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• WTFriday: Won't You Be My Gamer?

  I watched a lot of children's television when I was younger (this morning counts as younger, right?). Sesame Street was essential, Lamb Chop was interesting, David the Gnome was enaging, even Barney was fun in an ironic manner years ahead of becoming a jaded teenager, but Mister Roger's Neighborhood never quite felt right to me. Fred Rogers himself was like a warm grandfather figure who never had anything better to do than play make believe and aks whoever he came across pedantic questions about their immediate surroundings and actions. Even as a child I found this unsettling. Had I seen this clip as a child, though, I would have at least had an exact moment to pinpoint "that's what creeped me out about him." Fred Rogers visits the arcade in the back of a restaurant of some sort and proceeds to ask a young boy about Donkey Kong. The whole thing sounds like an exchange with the elderly pedophile on Family Guy: Read More... Posted Mar 13 2009, 05:00 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: derrick sanskrit, donkey kong, television, wtfriday, mister rogers neighborhood

• WTFriday: Don't S*** Your Pants Teaches Valuable Life Lessons

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. We like to kid around a lot here at 61FPS, but there's nothing funny about crapping your pants. It's something we all try our best to avoid, if only because the social repercussions are so long-lasting; you may be able to clean a stain off of a pair of Levi's, but it's not so easy to launder a poo-stained reputation. This is why we should thank our lucky stars that training simulators like Kongregate.com's Don't Shit Your Pants exist; without it, you may find yourself in a situation where you have to crap but have no idea what to do next. The game gives you a brief 40 seconds (though you can extend this time if you're crafty) to figure out how to eliminate your waste in a socially-acceptable way through a retro text-based command system. But really, most of the fun of Don't Shit Your Pants lies in the many creative--and sometimes messy--solutions the game rewards you for with its built-in achievement system. Try and figure out how many ways there are to not shit your pants. You'll be glad you did. Related Links: WTFriday: GameStop's Guide to Women WTFriday: Sega's Turd Polish WTFriday: S****ing With Fear: Not Just a Symptom of Colon Cancer Read More... Posted Mar 06 2009, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments Filed under: bob mackey, wtfriday, pooping, text adventure

• WTFriday: GameStop's Guide to Women

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. I don't shop at GameStop, mainly because of their policy of treating customer like pieces of human excrement who deserve to be murdered on the spot if they don't happen to want a magazine subscription. The last time I wandered into a GameStop was out of necessity; I wanted to pick up a Game Boy Player for my GameCube, and was promptly treated like the biggest asshole on the planet for assuming one existed in the store--even though one did. My constant mistreatment at the hands of people stuck in terrible retail jobs (I speak from past experience) has made me a devoted Amazon.com customer, but more importantly, it's also made me wonder how retail monoliths like GameStop treat their casual customers when they show such contempt for devoted nerds like you or I.  Thankfully, a GameStop training video recently leaked to the Internet may just provide an answer to this query. Behold, GameStop's "Understanding and Selling to Our Expanded Audience," or, "What to Do When There's a G-G-G-G-Girl in the Store." Like all employee training videos, it's extremely patronizing, both to the intended audience and the subject itself. Most of the advice is just common sense, though it all comes packaged in a glorious corporate creepiness that involves tapping into the deepest fears and insecurities of your customers. Let's watch. Video after the cut. Read More... Posted Feb 27 2009, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: retail, youtube, video, bob mackey, wtfriday, gamestop

• WTFriday: A Sad Dog's Rush Cosplay

  On Christmas Day of 2008, an individual with a bad fake accent received a camera for a present, much as we're all rewarded for the hard work we performed during the birth of our Lord. Knowing the Internet was sorely lacking in pointlessly adorable content, this person went on to film his own series, “Dog Time,” starring a yellow lab with the saddest face in dogdom. Episode 9 is relevant to our interests: the dog cosplays as Rush, Mega Man's trusty red pooch. I swear the first words out of my mouth were, “Awwww, he wants to hang himseeeeelf!” Read More... Posted Feb 13 2009, 12:50 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with no comments Filed under: mega man, rush, media, fan stuff, nadia oxford, wtfriday, dog

