up their own ass about, you know, I'm an editor in a position of power on this shitty magazine and who the hell are you?

And it was the most insulting thing ever. So I was like, I basically said, and listen, I'm going to write this article that I'm going to do and then you can either publish it or not. So I published an article about NES hypocrisy. I did one about all the good, cool giveaways that were included in the Dragon Warrior and Nintendo Power giveaway. And then I did one about like football games for like Super Bowl season. But it was terrible, even now more terrible because obviously I'm a dumb ass asking for only $100. Sean, maybe he's getting almost four figures in article. Well, that was like the basic magazine rate.

That was low for the time. I guess media was dying. Old media was dying. Yeah, that was that was like magazine magazine rate. Yeah, it was magazine numbers. But like the lowest magazine numbers that I've ever worked for. Yeah. And I wrote for a driver.

They asked me to give him a price and I gave them 800 as that. And they laughed and went, no, well, how about like 1200? Yeah. Like, oh, okay. Yeah. Page in the magazines were 1000 bucks to 3000 bucks. And at least it was like, we got we got a hard out in this time. Don't we?

I went on to do the retro VGS console in theory. Right. It was going to be a a cartridge based console. Remember, this is 2015. Right. A cartridge based console. And he guaranteed the games would be bug free 100% complete when done. And and their and their line was remember when play again to really get you on the nostalgia.

At the at the magazine, he ran it. Yeah, he ran the magazine. He ran that. And he had the he had the the alternative. He had the God was it chase the chuck wagon slash game gavel video game auction site. That was popular for like a day and a half. So he had this highfalutin idea to do this console with games that would I guess be exclusive. There was only I think two or three ever announced for it.

And then it was the shell. The shell was the Atari Jaguar shell. Because how awesome is that he just bought the molds or whatever. The molds. The molds Atari sold to a dental equipment company and actually saw. I actually saw one in person at the Sacramento. We just are struck. Were you like, dear God, that's the Atari Jaguar mold?

Well, well, that was sort of infamous in gaming history that that's what became with those shells. So so Mike eventually got got the molds himself and came up with a console idea based upon having a shell, which is always a great idea for a console. Not having figured out or games. But hey, we have a shell, which is like the Atari Jaguar. You take out everything inside the Atari Jaguar. You're left with just a plastic Atari Jaguar. You got yourself a video game console going. I know that shell.

That's the dental flex three thousand. So so then they partnered with Coleco Holdings LLC, which was a shadow company of another company that all all they did was go and buy up or acquire zombie trademarks. So they try to play like they were the original Coleco Industries that made the Coleco vision that made all the handhelds. Yes. Made made leather before that because that stands for Connecticut leather company Coleco. They partner with them to make it the Coleco chameleon console to raise brand. I think that's a great name for something else, but maybe not a project this haunted by deceit. Like, the chameleon is kind of like, maybe somebody should spot this.

Like it's kind of a dare to the policeman like we catch us. We left you all the clues. We are the chameleon. So it never got anywhere to make a very, very long story short. They end up going to the New York Toy Fair in 2016 and they and had people play this. The problem was people spotted things weird. There was duct tape on the back of the console. The back of the console strangely looked like the back of a Super Nintendo mini.

So it turns out that, yes, they put a Super Nintendo junior console in their shell and where people were playing basically a Super Nintendo flash cart. And that's when it was like, well, maybe it's going to start as a scam. Now it's a scam. And then so here's how nerdy the internet was where they posted a picture of it and they're like, check out our video game system. And it was like two seconds later, someone's like, that's a video capture card. High Cap 50B.

Like just like the fucking nerds on the internet decode shit like that instantly. Yeah. Imagine doing that with video game consoles and thinking you could get away with it. How out of touch do you have to be out? Yeah, that happened after it was called out as a scam. They're like, listen, this is real. And they had a clear Jaguar shell with the capture card inside. I think it was identified within hours on a target.

If I found a capture card like in a burned out building and tweeted it and said, hey guys, what's this? I would expect a response in 11 to 12 minutes of someone from the internet. You would get it and then you would get doxxed for not knowing it and you would be on the run for your life. That's true. Yeah. It would kill me, but I would know what it was.

So my story was what like, huh? I think that's that's how he covered for this. He was like, maybe I think I got scammed. But I guess. I always love it when the scammer resorts to like, who did this to me? Must have been some other guy. If a big enough double take will might cover this one. So I think he went into this project with a daydream of making the greatest retro video

game console. I only like talk to him a couple of times, but in the first five minutes I talked to him, he's like, okay, now that you're on board to the magazine, we're going to be able to get all these other talents. So we're going to become such a big magazine. We'll buy up all the other talent and soon we'll be the only video game magazine. And like that's like the kind of guy he is. Like he would just like within minutes he went from like, we're struggling to make this

happen to like, oh, we're obviously going to be the biggest thing in the world. So that's sort of what the personality that starts these projects that they can fake it until they make it or they just have a sort of a, you know, a big, big boisterous used cars salesman personality. By the way, during our coverage, of course, I got to him and he called in in the drunken podcasters. Where you off? How is that?

Is that a real thing? No, it's not a real thing. You've never been drunk. You've done a lot of podcasts. You've never been drunk on any of them? No. Oh, well, okay. I know my judge is bad on not, you know, taking so little money for articles, but are you

saying I should start drinking? Maybe so, maybe so. Uh, we have drank together a couple of times and, um, you seem like a fine drunk couple of what? What? We drank together and then, uh, was it just the ones that I black out and not remember another time? Maybe that's what happened.

Maybe that's, see, that's how good a drinker I am. I just don't remember most stuff. I like that the dismissive thing is just a podcast. What year was this when he said that? That would have been 15 when he called us that. So podcasts were fully in swing as like the biggest thing in the world at that point. It's such an established media that like, yeah, maybe they're, maybe they suck. Maybe they're good.

