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Join Becky and Matthew as they turn their attention to musicals - both the broadway kind and the movie musical kind.  One is from the golden age of Broadway.  The other is from a little know movie opera from 2008.  Both deserve to be skewered.   What the Lyrics? Musicals [Start 00:00:00]   Becky: Hey, guys, just a quick note. When we went to record this, I left my headphones at home so I couldn't hear the funky noises that were happening when I was banging on the table during this discussion because I was so excited and heated about this discussion of musical songs. I apologize for that. Hopefully doesn't interfere with you loving the episode and liking us a million times and telling your friends about how awesome we are. With that said, I hope you enjoy it, and next time I will remember my headphones.   Music playing [00:00:38-00:00:45]   Becky: Welcome to What the Lyric? The podcast that confirms, yeah, that actually made it to radio. Welcome to Episode 3 of What the Lyric? Today we are talking musicals. How are you doing Matt?   Matthew: I am doing pretty well considering how much research I had to do into bad musicals, of which there are many.   Becky: There are a lot and a lot have made money, which is the part that I don't quite get. I am not sure how they made money because they were so bad.   Matthew: Agreed, and I took a broad stance on the definition of musicals. So thinking more along the lines of not just Broadway musicals, but off Broadway and basically movie musicals.   Becky: It was the movie ones that I was kind of like, do I go Disney? Because Disney has some crap lyrics, or I could go to all the stuff, we did when I was in high school. What did we do? We did Grease, but we had to change the lyrics on some of the stuff because it was too racy.   Matthew: Such as?     Becky: In one of the songs about him meeting. It was some weird slang for condom, but we could use it. Matthew: Was it rubber?   Becky: It was not using. I don't think it was. I would have to look it up but I think it was rubber. I feel like it was something like balloon or something. But you knew what it was when he was thinking about it. So we had to kind of do like the radio edit and go [sound 00:2:30] or something in it so that you filled in the blank.   Matthew: Which teenager does not know about condoms?   Becky: Oh my god. It was in the 1990s.   Matthew: Oh, they really did not know about condom.     Becky: 1991, so we should have. I mean it was all coming up then so we should have left it in there but no.   Matthew: I mean our high school did Wizard of Oz. That is very wholesome to an extent considering the fans, I don’t know, destruction.   Becky: Yeah. The Wizard of Oz. What else do we do? Of course, there is always music Man Fiddler on the Roof.   Matthew: South Pacific.   Becky: You guys had some serious production.   Matthew: I did not say it was good.   Becky: High school musicals are very rarely good. I mean, let us be realistic on that one. I went back to my high school musical roots for mine.   Matthew: I think that is a perfect segue way into me asking   Becky: Okay.   Matthew: Where did you go?   Becky: All right.   Matthew: Take us back.   Becky: We are going back to and in the movie sung by Buddy Hackett, who I remember from when I was younger and he was an older man who I have this vague recollection of him being like a dirty old man kind of guy.   Matthew: I mean he was way. Wait, when was this made?   Becky: 60-65, let us say. I want to say 65. No, Sorry. Well, the musical was 57; 62 was the movie.   Matthew: That was a generation of dirty old men.   Becky: Yeah, yeah. Also covered by the Family Guy and several other outlets. I am just in a dive right into it. You ready?   Matthew: I don't believe so, but I'm willing to listen.   Becky: I think this first group, set it up nicely. Well, a woman who will kiss you on the very first date is usually a hussy and a woman who will kiss you on the second time out is anything but fussy. But a woman who will wait till the third time around. Head in the cloud, feet on the ground. She is your girl. You are glad you found. She is your shipoopi, shipoopi, shipoopi. The girl who is hard to get shipoopi, shipoopi. shipoopi, but you can winner yet. Mm hmm. That is shipoopi from the Music Man.   Matthew: Wow.   Becky: The whole thing is yet again a me-too movement in song form.   Matthew: Do we have any historical context for, is shipoopi slang for anything. Do we..   Becky: I don't think so. When I was doing the research for this. I just typed in worst song in a musical ever, and it brought up like some sort of forum for Broadway musicals. And everybody was writing these dissertations and one person just wrote shipoopi. And that's really all you need because shipoopi, I mean you can't say without giggling either, before, after, during and it shipoopi. What is that?   