• WTFriday: Sega's Turd Polish

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. You'll have to excuse me for returning once again to the 90s promotional video well for this week's WTFriday; I can't help the fact that said well is seemingly bottomless. But to tell the truth, there's also something about the production quality of these promos that amuses me to no end; it's almost as if the multi-million dollar marketing teams I assume they paid to put these things together only had one idea written on a whiteboard in giant letters: "MTV-STYLE EDITING." So I guess it's more than fitting that such a worthless, gimmicky editing technique was applied to a video about the worthless, gimmicky console add-on known as the 32X. Yes, I went there; and I don't think anyone really minds, because the world's only 32X fan is as elusive as Bigfoot himself. But wherever this mysterious creature is, you can bet he has a constant loop of this running in his cave. Video after the cut. Read More... Posted Feb 13 2009, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments Filed under: sega, bob mackey, wtfriday, promo, 32x

• WTFriday: Dragon Quest Crotch Buddies

  Ridiculous accessories for video games have always existed--and if you think this trend ended with the Power Glove, then you probably haven't seen the chainsaw or slime-themed controllers that were actually designed and released for consumers to purchase. Yeah, that chainsaw controller has its own web site. Anyway, gimmicky video game accessories are still around and successfully targeting the demographic of "people who have no idea what to do with their money;" but until I had read this recent 1UP story about a baffling Dragon Quest-related peripheral, I had no idea how bad things had become. Friends, allow me to introduce you to the Dragon Quest Crotch Buddy. Read More... Posted Jan 30 2009, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: dragon quest, bob mackey, wtfriday, accesories, peripherals

• WTFriday: The Splash Woman Rap

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. "Sometimes it's hard to be Splash Woman..." - Tammy Wynette, "Stand By Your Mega Man" Thanks to the kind folks at Game Music 4 All, I've become obsessed with some of the more creative video game remixes out there, like the Mother mashup I posted about yesterday. The weekly WTFriday falls on something just as awesome, but far more bizarre: an original Mega Man 9 music video featuring a completely-original rap set to Splash Woman's stage music. The lyrics to said rap shine a little more light on the obvious sexual tension between Mega Man and Splash Woman, and also give us a disturbing look into an alternate universe where Sonic Team somehow became responsible for creating Mega Man's music. But rest assured that Knuckles' rapping abilities fall short when compared to this fan-made project. Video after the cut. Read More... Posted Jan 23 2009, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: fan project, ost, music, mega man, mega man 9, bob mackey, wtfriday, sountrack

• WTFriday: The Super Mario Bros. Anime

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. For as popular as Mario is, it's surprising that anime adaptations of The Mushroom Kindgdom have been shockingly few in number. That isn't exactly the case for American animation, though; if you were "lucky" enough to grow up in the late 80s and early 90s, there's no doubt that at some point your butt was parked in front of a TV airing one of the three Super Mario Bros. series painstakingly crafted by trained apes. For whatever reason, Japan never thought to inflict an animated version of their most popular fictional celebrity on the nation's youth, aside from two projects--and if you think I'm being unfair to the American Mario cartoons, watch about one minute of Super Mario World and feel free to change your opinion after you purchase a seeing-eye dog. Today's WTFriday spotlight falls upon the 1986 Japanese movie, Super Mario Bros.: Peach-Hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen! (or, if you don't know what any of those words mean, Super Mario Bros.: Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach!). Read More... Posted Jan 16 2009, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, mario, super mario bros, anime, cartoon, bob mackey, wtfriday

• Try to Eat Eggs – But Not Bombs!

  I sometimes wonder what really fuels uproar and controversy over videogames. I honestly don’t think sex, violence, strong language, and adult situations is what concerns upstanding, moral adults about videogames. No, I think they get scared because games are freaking weird. Think about this for a second: to anyone who hasn’t been regularly exposed to games, they are incomprehensibly bizarre. For thirty years, no other medium in existence has produced as much hallucinatory and downright strange content as videogames. Just look at the source of this post’s headline. Imagine sitting down with Kirby’s Adventure not knowing much about Kirby’s trials and trevails in Dreamland, or about games broadly, and all of a sudden you see the friendly advice to consume eggs and not bombs. The next thing you see? An enormous, robed penguin, perched in the corner of a boxing ring, hurling vast quantities of eggs and explosives at your gelatinous onscreen proxy. What would you make of that? How would you process this information? You’d bug right the fuck out. Read More... Posted Jan 14 2009, 07:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, hg101, wtfriday, kirby’s adventure, snacks ‘n jaxson