It's, it's just like saying, Hey, that newspaper sucks. You're like, does it though? Like, I don't know. I don't know. You could say drunk and podcaster and they'd be like, yeah, we're, we're drunk history or whatever. And we've got eight million. Well, I think it was just a way to demean and just, just show that.

Oh yeah, totally. And don't really mean, I'm just saying he didn't really understand what podcasts were to throw that out and like that, that fashion. It really betrays like the cheapness of the insult that it's completely fabricated. Like, oh, they're, they're drunk. I bet they're drunk. They must be drunk. And so you can't believe what they say.

And it's like, okay, but if they turn out to not be drunk, you're a fucking idiot. Right. He was on a podcast around that time, I believe. And he had been drunk on his own podcast that day. Like people. There it is. So it's like, he's a dolphin molesting. That's what you did.

If we're just throwing around baseless accusations, he had his thumb up a fucking dolphin hole. No questions that it turns out we did ourselves. So, so the Coleco Camila was an unmitigated disaster. It was a scam. And that brings us to the Intellivision Amiko, I believe. I'd say it brings us here. Sure. But Tommy Tellerick, I want to make it clear, is the guy that is going to take over this

video game system we're talking about now. And he was an early backer of the, of the, what if the Chameleon, they tried to do a Kickstarter and what did they want? $2 million. They got 80 grand. So that was, they shot it. Enough to make a console. Because they had no working prototype, which is required for a Kickstarter.

They did an Indiegogo. So that, that's exactly right. And that's Indiegogo. You get to keep it even if you don't make it, right? Whereas a Kickstarter, you have to, you can go flexible. It's better for grifters. Sure. And it turned out they, they may have been grifting because they did that very dishonest

thing of saying, here's our video game system. It's not a Super Nintendo Mini and a fucking Jaguar mold we bought from a dentist. But that's what it was. It's weird that they specifically said that. So, so yes, here we are now at the, the fucking Intellivision Amigo Amigo, which almost sounds like Coleco. It almost sounds like the weed. Almost sounds like Amiga.

You know, we're trying to confuse people already because the brand name rhymes with Talerico. It's the Italian word for friend. Tommy Talerico wears his Italian American heritage on his sleeve, his pride. And so that's where the name comes from. So his name was Tommy friend. No, no, Tommy Tal friend. Oh my God, his name is really close to Tommy Tal friend and he's four foot three.

That's a grift. I've spotted the grifter, you guys. So I'm going to try to, during this discussion, I'm trying to, I'm going to try not to get personal with Tommy, even though he made it personal with Ian and me very early on, insulting our looks, calling us stupid. He said a lot worse thing than a podcaster to us. That's sort of a handsome fellow though, Pat. What did he say about your looks?

Well, I want to get drunk with you. I'm not hitting you. No, he pretended not to like know who we were, even though he had met us. Tommy was on the video game years, which I produced. You know, I met him a couple of times before I talked to him at Comic-Con. So it was just sort of just early on, we knew that this new console venture, which was, I believe announced, I believe the summer of 2018. And then he was the keynote speaker at Portland Retrodeaming Expo October, 2018 to announce

it and then have a launch date of October 10th, 2020. That's for the people who are listening, the very rare people who don't know who Tommy Tellerico is. He was like the bad boy of video game music in the 1990s. He did the soundtrack to Disney's Jungle Book on the Game Boy Color. I mean, we're talking fucking big titles. Oh, yeah. He worked for them.

He worked for Interplay Virgin Games. He worked with everybody. Terminator. Is Terminator Sega CD soundtrack supposed to be really good? Yeah, I don't think he's an untalented guy, but he's that kind of guy who filled a hole of like, they're sitting around there like, I guess there isn't a bad boy of video game music. You can be that if you really want it.

Do you have a leather jacket? Yes, he has a leather jacket. Is it pleather? No, it's okay. You're close enough. Fuckin' A has a leather jacket. Then in the 2000s, he was on a couple of video game shows. One was in Canada.

Was it Electric Playground? Was that what it was called? Fuckin' Final. So like that's how, and then he started Video Games Live, which was the orchestra symphony that still tours. They just did, I think it was the one in April where they play soundtracks from. Sure. Not for me, but go have fun.

Go cry to the Final Fantasy 7 soundtrack. I don't care. You can do whatever you want. So he grew up playing the Intellivision since he's like a Gen Xer, an older Gen Xer. He's like, I think like 54 or so. He grew up with the Intellivision, which was not unknown, but definitely got their ass kicked by Atari when it was out there. I think, sorry, probably I sold them 10 to 1 or so.

So Keith Robinson, who worked at the early Intellivision, he was the holder of the IP forever. He passed away, unfortunately. I believe it was 2017. And Tommy was not a suspect in that. Yeah, we're not saying that. Specifically. I'm not gonna try to get craven, and honestly, what I heard was Tommy was at the funeral and was already talking up the fact that he wanted to do a console and that he had...

Like at the funeral? Yeah. This is what was told to me, that he was at the funeral of Keith Robinson and that... I even said this on the podcast before, my own podcast. He was at the funeral and was already telling people that, hey, I told my console idea to Keith Robinson and he said it was a great idea and I had his blessing. So he then became the president of Intellivision Entertainment. He acquired the rights and I've been told stories about how or it was like...

I don't know if anyone didn't want to give an offer, he paid the money, got the rights to it and then said, I want to do a new Intellivision console. And that's basically how it started in 2018. And his idea was exactly the idea that my Kennedy had that we just discussed with very few changes. It's worse. It's worse than a Super Nintendo Mini and dental equipment? Well, no. In theory, Mike wanted to do an actual real console with cartridges.

Okay. With Intellivision Amigo. He had a dream. What the Intellivision Amigo is right now, it's basically... It's just an Android-based console running on Linux that's comparable. And this all came out in Sam Mechavich's article in Ars Technica because they're dev port elite. 2000, basically as powerful as a 2016 mid-level Android phone. That's what this console is.