Matthew: And they don't explain it? That is why I love that. He does not need to explain it. He is just like.   Becky: No.   Matthew: So she is playing hard to get or presumably saying no. But it was like men who are super into...   Becky: My guess is she probably hates this guy. Thinks he is a total dill hole, but yet he just keeps breaking her down by saying shipoopi in front of her. Like a playground thing. He just keeps calling her shipoopi. And eventually she breaks out and goes, okay, I guess that's the guy.   Matthew: That is the guy from me. You know, I was not going to have sex with him the first day. Then he said shipoopi about 17 more times.   Becky: You know when I met your father.   Matthew: [Laughing] he had cutest name for me.   Becky: All he said was shipoopi. He did not say anything. He just said shipoopi over and over and over again. And we thought he had been dropped on his head, but apparently not. And that's when I fell in love.   Matthew: I knew he was the one.   Becky: By the third day of shipoopi. That is when I knew.   Matthew: Wait. What is the bumper sticker slogan that is like? Sorry, like not having to say sorry.   Becky: Oh, I cannot. Yeah, I know the one you are talking about.   Matthew: I think it is from a movie. Something means not having to say you are sorry.   Becky: Yeah, shipoopi mean.   Becky and Matthew: Not having to say that you are sorry.   Becky: I'm going to just start filling in shipoopi when I can't remember the words, which is a lot of times now that we've found out we have Alzheimer's and dementia in the family. So now, all of us are forgetting everything. So we are just going to be like, you know, that time shipoopi, you know? Right. shipoopi and see, who knows. But yeah, I mean and it continues on in the kind of abusive way with squeezer once when she isn't looking.   Matthew: Who!   Becky: Who does that?   Matthew: Apparently Buddy Hackett.   Becky: I like if you get a squeeze back that is fancy cooking. I don't know anyone, any woman who would get squeezed and be like oh, oh well hello. Then squeeze back and mean it.   Matthew: It brings up a very viable point. Of where on the spectrum of being touched does being slapped follow like is it technically a squeeze?   Becky: It could be. Or she might have just grabbed him by his junk and was like, never do that again, if you want to keep this and then he said once more for a pepper upper, she'll never get sore on her way to supper. So all this is happening, I presumably on the first date?   Matthew: No, because then she will be a hussy. So would it be…?   Becky: Well, no. If you kissed her on the first date, is she is usually a hussy.   Matthew: I see.   Becky: The second date it is your borderline because a woman who you kiss the second time out is anything but fussy. She is, you know, almost out to pasture. Then the third time around, that is the gal.   Matthew: Okay, got you.   Becky: If on the third day you squeeze her and she squeezes you back, home run.   Matthew: Fancy cooking.   Becky: Yeah, It is fancy cooking and a home run. Then once more up for a pepper upper. If you do it again and she is game, then you have just won the World Series, I guess.   Matthew: Marry this woman.   Becky: Yeah. Yeah. I cannot even.   Matthew: I feel like this song is a good example of like, is it bad lyrics? Because in the 50s and 60s, you had no way of just saying like, oh, we are banging on the bathroom floor.   Becky: Yeah. I mean.   Matthew: There is a lot of euphemisms for sex here. Fancy Cook and Pepper upper.   Becky: Well, pepper upper. I think drugs. I think we are looking for like an upper. Like maybe, a little ecstasy or I don't know, special k. Do kids still do that? Is that even a drugs?   Matthew: I think I am sure. I am a square, you are talking to the wrong person. I am impressed. I am assuming that most of these are euphemisms for sex.   Becky: I don't know. I should have asked my mother and father and be like, hey, when you guys were kids and talking about slang for sex. Did you ever go shipoopi or fancy cooking or pepper upper?   Matthew: Actually, there is still time. So like the follow up to this episode will be the [Inaudible 00:10:37]   Becky: I will call my parents after this.   Matthew: We will record it.   Becky: Quick question. It would not be any worse than, some of the questions my mom woken me up with her asking to, tell her what some slang means because somebody's at work, young kids that work mentioned and she didn't want to seem like she was not cool.   Matthew: Uncool.   Becky: Yeah. Tea bagging was one of them.   Matthew: Perfect. Never forget where you were. The moment your mom asks you.   Becky: No, I was not. I will not. I just gotten to work. And my mom called and she said, hey, look, I got a question for you, can you. What is tea bagging? I just walked in the door. Can I call you back after I call my therapist and get some coffee? And apparently it was during the whole like…   Matthew: Tea Party moment?   