• WTFriday: The Soothing Sounds of Yoshi

  Giving Mario's dinosaur pal Yoshi a human-like voice is quite possibly one of the worst ideas in the history of video games. Okay, okay; what Yoshi sounds like now isn't quite as brain-melting as the voice he had in the *shudder* Super Mario World cartoon, but almost everyone will agree that Yoshi's old, synthesized cry (one that's impossible to transform into onomatopoeia) is preferable to his newish status of sounding like a constipated toddler who shouts his own name like a Pokemon wannabe. Unfortunately, some people actually seem to enjoy the infant babblings of Mario's once dignified friend; specifically, people like YouTube user DJchedda727, who somehow thought it would be an awesome idea to transform the entire vocabulary of Yoshi into the illest of beats. The result is strangely catchy--but keep in mind that if you play the Yoshi Mix while driving, you may get shot at. By cops. Video after the cut. Read More... Posted Jan 09 2009, 06:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: music, bob mackey, wtfriday, super mario, rap, yoshi

• WTFriday: PuLiRuLa

  Bob said I could take over this week's WTFriday when I showed him this oddity, so away we go. PuLiRuLa is a basic side-scrolling beat-em-up and it's completely insane. Free jazz soundtrack, weird sexual imagery, and a mix of surreal photos and quirky animation. This was released to arcades in 1991, and was ported to several consoles in Japan later. The surreal game defies all logic, and if it weren't for Youtube proof I'd swear I dreamt it. It's safe to say that whoever conceived the graphical style deserves the "Terry Gilliam of Japan" award. Highlights include a giant pair of legs, a sumo wrestler's bare butt and a 30ft wriggling tongue.  Scarring videos after the jump: Read More... Posted Dec 19 2008, 05:30 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: cole stryker, wtfriday, beat-em-ups, 2008, pulirula

• WTFriday: "This Place Is All About Your Balls."

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. Since the 61FPS crew got last Friday off to make mashed potato snow angels, I've had to sit on today's topic for well over a week--which is a shame, since the world needs to be aware of it as soon as possible. The "it" in question is D-Dub Software's BoneTown, which its Albuquerque-based developers are calling "the world's first action adventure porno video game."  Really, BoneTown shouldn't be any more embarrassing than your average pornographic video game, yet it somehow is.  I'll see if you can figure out why. Obviously, the video below is not safe for work or family. Don't watch it even if you live in the same town as your parents. You have been warned: I don't know if I can think of anything less sexy than racist characters from the Hot Shots Golf series getting it on with each other. Wait--actually, I can, but no one in their right mind would make a video game out of it. This is why I have decided to contact D-Dub Software with my wonderful idea. Please look forward to next holiday season's Grandma on Ape Bikini Scatplay 2010. It'll be sure to end Western Civilization as we know it! But, in the meantime, BoneTown is a good start. Read More... Posted Dec 05 2008, 06:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: porn videogame, sex, sexism, bob mackey, wtfriday, pc games, racism

• WTFriday: Mario Versus Air Man

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. Today's WTFriday is more strange than stupid, but it's worth looking at nonetheless. Listen, I'm only human and sometimes I reach my capacity for hate.  That being said, ROM hacks usually are stupid; they either make your playable character naked/demonic/into feces, or they're "remixes" which are unplayably hard for everyone except the hacker himself.  The ROM hack I'm about to show you is unplayably hard, but it's also undeniably cool; and you also have the benefit of watching a YouTube video of said hack instead of having to suffer through it yourself.  Believe it or not, this is an extremely modified hack of the original Super Mario Brothers: Going to the page for this video will give you a ROM download link, but I urge you to not take advantage of this kind offer, lest you rob this hack of its magic.  Plus, I'm pretty sure it was made with voodoo, or one of the dark arts.  You don't want that stuff in your computer. Related Links: WTFriday: Atlus Takes on Third Wave Feminism WTFriday: The Star Fox 64 Promo Video WTFriday: Mega Man A Cappella Read More... Posted Nov 21 2008, 01:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: mega man 2, mega man, bob mackey, wtfriday, super mario, rom hacks