That's what it is. We're talking some fucking muscle. And it has the most over-engineered controllers you have ever seen, based in look and function on one of the worst controllers ever, the original Mattel Intellivision controllers. We have the little rolly things and the keypads and stuff. It had the keypads, but it had that awful, not even D-pad, a dial. Yeah, the dial.

It's a directional dial. And so over-engineered controller. Is it a rotary controller? With a touch screen. It's a yoga ball and you have to... It's got an anal plug. No, I think that's a South Park joke. It sucks.

He's also friends with... I do want to mention that he's kind of real attached to the hip with Doug Tendepil, the earthworm gym guy. TenApple. TenApple, who doesn't mind saying out loud that he thinks Hitler has some pretty interesting ideas. So that's... Also, it should be mentioned this. I can maybe forgive that if it's specifically earthworm related.

Tommy will probably hear about this and email me for this, but he does have a lot to say about cancel culture. You get the idea that the two of them had some problematic discussions and that Tommy has some feelings about social justice warriors that most civilized people would find pretty gross. You're telling me 54-year-old video game nerds have some problematic opinions. Yeah, I do. And I'm saying this.

Let me ask yourself, how does someone who did work in the video game industry, granted as a composer, run a new startup and develop a game console, which is probably one of the hardest things to do, right? Well, Tommy is a firm believer in the self-help bullshit, the secret. Oh, that's right. And he just espoused it in public before. I got a clip. I'm allowed to play clips on something, my podcast.

Can I play a clip where Tommy talks about belief in himself? 30-second clip. Here you go. Go ahead. On a podcast, on the YouTube stream. And I'll prove it to you why I know there's no such thing as luck. Because if you took away every single thing from me, you took away the house, the cars, the watches, the companies, all the money,

you take that away from me tomorrow and within two years I'll have it all back. I'll figure out a way. And that's that confidence, right? Having confidence in yourself, believing in what you can do. So that's not luck. That's manifesting stuff through positive mental attitude. So he actually believes in this bullshit. Very hypothetical.

I can give your money away. I can bend the universe. Confidence man. Yeah, I can just bend the universe to my will. He's literally brought up the secret book before. And we don't talk about our podcast that much because I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. But there are people that do think like this. I think that if I honestly think positively about it, it will happen and I'll just worry about the details later.

I'll just fake it until I make it basically. The problem is when he says things like this and he takes a ton of money to try to accomplish this and blows through reportedly $17 million and has nothing to show for it. These are the type of people that run these projects into the ground and there was no one there to stop him. Yeah, but he'll get it back. He just needs two years, baby. He just needs two years and he will manifest it. Somebody gave $17 million to Tommy Tall friend?

Well, what happened was a variety of things happened on this ill-gotten console running. Basically, it looked like flash games from 2003 on the console. He originally said we have investors, we have a $25 million line of credit, $150 million production line of credit, all this stuff. What I was told was that they brought a quote-unquote working unit to E3 2019. They rented a hotel suite or hotel room. And at that point, they had nothing done because they announced it only formally the fall before that. You can't get a console done at the funeral. They announced it at the funeral.

Well, I think it was two years before that, but yes. So basically what happened was though, is that they basically got an orange pie, which is like a form of a raspberry pie if you know what that is. And they put it in the shell and had people play that in the hotel room. And my source has told me that they did have an investor on board at that point and they got freaked out and their main investor left. And by the way, this was supposed to launch October 10, 2020. So in the summer of 2019, they're left without any money. They don't know what to do. So then they had to start doing, they had to look for other means of raising money, either by taking out loans, which came out in SEC document,

because they had an awful fundraising campaign on a start engine a few months ago that went nowhere. And then they asked for pre-order money from people after Tommy had said a billion times, we are not going to ask you for money until you can play the console yourself. They asked for pre-order money. They had a hundred dollar deposit if you wanted to buy the console, if I remember. Yes, they did that early 2020. And that's to me where, where when I started covering this, I'm like, okay, we have to be more critical now because people's money is into this.

If you're spending your own money, you have your own private investors have that. So they started doing two things. They started getting these pre-order money for a hundred dollar deposits was they always said were fully refundable. And then they also started drifting on figs slash Republic, which is a game investing site. You know, it's almost like a, you're investing in the company, but not really it's profit sharing. So they raised a ton of money doing that. And they said stuff like, oh, we have the person that helped market the we on board. We have a guy who helped launch the Xbox on board.

They, they were touting all these big names and that's how they hooked investors early on from it. So one from being, okay, we're going to have private investors do this our own money too. Okay, we're asking for pre-order dollars and we're going to hook investors that don't know any better. And that's basically what started happening in 2000. I do want to talk about that. There's a Neil Patel video. You actually sent this to me last week or told me I should watch it. And it's so fantastic.

This Neil Patel guy, he's kind of an SEO scam guy. Oh, my favorite kind of guy. Yeah, he's kind of, he's kind of doing the thing with the late 90s scheme of finding old people with money. Who don't know what the internet is and telling them that it's magic. So it's sort of like, Time's running out on that scheme. Yeah. It's very much like finding a community of nerds in the 90s and saying, I'm rock and roll Tommy a cool person.

This ain't your daddy's Disney's Jungle Book for Game Boy Color soundtrack. Imagine me on this skateboard. I'm not getting on it. So, uh, this video is just like a Shark Tank episode that you would film from your home office and like Dropbox. It's just fucking nonsense. The guy's on his laptop reading off a script and he's wearing this awful just white t-shirt and it is edited together. Yeah, he looks like he's hiding in a compound.

He looks almost dead. I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't talk about his looks, but he looks like a fucking piece of shit. Tommy had a timeline on this. That was that came out early 2021. They already had blown their release date at that point by four months when they did that video and started raising money. They said it was coming out originally October 2020. This really started to hit the fan.