Becky: Tea Party stuff. And mom, they were joking. It said something about Tea Bagging and I had to explain tea bagging. It went downhill from there. Years of therapy for that one.   Matthew: That is fancy cooking.   Becky: And a pepper upper in the morning if you have to answer that question, yeah.   Matthew: To say the least.   Becky: [Laughing] you have no idea. I was like I'm sorry, what now? did you just ask me. I got to go. I need to call my therapist. And I’m actually my therapist right now, and the siren. Oh, Seattle full moon weekend. You are the best.   Matthew: I should have curse a lot more. Just so, we can edit it out.   Becky: I know, oh well. All right. So Matt, what did you go with?   Matthew: Since we will be releasing the other music episode, we did.   Becky: Yes.   Matthew: This is actually a redo by my request. Upon reflection, realized that I feel like I had not done my due diligence. Right. Because the purpose of this podcast is to find bad lyrics and call them out as they happen, even in songs that we love. Upon reflection, I realize that rent, the reason why I called out rent the way I did is because I fucking hate that musical.   Becky: The musicals is awful.   Matthew: The lyrics were not necessarily the problem. The content of the entire musical is what really bothered me.   Becky: Yeah. That is a whole other episode. Like we could take down the entire musical in one episode. Maybe that would be a probably a two-parter.   Matthew: Yes just for me.   Becky: There is an intermission in that play.   Matthew: Forty-five minutes of me bitching about this movie because of how much, I fucking hate rent.   Becky: Yeah.   Matthew: But I was like, you know the lyrics were not necessarily bad. I just hated the content. So then, I dug deep and ended up watching a movie musical from 2008.   Becky: 2008.   Matthew: The two biggest names would have been Paris Hilton, and Sarah Brightman.   Becky: what?   Matthew: Who famously.   Becky: Was married. To Andrew Lloyd Webber.   Matthew: The best play write of a generation.   Becky: I dislike that guy and all, he's written so much. I cannot. I just cannot. I cannot.   Matthew: Surprisingly, though, he did not write. It feels like this would have been something he wrote.   Becky: Paris Hilton and Sarah Brightman.   Matthew: I think they were the two biggest names. Also, the guy who played well, he was on Buffy. I think he was British.   Becky: Oh, yeah. Who then married…   Matthew: Giles.   Becky: Yeah. Who then married one of the other characters in that.   Matthew: Did not realize that.   Becky: Yeah.   Matthew: But he is in this movie as well. I ended up watching.   Becky: 2008.   Matthew: Eleven years ago.   Becky: God. Okay, 2008. I don't even know what happened in 2008.   Matthew: Financial crisis.   Becky: Okay.   Matthew: Well actually, that could play into this story.   Becky: Please tell me, they did a musical, The Wolf of Wall Street.   Matthew: I think that on is still in the works.   Becky: probably. What the hell?   Matthew: I don't really have any hints, but I will say that it is. Repo, the genetic opera, which if you have heard of or have not heard of, rather, is a movie musical from 2008. The overall plot of which is that everyone is getting cancer. Everyone is dying in this dystopian land. As they are dying, there is this one capitalistic company that says, oh, well, we have organs essentially for rent. We will give you these organs to keep you alive. But if you miss any payments, the repo man will come take the organ and you will die.   Becky: This feel like that Tom Cruise movie. What was that one? Similar? I don't know if it was similar. It is probably not, I just see Tom Cruise and then I go to my happy place because I cannot stand him either. Oh, well that is gone now. I have to look at.   Matthew: I feel like…   Becky: It is shipoopi. It is shipoopi.   Mathew: Tom Cruise in shipoopi.   Becky: I would see that. Actually, that would be something I would see.   Matthew: His voice undoubtedly is terrible.   Becky: That laugh, I needed that laugh.   Matthew: That is the overall plot of it. There are a lot of twists and turns in it. It is a real weird movie musical. I am not sure if I recommend it, but I do recommend watching it just so that you get context for how bad the song is. One of the main characters is a girl who is told that she has this terrible condition. She basically can't go outside.   Becky: Oh, my God. Like bubble boy?   