• WTFriday: Atlus Takes on Third Wave Feminism

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. Remember Super Princess Peach?  It was a lighthearted little platformer for the DS that featured some equally lighthearted sexism.  I'm not about to write a thesis on the game--though in my self-serving academic life, that'd be just the thing to propel me to the top--but there's something to be said about the choice to make irrational mood swings Peach's weapon of choice.  I like to think that the game contained little, collectable bottles of Pamprin until someone with some sense intervened. RPG factory Atlus looks like they're ready to tread this same ground with their upcoming DS RPG titled My World, My Way.  Known as The World Revolves Around Me in Japan (title translated, of course), My World, My Way confirms that Japan can only identify two kind of women: the kindly anemic lass, and the unbridled bitch.  From what the official web site is telling me (Warning: it will make your mouse pointer all sparkly and stuff), MWMW is about a spoiled princess--obviously, hypersexualized and preteen--turned adventurer who uses something called "Pout Points" to control the world around her.  Methinks someone on the development team had a nasty breakup. Read More... Posted Nov 14 2008, 06:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: ds, feminism, sexism, bob mackey, wtfriday, my world my way, rpg atlus

• WTFriday: The Star Fox 64 Promo Video

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. When you're advertising your game, you definitely want to buy some Internet ads. TV spots are a must if you've got a big budget. And if you really want to go all out, you should definitely create a narrative about two Brooklyn wiseguys/corporate representatives kidnapping a skydiver and a scientist. Makes sense, really.  Also, don't forget to steal the eyeball-popping torture scene from Martin Scorsese's Casino! This approach may seem insane, but back in 1997, the aforementioned madness is how Nintendo chose to promote one of the N64's best games, Star Fox 64. We've seen a few promo videos so far on WTFriday, but this may be the goofiest--even if its intentions are pure. I'm sure Nintendo would like to bury this infomercial along with the very idea of the Virtual Boy, but YouTube is a source of inescapable shame. Just watch: My favorite moment out of all this mess comes at 5:44, when the dollar store version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" kicks in. Did a lawsuit from the estate of Kurt Cobain prevent Nintendo from making further--possibly copyright infringing--promotional videos?  Of course not.  Jon Lovitz needed something to do after The Critic.  I like to think of a hung over, out of work Jay Sherman narrating that one. Read More... Posted Nov 07 2008, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, star fox 64, n64, bob mackey, wtfriday, virtual boy, promo

• WTFriday: Mega Man A Cappella

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. Every Friday, I spent literally tens of minutes--and sometimes dozens of minutes--searching for something stupid and hopefully video game-related to share with my beloved readers. But some Fridays, links to substantially goofy content fall right into my lap--like today! 61FPS Reader Nathan Avilla was so kind as to forward me a Mega Man 3 game play video with all of the music/sound effects replaced by human wailing; it's shrill and taunting, yet somehow enchanting. I'd have preferred that the composer applied this idea to Magnet Man's stage, as science has proven that he has the best music in all of Mega Man 3--but still, I'm impressed: Mega Man 3 'Vocal BGM' clip And unlike most wacky online videos, this is definitely something you can do at home; all you need is a microphone, and to be castrated. But make sure you ask your parents' permission before buying an expensive microphone. Related Links: WTFriday: The Mario Paint Music Showcase WTFriday: The Chrono Trigger Anime WTFriday: Goldman's Drama Academy Read More... Posted Oct 31 2008, 03:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: nes, retro, mega man 3, video, bob mackey, wtfriday

• WTFriday: The Mario Paint Music Showcase

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. With all the hardcore furor over the recently-released Wii Music, I think it's important to put things into perspective. Luckily for me, someone has already done this: namely, 1UP scribe Jeremy Parish, who made a remarkable amount of sense with a recent blog post.  And, on his personal site, he also made a great comparison that I'm going to monopolize for the remainder of my own post: Have self-proclaimed hardcore gamers always been this hysterical about "non-game" software? I feel like Wii Music is the latest in a long line of toys and apps that Nintendo has been churning out for years; nothing new in the least. Maybe it's because I wasn't lurking in the proper corners of USENET back then, but I really don't remember Mario Paint eliciting so much FUD back in the day; on the contrary, people seemed to love it, and it's still regarded fondly. Seems sensible enough. But where would we be on WTFriday without something strange and disconcerting? This, my friends, is where Mario Paint comes in. I goofed around with this "game" quite a bit as a child, but little did I know that people were still actively using Mario Paint's composer for both good and evil.  There's even a free program, aptly titled Mario Paint Composer, that emulates the game's basic music-making functions while adding a few new features that weren't exactly in demand back in 1992.  After all, I doubt Nintendo anticipated an eight year-old reproducing anything like Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames:" More serious music discussion after the cut. Read More... Posted Oct 24 2008, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: jeremy parish, wii, music, snes, wii music, mario paint, bob mackey, wtfriday