Uh, how this looked like something was wrong in June 2020. This is four months for the console sort of starting to come out. We discovered that they still had not filled certain positions in the company. There was three in particular. They did not fill pretty, pretty important ones. One was like a production manager. One was a software engineer on the console. One was a firmware dev for the console in June 2020.

That summer they still had not fulfilled these positions on the console that was supposed to come out that October. Once Tommy's guitar polisher, they still hadn't filled that position. He was getting very cranky. But the point is like once we discovered that Tommy unleashed these low level YouTubers on us to try to smear us and slander us because we were reporting the truth. We knew the summer of 2020. It was not coming out in 2020 at all after they had taken pre-order money for it from people saying it was. So we started basically saying at this point this looks fishy as hell. So Tommy started ramping up his attack on us.

I want to pause here and talk about doing the research for this. I don't know. A lot of people wouldn't know this, but once something touches YouTube, research for it becomes almost impossible. So I'm really glad you're here, Pat, because like you said, he sent off all those low level YouTubers. That happens. They'll be like, hey, they'll put out propaganda. And other people make YouTube videos about how that's propaganda. And then people like Tommy Tallarico who have unchecked egos and want to split every single hair and just keep the grift going as long as possible will come in and nitpick every single little point anyone makes.

And so soon one bad claim becomes 50 conflicting points from 50 different sources. And then you'll find videos about those. And soon it's more videos than anyone person can watch. And so that's the problem I was running into when I was trying to do research for this. It's like, dude, what the fuck is going on? Like something as simple as like, like it'll be like Tommy has five Guinness World Records would be part of that video. And then like people will make a video debunking that. And then Tommy will be like, actually I have 15 Guinness records.

And then people will debunk that on and on and on. It's frustrating. And then he went to the website of Formatariage, which was one of the leaders in helping to bring down the scam Coleco Chameleon. When he started, Tommy had had a mega thread on there that's now gone from the site that I sent Sean. I sent you the back up of that. We're talking over 1,400 pages. Yes, 1,422 pages. Not posts.

Pages where he was posting constantly and basically leading people to believe that the console had all the stuff going on and all these partners and games coming out and all these sycophants, all these older Gen X, maybe, you know, young boomers that were a fan of the console 40 years ago. Starstruck by Tommy Tolerico in that thread. Not only believe it's Tommy Tolerico doing that, but then leading attacks on us using as a source of attacks on us and other critics. And so that's basically when it started to get nuts. It started to go nuts the summer of 2020. And then like they did a reveal event August 5th, 2020. They were a day late in getting it out.

They lost their CNET covers because of that. And Tommy basically said two months before it was supposed to come out. It's not coming out. And it's like, we get it, asshole. The console's got to be done several months before its launch date in order to come out. Then he said it's coming out October 10th, 2021. He started raising money on Fixed Last Republic. Like you said, bringing up the sleazy Neil Patel video in early 2021.

And in that video, he made claims that even the SEC had to ask them to clarify. He said we have people working on it from Nintendo. He alluded that Jay Allard, who had, quote unquote, came on board the year before who helped launch Xbox Live and the Xbox, was there. The problem was Jay Allard himself said in an interview in late 2020 that he was gone from the company already. He was there for a cup of coffee. And Tommy was still saying he was on board several months later. The SEC had asked them to clarify, what the hell do you mean? You can't just ask for investments and say shit like that as a CEO of a company.

To be clear, the way Tommy measures things isn't like you and me. One of his accolades was $10 billion in sales. And what that means is any project he's ever been attached to, they count it. So it's like Disney's Jungle Book, whatever. You know all the people who bought that for the sweet Tommy Tellerico soundtrack. So if a guy came by for a cup of coffee, definitely that guy's on board. That's part of the company. That guy works here now.

Yeah. If he got retweeted by some dude, that guy's a fucking cool supporter. You trick him into thinking it's a little Caesar's and he shows up. Bam. He's on board. You can see that legally. That counts, SEC. That's what happens when you have a narcissist running a project because they pump up, they

never admit when they're wrong and they pump up their own accomplishments and it's like it's a recipe for disaster because you can't be objective when you're running a company. When you're running a company, you have to throw your ego basically out the window and the narcissist, that's all they live and die on is their own ego. Some of it might be the secret stuff. Going through their investor videos, a lot of it did seem like really hard-wishing. It'd be like, look at all the market and they would just basically show a picture of America and they'd say, if we get a console in every household, that's 48 billion consoles.

We just sell two games and they just were like, we're going to disrupt this industry with the dumbest fucking idea, like an old video game console with old video games. It's like holding up a big Johnson t-shirt and saying, novelty penis closed sale. If we get 80% of the big Johnson sales, let's say only 70% of the sales, 15 times return on our investment. All right. It's 30% of the sales of big Johnson. They literally did that.

They literally said, well, there's three billion gamers in the world. What's that basement? Oh, well, there's three million smartphones in the world. So it's like, oh, okay. So because of that, they're going to buy a console where you have to hook up to a TV for, by the way, $250 at the time. These fucking grandpas held up an Xbox controller and marveled at all the buttons. They're like, look at all these buttons.

You need to be, what did the guy say? You see, you need to be an Olympic figure athlete to work one. These fucking guys are like battle buddies. It was Olympic figure athletes. I love them in the figure competition. There's just no sense of like business at all. When we pointed out, well, those three billion were basically given a free gaming platform. Yeah, that happened to be their phone.

So like you can buy a $25 Android phone that plays games. That's not the addressable market. That's going to go out and buy a $250 console and then also then spend between $8 and $20 on what amounts that should be a dollar or free mobile game. So there was no way for this to succeed at all. I mean, at all. But then Tommy, the way Tommy then addressed it was like, well, this is going to be the family console because Xbox and PlayStation, they have all the games you don't want to play.