Matthew: Exactly. Spoiler alert. Full spoiler alert. It is not real. Her dad was just like I told you that so you wouldn't leave an entry this like dystopian land, whatever. But the entire movie is incredibly angst. The main character, this little girl named Shiloh is 16. Then she celebrates her 17th birthday and she has a song about turning 17. That, is the song that I have picked. It is called 17 and I chose it. Not only because of how terrible the lyrics are, but also it is precisely a Goth version of 16 going on 17…   Becky: Thank you.                                                                                                           Matthew: From sound of music.   Becky: I was going to ask is it? Please tell me that it has something to do with, I am 16, going on 17. Minority Report was the movie I was thinking.   Matthew: Yeah, okay. I could see that.   Becky: Yeah, sorry.   Matthew: Sound of music. Right. It is super cute. She is falling in love with the Nazi.   Becky: Sad note, I have never seen it.   Matthew: Oh. Spoiler alert. She fall in love with the Nazi.   Becky: Yeah. I have never seen it, but I know it. I know all the lyrics, to that frickin musical as well.   Matthew: She is 16   Matthew and Becky: Going on 17.   Matthew: It gets repeated a lot. It is very cute. I think she is like very excited about that.   Becky: She dating a Nazi, wait.   Matthew: Yes.   Becky: Okay. Yep, there we go.   Matthew: She is dancing on a gazebo with him and she is very happy to turns 17. Shiloh in this movie, however, is very displeased to be 17. And what I will pause it here. Is that Repo the genetic opera for all of the bad lyrics, in fact, actually nails were being 17 is like. Let's take a look at the lyrics.   Becky: The title of the movie makes me think a repo man like an opera of the Repo Man, which would be kind of awesome. I don't know if you can still get Emilio Estevez.   Matthew: Probably not, but this is like a much dumber version of it. I still recommend watching it. Only if you are inebriated in some way, but don’t do drugs kids.   Becky: Yeah, that will be later on today.   Matthew: Yes. Alcohol or weed. That is as strong as my recommendation get.   Becky: That will be today.   Matthew: It is very angst. She cries out 17. Momma drama has to go dad. 17, nothing is going to bring her back. Oh, her mom is dead. Also spoiled alert. Her mom's dad. Hence mama dramas.   Becky: I thought maybe he had a couple of ladies on the side and he didn't know which one was the actual mother of this kid.   Matthew: Oh, no, he is not dating. But the daughter is distraught. Her mom's dead, so 17. Nothing is going to bring her back. 17, experiment with something living. 17, cause I am sweeter than 16.                              Becky: That sounds like dad is hooking up with his daughter.   Matthew: The movie leaves that open. I mean, not really, but there are some weird things happening there.   Becky: Please tell me that this, character's played by Paris Hilton.   Matthew: No, sadly.   Becky: Damn it.   Matthew: But Paris Hilton's character is very on brand…. I will does not spoil that.   Becky: Does she sing?   Matthew:  Not well.   Becky: That is right. She did have an album out.   Matthew: She did. We all know she did not get many after or any Grammys.   Becky: Did she really mean to? She is loaded,   Matthew: Right. That ends up being the chorus. So I will stop yelling 17 at you, but just know that throughout this she got 17. Other choice lyrics, I would say. Again, I feel like this captures my experience being a 17 year old. I have always longed for true affection is one lyric. I am like, okay. Like, that is not a bad lyric.   Becky: No.   Matthew: But the next line after it is. But you compare me to a corpse.   Becky: What?   Matthew: And then the third lyric is Stay with the dead. I'm joining the living cause I'm freer than 16.   Becky: Huh? Okay.   Matthew: Right. It is teenage angst.   Becky: Yeah.   Matthew: Specifically served up in teenage incomprehension.   Becky: Yep.   Matthew: Which I do appreciate. I don't know why 16 is the thing holding her back. Why she needs to be freer than 16. Also, I don't know why she got compared to a corpse.   Becky: Yeah, and I got to say, being 46 now. 16 looks awesome because nobody else is paying my goddamn bills.   Matthew: Doesn't it feel great?   Becky: And like my laundry was getting done? Like, yeah. Food was…   Matthew: Served.   Becky: Yeah.   Matthew: You did not have to cook. You did not have to clean.   Becky: No.   Matthew: Pay bills.   Becky: Nope.   Matthew: did not have to work.   Becky: I just had to be angst, and sit in my room and listen to music.   Matthew: Exactly.   Becky: Yeah.   Matthew: Music like 17 from repo the genetic opera.   Becky: Just like that.   Matthew: So it goes on because there are two more things that I really appreciate about this. Number one; there is a Joan Jett solo in this.   Becky: As in like the real Joan Jett?   Matthew: Yes. She makes an appearance in the movie.   Becky: Wow.   Matthew: Bless you Joan Jett. But you did not need that.   Becky: No, no, no, no, no, no.   