• WTFriday: The Chrono Trigger Anime

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. We're all excited about Chrono Trigger again--and why shouldn't we be? This November, we'll finally have the chance to pay $40 for a game we could've plunked down $70 for back in 1995. I'm such an unabashed Trigger fan that I actually unlocked all of the bonus content on the terrible PSX port of the game. Hey, it was new, and it was Chrono Trigger, so I was all over it. So when the Chrono Trigger anime surfaced just a handful of years ago, of course I wanted to see it. It felt like some sort of crime that an animated version of one of my favorite games could be made and hidden from the world for so long. Only after watching it did I learn that the real crime was the making of the Chrono Trigger anime. But you don't have to take my word for it: Insightful criticism after the cut. Read More... Posted Oct 17 2008, 10:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: snes, rpg, chrono trigger, square, anime, bob mackey, wtfriday, chrono trigger ds

• WTFriday: Goldman's Drama Academy

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. I have to apologize because today's WTFriday is more than a little dated; but since my buddy picked up The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return (not exactly a graceful title) for the Wii, I've had Goldman on my mind. Who's Goldman? Why, he's the series' recurring villain, whose plan to "cleanse the world" involves filling it with the most disgusting, abhorrent creatures to not really exist: zombies. But the important thing here is that he's clearly voiced by someone speaking English phonetically. The original Resident Evil tends to come to mind when we think of bad voice acting, but House of the Dead 2 is much, much worse--and rarely ever gets the credit it deserves. Check out the following video and dare to tell me that stuff like "the master of unlocking" is even half as bad the marble-mouthed Goldman: More tips on public speaking after the cut. Read More... Posted Oct 10 2008, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: sega, fmv hell, house of the dead, bob mackey, wtfriday, voice acting

• WTFriday: Play it Loud

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. Once upon a time, video games weren't cool; sure, everybody played them, but from the Nintendo era until the mid-90s, they were regarded as toys for children, manchildren, and the unemployable. But with the debut of the Playstation, Sony changed all that; suddenly, video games were remade as this hip, new product that fit in well with all of the flannel and alterna-rock that dotted the landscape of our country like so many Taco Bell wrappers.  It was around this time that Nintendo began to look significantly less cool--and some would say they never regained their cred until the recent wave of Wii-mania.  So how would Nintendo try to shape its own image to fit in with whatever those damn kids were into?  Why, the "Play It Loud" campaign, of course. I'm not sure how much good this campaign did for Nintendo, because it certainly ruined the credibility of at least a few games; magazine readers of 1995 may remember the scratch and sniff Earthbound advertisements that did nothing but piss people off--and let's not forget the slogan "this game stinks," built completely around one of Earthbound's minor bosses. Ideas like these had to be fueled by cocaine or at least some mild hallucinogens. Thankfully, everything that was ever aired on TV is now on YouTube, so I can show you Nintendo's tragic mistakes through the power of streaming video. Ain't life grand? Read More... Posted Oct 03 2008, 09:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, advertising, retro, bob mackey, wtfriday, 1990s, play it loud

• WTFriday: Frawless Victory

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. God bless YouTube; if it didn't exist, we'd have to rely on mere text and still images whenever we wanted to feel deep shame over the past.  And since we're on the topic of shame, there's perhaps no better place to look than the early-90s promotional video, a popular product in the field of regret. Today's example, a Street Fighter II promo produced by Capcom USA, is a delightful mix of racism, baditude, and inexplicable motivations. For what better way is there to understand Street Fighter than to let the characters explain it to you themselves (Note: rhetorical question)? Because I have more of a job to do than just link to videos and wait for the mad paychecks to start rolling in, I'll offer up some commentary on each character featured above. Read More... Posted Sep 26 2008, 09:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: youtube, bob mackey, wtfriday, street fighter 2