But he had the gall to go down this road. And I swear to God, I wonder if Nintendo ever sent him a cease and desist. He had the gall to say Nintendo was the worst offender of them all when it came to sex and violence in games. That doesn't sound interesting. Want me to play a cut? Want me to play a cut? Yeah. I got a cut.

If you're in a game with blood and violence and sexual content and kids and sexual compromising positions and rape on the Nintendo, if that's what you want, then buy a Switch. That is unedited. All of the sexual assault games I have on my Switch with Nintendo's notoriously lax. He went down this weird path for about six to eight, nine months because I think he realized, well, we have to attack Nintendo in order to get like, basically, he wanted us to be like a Mormon. That's the Nintendo seal of quality. Yeah.

The Nintendo seal of quality means at least four children will get murdered in very explicit ways. But yes, he was. He was talking very Mormon about this thing. Like he was, he had this real Quaker attitude about sex and violence and how his console wouldn't do any of that stuff. And like, they're the only ones who'll ever do that. It was fucking stupid. Right, because he's running out of demographics to trick. So you gotta find that new one.

Speaking of, he was talking about old people. He's like, dude, no one sells video games to old people. We will. And, you know, this really helps with all sorts of things. They're not legally allowed. It activates their brains. It keeps them from going crazy and senile. Like, all this is real shit.

He said this in this investment video. I mean, they were genuinely, they seemed to think they were talking to people who've never heard of video games. If this was actually Shark Tank, they would have told them to shut the fuck up like an hour and a half ago and said, please just show us the marketing data. You're just, you're just making things up. But no, video games will save our old people and attractive children. Unfortunately, though, it worked. It worked on Republic. They got several million dollars from people.

Oh, okay. God, I hope they feel so. See, I make fun of this, but apparently it's a great idea and we should just do it. You can go check out. You can see the people's comments. People are like, oh, I was brought here from Neil Patel's video. I was brought here from Tika Tawara's newsletter. A guy down in Florida that Tommy probably paid it to say, this is a great investment.

Can't lose. You know, one of those things that you, it's a $700 subscription to get this guy's awful investment strategies. So like people, like these are older people. They don't know any better. People in their 60s and 70s, that disposal income, they were taken for a ride. You can call them roofs, but their money's gone. I think he was targeting like angel investors that like they can lose $10 million with a shrug versus targeting people on Kickstarter who will send you 700 emails over like $40.

You know, so it's a good strategy financially, I would say. Yeah. Cause you're sick. You're taking five grand from people, a thousand, $10,000. There's no accountability. There's no guarantee you have to actually return anything on that. And that was a profit share that was so nuts. So that you were buying a profit share with up to a 10 X return, which only means nine

times your original investment. That was like, had these weird caps that like you only had like three years to make the money back. It didn't include a wholesale. Most of the wholesale of the console was not included. It was like, there was no upside to the investment at all. And all these people just were, were just taken for their cash. I recall during that part of the video when it said you'll get 10 times your investment,

that was assuming you'd sell 25 million consoles, which is objectively insane. Like that's three times more than the Dreamcast sold. So I mean, like it's, he's cuckoo pants crazy. And this, and again, the idea is this is a little retro game console that only plays a very specific type of retro game. All the games they had like planned were fucking terrible. Like you just look at them and you're like, this like legitimately looks bad. Like, did they have, did they ever at some point or even imply that they had licenses

to games that people would? Oh, they have now plenty of licenses. That's not the problem. Big games like shark, shark and skiing. They have an evil, can evil game. That was a free iPhone game that came out in 2000 and I think 15 or 16 that they were going to port over. So they love their, they love their 70s, Gen X and Boomer IPs.

They announced a Harlem Globetrotters game. They announced in their, they showed a Sesame Street game that we discovered was a free flash game on Sesame Street.org. That was going to be on the console. That's a bear bear's cart racing game. And I use that very term racing loosely was a free mobile game that they showed in their trailers. This was this type of stuff.

They wanted you to spend $250 on the play and then buy these games that were free on top of it. I want to talk about another thing is that, uh, one part of the business models, they were going to take half the profits from third party sales, which is a really predatory number. Like it's worse than Apple who runs their company like a Bond villain and already own a, absolutely an entire marketplace. So like it's fucking nuts.

So like no one would want to develop for this console because half literally half their profits are gone off the top. I want to talk about the 10 commandments of game design that they wrote. Uh, I'm sure shit where people do 10 commandments on their game, the game dev portal that this tech company didn't have any secure. They didn't have any security on their dev portal. So if you had the link, you just get into it. Yes.

Yes. Anybody that writes a 10 commandments of something actually has three reasonable commandments and then the rest. Yeah. Let's see if you can spot the three reasonable ones. One, every game must be rated E or E 10 plus. So kids games. Okay.

Uh, every game developer wants this. Uh, they want to find out like, Oh, the violence in our video game has to be cut. Yeah. Sure. We'll just take care of that. Uh, number two, every game must be easily playable without the need for complicated or long instructions. Great.

Perfect limitation to give to your developers. Number three, every game must be balanced to allow players with every, with very different ability levels to still have fun. Okay. Let me stop you right there. Let me stop you right there because this dovetails into another bullshit. Uh, claim that they always made the claim was for years. They had a patent pending karma engine.

Oh no. That was going to then, um, almost like easier. Yeah. Like it, like how in Mario Kart, when you're behind in the race, you're going to get more better weapons to catch up. You're going to get the mushroom to go faster. They claim for years. This is a patent pending piece of software until one day.

Tommy Tallarico in one of his thousand of YouTube interviews basically said, yeah, that's bullshit. We made it up. Wait, wait. Shit. I shouldn't have said that. No, no. He proudly was saying that like, like, oh, I got one over over and over one cause he would

do this podcast to get these low level YouTubers and sick of fans just to like say, oh my God, Tommy, you're so great that he would like, like relax like, like a bad criminal and interrogation where you get on their good side and he would just say shit. He, he shouldn't say amazing, amazing. Uh, every game, this is the first one. Every game must rate seven out of 10 or above on a television's quality control scale. So, so far, wildly subjective rules or commandments, um, basically more hassle than you would get developing anywhere else, less profit than you would get developing anywhere else, much

smaller audience than you would get developed. One of them is a miracle. It will be good in games. It's just the fifth one is every game must cost less than $10. So, but less than $5. So you're getting $5 of profit. Okay. So the original pricing was three to eight dollars when it was announced in 2018.