Matthew: Joan Jett makes a very strange appearance. But the final lines, I just love because they're terrible. She goes something is changing. I can feel it building suspense. I am 17 now. Why can't you see it? 17 and you cannot stop me. 17 and you won't boss me. You cannot control me, father. Daddy's girl is a fucking monster and that is the end of the song. It is one of these that I am like, I know that they're bad lyrics, but deep down the very small angst part of me as a twenty nine year old is like, yeah, fuck em, fuck parents. Boom make money.   Becky: She is a monster. What? Please tell me. She turns into like some sort of weird. I don't know. I just picture like the Toxic Avenger. But a 16 oh 17 year old girl.   Matthew: Yeah. She is freer. She is sweeter and freer than 16.   Becky: Yeah.   Matthew: She did not turned into a monster. She ends up actually being. Actually, I think it is a very good metaphor for puberty because she is saying all these things in song form.   Becky: Yeah.   Matthew: First of all, you took the time to create a song to convey your angst. That is a very teenage trait.   Becky: Oh, God, yes. Yeah.   Matthew: She does all of this. Then at the end of the movie, it turns out she is a big softie who like as her spoiler alert, dad dies. She is like, I love you, dad. I am sorry I was kind of an asshole. And I forgive you for lying to me about a debilitating condition that led you to lock me up for 16 years.   Becky: Okay, I have never been in that situation before, but clearly, the last time we heard about this, the girl killed her mother, just saying.   Matthew: That is true.   Becky: Yeah. Serving in time.   Matthew: Now, she is locked up in a different way.   Becky: Yeah. You are no longer free. So probably should have just left the house. Yeah. Okay, that is bad. Now I kind of want to see this at the same time.   Matthew: I do recommend it, but not because it is good.   Becky: Where did you see this? How did you see this?   Matthew: If anyone is interested in watching Amazon Prime, it is available. Just watch it.   Becky: Okay. Well, now I know what I am doing this week.   Matthew: Imagine if you really, really overfunded my chemical romance music video,   Becky: Oh God.   Matthew: So that is your aesthetic. Repo the genetic opera is absolutely the movie for you.   Becky: Oh, that is…   Matthew: Paris Hilton. Her best performance, arguably.   Becky: That is just awful. I cannot even like I bought this backpack. Then I realized, oh, my God, I am 46-year-old version of a vsco girl, unintentionally. Now I am, oh I kind of want to return.   Matthew: Wait, a what girl?   Becky: Vsco girl. Apparently, all these Instagram girls, it is a weird of crunchy, granola hippy kind of thing with really expensive accessories. Vsco is like a filter. You can run the photos through. Of course, all these girls do that.  It is like the backpack, like scrunches. Why? Anyone, want to bring that.   Matthew: [Inaudible 00:26:11]   Becky: I cannot even begin crocs in like Birkenstocks. It’s like, can we go in now on both of those? Sorry. No, no, no. No. Can do skis. What was the other thing? Oh, like a puka shell.   Matthew: Oh yeah.   Becky: Necklace kind of thing. I did not buy the $80 backpack. I went for the Chinese knockoff, but it is like that. Eighty-dollar Swedish backpack, which, by the way, somebody told me they got for their daughter. And she's like, and I looked inside. It is made in Vietnam. I was like, way to go, Sweden. Then I thought, well, had I known about that 6 years ago, I would have bought one when I was there. But no, no, no. I was like, oh, I am now this…   Mathew: Vsco girl.   Becky: Forty six year old vsco girl. I will put my hair up in a scrunches. Then there was some other accessories that I was like, Oh, sweet Jesus. There is one clothing company. That only makes one size. And it's like a size Barbie doll. I don't know. It is like a small. Then their clothes are like. It is like some Italian clothing company, Quartz.   Matthew: Yikes.   Becky: Which is funny because all the Italian ladies in my family were not Barbie size. But whatever, probably not their target market, but yeah, so.   Matthew: Wow. I mean, I, for one, am just grateful that I'm neither a vsco girl nor am 17 anymore.   Becky: Oh, thank God. Yeah, I don't even remember what… Oh, I do remember it as doing and it was not good. Properly better, pass that.   Matthew: You could have put all of your angst into a song and you would have felt properly much better.   Becky: I would properly come up with shipoopi though, as opposed to that.   Matthew: I think we both are on par.   Becky: Yeah, we got it.   Matthew: We nailed what being 17 was like in two different decades.   Becky: Shipoopi. Oh, shipoopi. Yeah. All right. Well, I think that probably rounds out the old musicals. Thank God. So coming up next week, or next episode next week, episode, whatever. It all runs together right now.   Matthew: We will release it when we want.   