• WTFriday: The Adventures of Sonichu

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. What is it about Sonic the Hedgehog that naturally includes him in all aberrant online behavior? This is the question we will try to answer today as we explore the mind of a manchild and try not to get lost or sign up for DeviantART accounts.  The manchild in question goes by the hacker alias of "Sonichu;" and for a brief biography, I'll turn to our friends at the Internet's bullying headquarters, Encyclopedia Dramatica: Chris-chan (AKA: Sonichu, CWC, Christian Weston Chandler) is a self-proclaimed 26-year-old "high-functioning autistic" virgin man-child, and creator of his own awesomely drawn series of comics starring his brilliant crossover of Sonic and Pikachu. He is also incredibly arrogant, sexist, homophobic and racist. Despite being a complete loser, his standards for a "potential Sweetheart" are laughably high and specified. He is known to stereotype women, often thinking that they are unable to notice him at the mall because they are "too busy shopping". In case you couldn't tell, the rabbit hole on this one is pretty goddamned deep.  But all you need to know is that some well-meaning fans have transformed his semi-autobiographical stories into a full-fledged multimedia experience, much like how Ken Burns combined banjo music and a few pictures of the civil war and ended up with PBS gold.  Here's the first episode: More unmedicated fun after the cut. Read More... Posted Sep 19 2008, 05:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: sonic the hedgehog, youtube, comics, bob mackey, wtfriday, sonichu

• WTFriday: Are You Bad Enough to Save Pamela Anderson from Colonel Sanders?

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. Why did a long-dead fried chicken salesman kidnap a brain-dead Baywatch star? It has something to do with cruelty--a cruelty far removed from being aware of this premise.  And it in no way involves the trauma of eating grey, veiny chicken, AKA "KFC's original recipe."  This wholly ludicrous story of an undead Southern gent turning to a life of crime comes from Peta's new web game, Super Chick Sisters, which may be a crime itself. The game is an homage to Super Mario Bros. with an activist slant--okay, Mario and Luigi actually appear, so it maybe be a little more than an homage.  After Wii-induced injuries find the two brothers completely incapacitated, the lesser-known female duo of Nugget and Chickette--who are baby chicks--must drop their busy lives to save someone who was reportedly attractive over a decade ago.  Also, there's something in there about saving their tortured chicken bretheren.  I should have paid closer attention. Read More... Posted Sep 12 2008, 05:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: wtfriday, super mario, peta, web games

• WTFriday: 20/20 from 20 Years Ago Copes With Nintendo

  It's always fun to take a trip back in time and see the media's reaction to something new back when it wasn't as innocuous as it is today. Case in point: ABC news magazine 20/20's 1988 investigative piece, "Nuts for Nintendo," where a youngish John Stossel grows unreasonably cranky at the concept of a childlike sense of wonder. Part 1 Part 2 Read More... Posted Sep 05 2008, 03:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, bob mackey, television, wtfriday, super mario 2

• WTFriday: Birdo's Gender Confirmed?

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games get you to laugh at it until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. One of the lingering question in the world of video games for the past 20 years has been "What the hell's up with Birdo?"  He/she has basically been Nintendo's version of It's Pat, bewildering us all, challenging our concepts of gender, and perhaps breaking Yoshi's heart in some depraved reptile version of The Crying Game.  Known as"Catherine" in Japan, I've always assumed that Birdo's biography was a victim of Nintendo's "make shit up" policy when it came to writing manuals.   UNTIL TODAY In case you don't have the 20 year-old booklet immediately available, here's what the US instructions for Super Mario Bros. 2 say about Birdo: "[Birdo] thinks he is a girl and likes to be called Birdetta. He likes to wear a bow on his head and shoot eggs from his mouth." Yet, according to the Super Mario Wiki, the Japanese manual for Super Mario USA (the other Japanese version of the game) says pretty much the same thing.  I'm going to go ahead and trust these people since they wrote 5000 words about Birdo. Read More... Posted Aug 29 2008, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: bob mackey, wtfriday, super mario 2, birdo, gender

• WTFriday: FMV Hell

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games get you to laugh at it until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. On the inaugural edition of WTFriday, I bring you a video I uncovered while doing research for an article about the worst-dressed video game characters. Behold, King's ending from the original Tekken: Read More... Posted Aug 22 2008, 10:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: tekken, bob mackey, cgi, wtfriday