It then went from like, I believe, um, five to $10 by the end. I think it was earlier this year. They said, Oh, the game's going to cost up to $20. Okay. Oh, so this is ongoing. This is ongoing. Are you going to bring up the physical quote unquote media later? Or should I mention it now?

I'm going to bring it up later. I'll, I haven't in my notes later, but please bring it up. It's okay. Fucking absurd. Last year, they released, first of all, all games are going to be NFTs, even though they had nothing to back that up. We just found out what they are. So they're that now.

We said, does he mean NFC because they're going to be scannable? So the physical media that they originally touted is going to be, it's going to be revolutionary. This physical media people are like, Oh my God, there is going to be an adapter for the original and television cards. What is this going to be? They are basically hotel key cards. It's an RFID card that you put to your console that goes to a link to a website to download the game.

And so they put them these out last year and I actually bought them because I wanted a part of this awful history and $20 each. Where's one behind me? I have the evil Coneval one. You get for $20 each. It's there about four and a half inches by, I don't know, three inches. You get that. You get the hotel key card basically with the graphics on it.

You get a lenticular card like the eighties with the half to images. You get a cheap ass coin and you get, and that's what you get. I get that. I love it. The problem is that these are games that don't exist and the console doesn't exist, but they needed to raise money. So I started selling quote unquote physical products. I couldn't call it physical media because there's technically not a game in this box

that I'm holding. There's not a fucking game. And on their website in the fine print and even says, you are not buying a game license. You are buying a physical product with a product that we will be releasing a game later that you can access through your physical products. You cannot make this shit up. These games are not finished. The console is not finished yet.

They still were selling the physical quote unquote products for their games. I can't think of another console in existence that ever did that before selling games for a console that will never come out. So I guess you can make that shit up. Yeah. It's, it's just so astonishing. Every detail of it gets dumber and dumber. I don't even know.

We don't need to do the other 10 commandments. They're exactly the same real quick. Let's do them. Okay. Number six is every game must support the official and television controllers. I feel like this one doesn't really need to be in there. One with the rotary dial. Yes.

Well, it's an analog disc 64 way. There, there's an awful touchscreen on it that only supports up to one megabyte of information on it. So you can basically do just an image that you, you like, oh, for shark shark. Oh, I can pick an orange or blue fish color. I can do that. They try to, they try to like play it all. Like, oh, this is going to be like a full touchscreen, like a switch.

You can do orange fish. You can do orange fish. You can't do shit on that screen. You can't do anything on these screens. I had a Dreamcast VTU and that thing, uh, it was like a little watch, like a little, you know, calculator watch. It's, it was cute, I guess. Is it like that powerful?

That seems even less powerful than Dreamcast. The VMUs you can actually play mini games on. Um, I think those are more than one megabyte. Okay. I think they're usually, they originally, I think, trick people into thinking that, wow. So these controllers that they said that you would be able to transport your games on them from console to console.

I think people got tricked some of them into thinking that means I can play the game on the, on the portable controller. And it's like, no, that touchscreen is literally just attacked as an action button to jump, which is really great, especially with all the lag that we've seen in, in, uh, featured in the game demos. Um, they thought, so they, it was either like an action button, the touchscreen or to select different things. We're not, we didn't bring up the LED lighting on the console controllers.

We don't have time for that. We don't have time for the lighting, but it sucks. Uh, the seventh commandment, every game must be 2D or 2.5 D 3D models. Okay. But no free roaming 3D worlds. Uh, so again, no reason to put this limitation on them other than like, um, it feels like just Tommy Tellerico is, it's, he's chasing one very specific memory. So it's a fading memory from a fading star of a fading era and you can get on the ground

floor. Uh, number eight is every game must be an Intellivision exclusive. Even ports must be unique in some way. Okay. So limiting. That was such bullshit. What does that mean? Yeah.

It was such bullshit because I told you about the, the two mobile games already and other stuff. I told me about fucking Care Bears. When we, when we, when we pointed this out to people, when we discovered the, like the, all the, the, the, um, evil, can evil phone game, I downloaded on my phone. When I pointed this out, he then said, well, exclusive means something else. It means we're going to have exclusive features on here. So he was changing around the meeting of words because he was calling it Tommy.

Tommy, boy. Give me the next two. What are the next two? Oh, the next two. Um, no in-game purchasing or DLC. So great for the people getting a $5 price point. Well, it sounds like there's, there's like, it's not DLC, but it's, it's like B. It's BLC.

It's buy other content. Buy another console. Yeah. The final one, uh, every game must incorporate local multiplayer couch co-op or versus mode. And I've developed a game myself. I can tell you that this is not like something you can throw on at the end. This is, this decides a lot of where you're going to put a ton of your resources. No single player games on all of this.

Oh, no, there's single player, but you have to have local co-op or multiplayer involved. Right. So, so they're already struggling for this. So it's like the evil Knievel game, which was literally a tilting, uh, game. Like, or you have to like balance, you know, the evil Knievel rider. They said, well, we're going to have four players in the screen at once, you know, uh, like on a rocket ship thing going up. Like, you know, he tried to do the rocket over the fucking Grand Canyon.

I wasn't born, I wasn't born in 65. I don't know exactly what happened, but, um, that was the sort of shit they're, they're trying to pigeonhole into the games for moon patrol, which was on their app. Which rules. Their moon patrol local co-op wasn't even like, oh, two moon patrol buggies on the screen at the same time. It was, well, one person's going to control the jumping. One person can control the shooting.