Becky: When we feel like it. No pressure, please. So next time around, we are doing hip-hop.   Matthew: I am excited.   Becky: I had to kind of figure out what the definition really was, because for me, it was just straight up rap. But it's not cause I looked and Drake's in there and post Malone. I don't get that one at all. Beyoncé was in there, and like that's more like R&B stuff to me.   Matthew: Interesting.   Becky: R&B pop.   Matthew: I will be very curious to know what you choose.   Becky: Now, full disclosure, I do love me some Old-School Hip-Hop and by Old School, I mean like 80s. Cause I remember Fab 5 Freddy on MTV, which you have no idea who that is.   Matthew: I sure don’t.   Becky: Yeah, he was in Blondie video and she even mentioned him in it. Old school. I can't remember, I think he was a rapper and M.C. but I can't remember it. Oh my god. My brain is fried and all of my friends who know are yelling right now. But yeah, I remember Fab 5, Freddy and then Yo!, MTV Raps and then it became the two Ed lover and Dr. Dre, but not the Dr. Dre we all know and love today. Yeah, so.   Matthew: This will be good because we are going to be getting that [Inaudible 00:30:14] and then I will be serving my purpose as the millennial on the podcast by bringing us back to 2008.   Becky: Oh, minus.     Matthew: Wow. I just realized I am a 2008 freak.   Becky: Sticking with the year. I don’t even know when mine came out. I want to say it was late 80s, early 90s. So Yeah. All right. Well, that is something to look forward to, and I guess that is the end of this episode. And we will see you next time. When we ask What the Lyric?   [End 00:30:45]  

Internal commentary for the potential song title "Yar's Revenge Designer Howard Scott Warshaw Slam Dunks A Football" by The Flowers of Disgust appears here courtesy of The Flowers of Disgust: The football was innovative yet enigmatic. | HSW is in my view the most important pre-NES Era game designer from a creative standpoint, and I include Al Alcorn in this statement. | pre-NES or pre-Miyamoto? | Is there really a difference? I mean yes, I suppose you could date a so-called "Miyamoto Era" from the time he joined Nintendo in 1977, or maybe with his creation of Donkey Kong in 1981, but I really don't think this is what people normally think of when they think of Miyamoto's influence from a game design standpoint (Not to mention such a designation would completely ignore the meaningful contributions of Gunpei Yokoi, who was essentially Miyamoto's mentor on the project). While no serious person would claim Donkey Kong itself isn't historically significant, the game itself doesn't hold a candle to the likes of Super Mario Bros. or Zelda in terms of actual influence on the direction of video game design. In many areas DK is much more derivative than it is innovative, from its characters and plot (cribbed from King Kong and Popeye, among others) to its gameplay (which owes a lot more than is generally recognized to earlier titles such as Space Panic and Crazy Climber). What I think is actually the more important thing to recognize about Donkey Kong is the story of its development, from the last ditch effort to recoup the sunk costs of the Radar scope debacle to Hiroshi Yamauchi's decision to entrust NOA's future in the harebrained schemes of one low-level engineer -- and the lucky accident of its sucess. It's this spirit of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks that continues to drive most of Nintendo's successes to this day. So in summary I would say that although Miyamoto's pre-NES work certainly represents an auspicious beginning to his career as a designer, he did not achieve greatness (nor his corresponding industry "rock star" status) until his later work for the NES/Famicom, which likewise did not become a true worldwide phenomenon until the successes of SMB and Zelda, among others. This is why I would argue that to say "Pre-Miyamoto" is essentially the same thing as saying "Pre-NES" from a periodizational perspective, which is the implicit perspective of all of our song titles and commentary. | Have you played "Space Panic"? That game SUUUUUUCKS! | No, but I did play Crazy Climber on an original cabinet last week, and the control scheme is pretty fascinating. There are two joysticks that have to be alternated simultaneously up and down to simulate (more or leass) the physical act of climbing. Takes some getting used to but it's really quite clever. | To me the important thing about Miyamoto isn't any particular game feature or innovation that he invented. The genius of Myamoto is really his ability to take an existing genre and carefully refine it so that it becomes more "fun". Hence, Donkey Kong is way more "fun" than Space Panic. Even though, through a certain narrow lens, Space Panic might be more "innovative", Donkey Kong is really a much more important game in the history of the genre. To go back to your original statement, I guess I think the central questions is: what do you mean by "from a creative standpoint"? I wonder if you aren't defining "creativity" a bit too narrowly when you dismiss Miyamoto's early arcade work. | Sure, that's probably a valid criticism. And I do agree with you in regards to Miyamoto's penchant for refining the innovations of others, and of course the "fun" factor remains something that is poorly understood to this day (On this particular point I would recommend Curtiss Murphy's excellent blog and podcast "Game Design Zen", especially his hugely insightful visual representation of what he and others term 'flow' which can be found in the post for episode 2). I just think if you're going to be so reductive as to say, "This here is 'The Miyamoto Era'" (and though you didn't use that exact term I think it's fair to say it's implied by your use of 'Pre-Miyamoto' as a delineator) then it makes far more sense to designate his work on the Family Computer as the herald of that era because, again, it was not until that point that he became an icon. It was not until that point that he did his most important, most innovative, and most influential work. It was not until that point that he fully emerged from the shadows of Yokoi et al. to finally wield complete control over what I would without hesitation call the Gesamtkunstwerk of SMB and Zelda. Donkey Kong is a landmark in the history of Nintendo, surely, but in the story of Miyamoto's development, it is mere prologue. | What?? | Please explain to which element(s) of the preceeding your query is referring. | Objectively speaking, I think the original Donkey Kong is probably more significant than Yar's Revenge in terms of it's impact, though admittedly, without defining precisely what we mean by 'significant', this is basically a nonsensical statement. With regards to fun, I think it's all well and good to explore the concept of "fun" on a objective/theoretical level. "Fun" may indeed be a wooly concept that, from a game-design perspective, is tricky to define in a purely reductive sense. HOWEVER we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that in our subjective experience as players-of-games, it is all too easy to identify when a game is "fun". One is reminded of the famous line by Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart, "I know it when I see it". Stewart of course, was referring to pornography, but it is equally applicable in this case. I can't tell you precisely what makes a game fun, but I know whether a game is fun or not when I play it. I will look this Curtiss Murphy gentleman though, as this does seem an interesting topic. | When did I ever say that Yar's Revenge was "more significant" than Donkey Kong "in terms of it's [sic] impact"? My original statement was focused solely on creativity of design, and did not reference DK at all. I freely concede that DK was more impactful than YR; I'm simply stating an opinion about Howard Scott Warshaw's artistic chops. At the risk of going off on a tangent, let's draw on, as an analogy, a comparison between Pong and Computer Space, Nolan Bushnell's prior effort from the previous year. Now I'm sure as hell not going to say Pong is poorly designed (the hallmark of good design often being simplicity, which is its own rabbit hole...), but what I will say is that Computer Space is a way more interesting game, at least considered intrinsically. While simple by today's standards, it failed essentially because it was designed and playtested exclusively by engineers and mathematicians, and hence was too confusing for the average n00b to grasp. I think there's room to argue which game is 'better' from a creative standpoint, but we should absolutely not make the mistake of saying Pong is artistically better than Computer Space specifically because of the former's relative success. Now, with regard to your rather confusing citation of Potter Stewart (who always makes me think of (Jimmy) Stewart's nemesis Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life), I'm not certain what point you are trying to get across. Potter Stewart's statement is generally not quoted earnestly even by anti-pornography activitsts these days; are you reappropriating it into the arena of fun in video games in an effort to genuinely endorse the concept of subconscious objective identification as a process, or are you making a wry, pithy critique of modern gamers' fickleness/proclivity to rush to judgement? I am reacting specifically to your statement "...in our subjective experience as players-of-games, it is all too easy to identify when a game is 'fun'." [Empahsis added]. It seems like you are implying in this first part of your argument that we are making a mistake when we rely on our gut instincts when engaging in video game criticism, but then you go on to, it would seem, essentially endorse the Potter Stewart approach