Oh, we did that with the keys on the keyboard. Exactly. Exactly. And we wished we didn't have to was, was the key part of that. Yes, exactly. You bring up moon patrol. I want to talk about that because that really demonstrates how shitty the games look like that moon patrol game looks like someone in a unity dev kit just hit default moon patrol,

auto scroll or execute. Like it's just lifeless art with the free particle effects that come with the fucking software. It looks so bad. It looks like someone made that game at a game jam and then got 50th place. One of the things that Tommy used to tap was well, if our console is 250, you're getting six games built in. That's like a $500 value compared to the switch because the switch doesn't come with the game. He failed to not to mention that these games were so simplistic.

For example, the skiing game you brought up, I believe only had 10 or 15 levels. You'd be done with that game in 10 minutes. Yeah. There's a game that they showed off in one of their exclusive first looks in the fall called a tank battle. Then it became battle tank. They changed the name three times. They re-uploaded the same video four times on YouTube.

And this is why. The game in its intro and menu selection screens had stolen assets from World of Tanks, the big free online multiplayer game, and also stole assets from like random Google image searches for like tank museums. I swear to God. They had to re-upload the video editing out all the stolen assets. And then they said, oh, those are just placeholder images. They're ready to change those.

It's like really. It's like the amount of lies that they've had during the past few years. You can even track them. That reminds me of one of my favorite scandals where they had like a clip art of a family playing video games and they photoshopped the controllers in their hands. Oh, you go to any of their earlier material. You got their investment site, their E3 video from last year. 90% of it is, yes, it's all stock photos of people that were holding Xbox or Sony controllers.

Here's what I loved about that. Is that there was obviously like the first stock photo you'd find if you looked for family playing video games. And he came online to defend it. And he's like, oh, that's what fucking stock photos are for. It's what clip artists for. And he's not like wrong. But for when your video game system isn't real and that's the scandal people are complaining about, a faked picture is maybe the bad idea, I guess.

Yeah. And it's a startup company that hasn't produced anything. We don't have four controllers. Okay. Kevin made the prototypes yet. It's like if Sony had done a video and didn't have their controller done and just said, oh, we're going to have people. We'll find video of people playing the switch. We'll put in a new Sony controller.

It's like, you don't do that with your competitor. That's false advertising at that point. You're showing these families having fun with a console controller that isn't really in their hand. That's different than going on Amazon and seeing the same people, you know, selling hair brushes and having the same model with a different hair brush. Because you know, if you buy that hand brush, it's going to arrive. You know, that's that's the main difference. I just loved it that he was like, that's what clip artist for case closed. Like Tommy Tellerico.

That's like, I have I've won. He really does fancy himself. I think he describes himself as a legend who never loses. You know how he describes other people. They're racist. They're little racist racist racist racist against gaming. The whole clip. That's amazing.

Like are they racist? Anyone that he deemed like too critical was a gaming racist at their California offices, which are now closed. They literally spent money to get out in their meeting room. The CFO didn't interview the meeting room had a glass door. It literally said haters dungeon on the door. Who who got put in there? Who was who was the were they the haters? What means just like did not think through the bit.

It just shows is like this like sort of ultra defensive pushback against criticism that we're going to acknowledge that in our office by having a haters dungeon door. Oh, that's so lame. Like I said that with 1422 pages just in that one fucking thread. I realized like no one has time for this much Tommy except for Tommy. So he just goes around responding to all of that shit. And I don't know. I don't know. Like if he had used that energy elsewhere, there may have been fewer problems.

Well, Tommy claimed also to be a super sleeper. I'm not making this up. So he only needs to let me sleep per day. Okay. That explains the derangement, I guess. I don't know. And none of the 22 hours were used for console building. Well, well, I mean, they were building something, but it was just six year old technology that cost them $50 off the shelf parts.

And that's that's the problem. And they made that a real winner makes that cost $17 million. Well, yeah, the money's all gone, unfortunately. That thread on Atari age that was allowed for some reason like so Atari age. Again, they helped bring down the Cleo chameleon. They were given this guy, you know, forum fallatio for years. And some people were like, wait a minute. This is like, why are you guys some of the people on tariff that were longtime members that were either tossed from the site or decide not to come back because they realize that something weird is going on.

But people were starstruck by this individual. The fact that, oh my God, he's posting on our site where we talk about 40 year old video games. Oh, boy. A legit celebrity, you know. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I feel like the bad boy of the jungle book. You will show him some respect or you will be banned.

Oh my God. I've been at events where people were like, not excited to see Tommy Tellerico, but like they saw him and we're like, oh, hey, that's Tommy Tellerico. And he's like an actual celebrity who did a lot of work in the game industry. I just feel like no one really had a chance to like hear him talk or see what he could do other than like, you know, make soundtrack music. Does he also have an earring? I don't. I don't see one in my mind's eye, but I had to have one at some point. He's getting excited if he had the leather jacket and the earring.

I'm just excited for a bad boy like in general. You can tell me he does whatever. But he doesn't even bring an earring energy. I don't know. I have, um, I see Tommy Tellerico and I feel like like they're but for the grace of God, kind of like I have been called the bad boy of video games. Not like that really. Yes, not like my choice, but I've been introduced that way unironically and I did not like it. And for someone to embrace that identity, it always struck me as like really embarrassing.

Like it really betrays that childhood nerdy nerdery that like I wouldn't want anyone to know about. I've always. I'm sorry to cut you off, Brock. I feel like I'm randomly so much. But with there's so much information. I'm trying to just squeeze into this. Because your listeners like what the fuck are they talking about? Is this real?

This guy that was had had a lot of off color jokes. You can find him. He's done some mega 64 videos and I like that guy, but he's done like, you know, BJ jokes with them. This was the guy that was running your family friendly console empire. Yeah, his best friend is a Nazi. He hates cancel culture. That's what's even more bizarre. I have another clip if I can play it.

Another clip. Okay, this was on review tech USA's one of the streams where he was attacking us and there was no pushback on the switch comment. I played before about there being a child sex and rape on consoles, but there wasn't pushback on this comment either. Hey, let's face it, Rich. You know, damn well, both me and you, if we had the opportunity to get a lap dance from the little mermaid, we'd be all over. True or false? Good point. I'm not going to deny that.

Yeah, that's great. That's great. Yeah. That fish put on my dick. The child fish put. Really? Yeah, really into the lap dance, which involves almost exclusively the lower half, which is rich. Yeah.

I don't know. Which is a child, which is a 15 year old fish, which I guess is old. Is that old for a fish? Maybe that's okay. Maybe that's what you consent for. If it's aerial into mermaid sex politics. If it's aerial now, and I'm like allowed to take a change clothes, take a shower afterwards. I feel like you'd be real fishy afterwards.

But there's something about a mermaid lap dance that I don't see completely unappealing. I mean, you go. I don't disagree with Tommy. It's hard on this one. I wouldn't be happy with myself or proud of myself. Dolphins are horny as shit. If you go into the ocean and close your eyes, you can have a mermaid lap dance right now. I mean, you might not survive it, but you'll get it.

Oh, please. I'm really glad to have the last word on that one. If it's the child fish girl that can't talk, I think that's disgusting. And it feels like that's who they were talking about. I also don't like when they frame it like, come on, fellas, you know you do it. You know you would, right? I don't think you should. I certainly wouldn't include anyone in my newfound fish butt fish.

Yeah, it's a bold swing and for you to agree like, I guess I do have a fish fetish. You'd put up the Waco around it. There's so much more of the rabbit hole you can go down with this. I try to give you just the high points of it, but it's been an insane almost four years of covering this. You did an amazing job. You covered almost everything in my notes. Did I really leave anything out? I don't think so.

I'm sure I like have a couple of jokes in here that I'll regret not right now. No, no, these all suck. Never mind. Very rarely. I usually have four to five pre-written jokes as I go through my notes. And when I say pre-written, I mean, they'll say something about fish butt lap dance. And then up to you to remember and interpret live. Was fish butt lap dance on your list of things to bring up? It was not.

I'm very glad you brought that up. It would be amazing if he counted on you playing that clip. So I was like, yeah, Pat is going to do it. Here it comes. Although I don't know. I don't know the guy. Maybe it's a big part of his identity now. Could be he's the bad boy of SeaWorld. I like that we started this off with real journalism and just end dragging a guy for wanting to fuck a fish. I mean, if you're going to drag someone for something, I mean, I think that could qualify.

The fish has a human face, guys. There's just so much to drag him for. If you're going to be canceled over something, I think child fish lap dance should be on that list. Yeah, I think that should be. He said you had one more clip. What was that? Did you say you had one more clip? I don't know if it got drowned out, but this is all I had.

Oh, please. I mean, take a freaking joke, people. Like seriously, take a joke. That was after like the chat started calling him on his insane stuff. They start calling him. He's offered to, he's come after me on Twitter saying debate me all in caps basically. I love that guy. Like Ben Shapiro. And we never gave him the time of day because we knew that it could only benefit him and even a small wife.

If even one poor unfortunate soul, speaking of Little Mermaid, ever ordered the console because of our coverage, we were doing to service. We were not suppose facts generally lose to the loud guy and debate, which is why all loud guys want to debate. Correct. Maybe challenge him to a basketball game. Well, he's like five three. So I wouldn't that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Tommy Tolford.

Tommy Tolford. Yeah, there's a lot of things where there's the Napoleon, Napoleon on a complex. There is a belief in a bullshit secret self help garbage. There's a lot going on here with this character. There's a lot. Yeah. And I'm sure we got some of the details wrong, Tommy. So just save the email.

We just assume that there's little nuances to everything we've insulted you about that. I'm sure make us the assholes. Oh, no. I just figured something out by doing this. We've just involved ourself in this. We're going to have to hear from these people. It's going to be a bad day on Twitter. Yeah.

Well, at this point, there's only like two or three people holding on for dear life, even the cultists. Yeah. But there's nothing like a nerd with time. Yeah. I mean, but that's the internet. So that's part of the fun of it. Right.

Well, come at us, fish bookers. And only fish walkers. I am prepared to debate you. Pat, before we go, is there something you'd like to plug? I'm on Twitter at Pat the NES punk. I mean, I'm on YouTube. I got two books. I got documentary series.

I got a lot of stuff going on. That's all. I mean, just find me. I'm sorry if I rambled too much for your audience. That's literally why I brought you on, because it saved me two weeks of research, because you already had it in my brain. Man, you came so prepared. You came so prepared.

I got a percent of the Patreon proceeds then for this episode. No. Okay. For whatever this episode brings in, chair. Whatever our ads run, chair. Makes up for the $100. I got paid for the retro article. No, man.

I'm so prepared. $100? You had all of those clips, and we didn't even... We have clips too, Sean. You want to play one of our clips? This is the haunting love song from Lone Tiger. And with Maximalim, ciao! In 2020, a crack commando unit was sent to internet prison for crimes they absolutely did commit.

These mavericks promptly escaped their corporate captors and fled to bespoke comedy websites where they paid the ultimate price. $50. Today, they survive as hot dogs of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, if you can find them, maybe you can hire the Supremes. Three-finger Louis, the man with the plan. Aaron Crossden, the muscle.

Adrian Hysbrook, the face. Aidan Muak, the wild card. Alpha scientist Javo, also wild card. Anandie, the wildest card. Andreas Larson, wild card. Armando Nava, wild card. Benjamin Sironin, the face of a wild card. Bim Talzin, wild card.

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Tommy G, wild card. Yossarian, wild card. And featuring special guest Tom Sikula as... Sik Orphan Bobby Baskins. The absolute wild card of the Children's Oncology Ward.