immediately thereafter. Could you clarify, please? | To clarify, I am endorsing the view of "fun" as something that we should generally trust our guts on, even though it is difficult to define in a reductive sense. In that quote, I should not have said "all too easy", but rather just "really fucking easy". Likewise I think Potter's statement re:pornography is in most cases correct, though I'll concede that it really doesn't lend itself to any concrete legislation–certainly not any good legislation. Re: HSW, Yar's Revenge, Donkey Kong etc… I think essentially we are struggling with different ideas about what "creativity" is, what it means for something to be "important" and certainly what it means for something to be "important from a creative standpoint". You seem to be endorsing the view that a game can be "important from a creative standpoint" when it is interesting but shitty. If you think "creativity" is really just about doing something "original" or "new", being the "first" to do some particular thing, then I guess that's a reasonable statement to make. I tend to take a more holistic view of creativity myself, put more emphasis on the overall artistic vision, and the execution thereof. | And I'm not necessarily disagreeing with most of that, I'm simply drawing a distinction between creative success (or artistic success, if you prefer) and commercial success. Frankly, I don't know what you're talking about when refer to something being "interesting but shitty"; are you saying Yar's Revenge is shitty?? Or are you referring to Computer Space/Pong/Crazy Climber/Space Panic? I'd say Space Panic is the only one of those you could credibly claim to believe is shitty, but for the sake of argument I'd say that yes, something can be interesting even if it is shitty. However I do concede it most probably can't be "important from a creative standpoint", at least in the sense that I employ that phrase (that it has exerts a lasting influence on at least some significant subset of game design). In this sense I think it's laughable to say that Yar's Revenge is not significant. If you look at HSW's body of work it seems to be his most fondly remembered game (or at least tied with Raiders) and he is easily the most celebrated Atari designer from that time period. | Yars' Revenge is ok I guess. It's certainly quirky, and I could see how people might have found it fun. If we're talking about single-screen space shootin' games i'd definitely take Robotron 2084 over it any day of the week. "Raiders", OTOH, seems completely unplayable and cryptic. I think people probably like to talk about the importance of Raiders because (like "Adventure") it seems kinda like a proto-adventure-game or proto-metroidvania thing. Fair enough I guess. Again, for my part, I'm less concerned with who "came up with" these ideas "first", and I'm more interested in who made games that were actually fun to play. When I look at "Raiders" I see a game whose designer was over ambitious and didn't really understand the limitations of the platform for which he was designing… an interesting failure at best. That's better than an uninsteresting failure, but not exactly the hallmark of a great game-designer IMO. Again, if all you care about is who was first-to-market with some particular "innovation", then sure HSW is your man.| That's all well and good, and such reductionism would be fine if we could all agree on an objective classification of what constitutes "fun", which is in my esitmation a fool's errand. However, since we are prisoners of our own predilections in taste, we cannot make a consistent, quantifiable analysis of any game unless we make the effort to subsume our subjective reaction underneath at least a veneer of cold, logical, data-driven criticism. Of COURSE it matters that we find a game "fun", but without the wisdom that comes from patient, comparative study of the titles that comprise its various peers, antecedents and imitators, and without appraisal given to the personalities and forces behind its genesis, our analysis is doomed to be incomplete. I'm not by any means saying that innovation is the only important thing to focus on, but I am fascinated by it because I yearn to gain a deeper understanding of how things developed and where they are likely to go in the future. That's what keeps me getting up in the morning, at least from a video gaming standpoint. | I prefer to think of my "fun" benchmark as more holistic than reductive. | Sure, and Id preferto be having sex with Scarlet Johanson, but that doesn't mean it's the case. | Zing! | Agreed. I think we're done here. Today's strip

The Mominatrix and her Whipping Boy will be talking all about making Father's Day sexy. What? Please! For your baby daddy, not your own dad!

The Mominatrix and her Whipping Boy will be talking all about making Father's Day sexy. What? Please! For your baby daddy, not your own dad!