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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2021 16:10:23 GMT -5
I thought of this question because the example I'm going to post was on TV - I am interested in appearances of video games within TV and film. I can think of a bunch of examples - usually with scenes set in arcades with the games being visible in the background, but I need to keep this brief for the time being so I'll just post the one. So the one I saw today is an episode of Friends with a story built around Ms Pac Man with some of the characters trying to get high scores. Generally the games aren't featured in the story this way so I thought it was an interesting appearance. Can you guys think of any other examples?
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Post by dsparil on Oct 21, 2021 16:58:32 GMT -5
The absolutely classic episode of Seinfeld, The Frogger! George is trying to save the cabinet that has his ridiculously high Frogger score. I think it was so high it would have been the world record at the time.
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Post by chronotigger65 on Oct 21, 2021 20:33:34 GMT -5
The absolutely classic episode of Seinfeld, The Frogger! George is trying to save the cabinet that has his ridiculously high Frogger score. I think it was so high it would have been the world record at the time. Man, that had to be hilarious. I remember a episode of Rosanna that dealt with the youngest son of the family wanting a SNES for his birthday. They went and got it for him but than the kids Grandma (Rosanna's mother to be exact,) went and got it for him before his birthday. I don't think they showed any games but may have had some sound effects from Pac-man Atari 2600 that they played back then in shows to simulate game play on various shows. Another one I remember was from the movie Charlie's Angels. I've never seen the movie but in a commercial there was a scene showing two kids playing video games together but the thing is the game their playing was Final Fantasy 8 which didn't have the means to play two players simultaneously.
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Post by windfisch on Oct 22, 2021 7:20:39 GMT -5
Damn it, excelsior! I've been meaning to do a video game based movies thread forever, covering all kinds, like movies/shows based on the basic game concepts of games, like game-like rules, visual language etc (e.g. Tron) or those directly based on characters/worlds from specific games (e.g. Street Fighter The Movie). Game cameos would've been a sub-category. But it's great that someone less afraid of commitment is finally doing something about it. Having rewatched Tron recently, I think it's about time for me to act, too. I just need a little bit of free time... Anyway, one example I can think of is a movie called Captain Fantastic. It's about a family living in the woods, the children being self-taught by their parents. They only use little to no modern technology and have very limited contact to civilization. At one point they visit the father's brother's or sister's family (I can't quite recall). And the kids living there show their cousins Killer Instinct (the Xbox version). It's a brief scene, I think we just get a glimpse of an reaction shot showing the "outsider" kids staring at the screen. But it works really well in the context of what we've seen before, effectively contrasting the vastly different life-styles of the two families. Imagine living without aynthing even resembling a TV and suddenly being introduced to digital werewolves beating the crap out of robots, while a voice is yelling "Combo Breaker!" It's a good movie, btw. And that Seinfeld episode is just classic.
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Post by windfisch on Oct 22, 2021 8:07:18 GMT -5
You're not stepping on my fins - I'm glad this kind of thread is here at all.
What I did have in mind was an introductory text, giving several examples of what I think could be regarded as a "video game movie/show". I'd be intertested in the most beloved, most hated and most in-betweened cases, optionally with a rating (so we could settle the question of best/worst game-movie once and for all). I'd keep it open for interpretation, though: Anything one could make a case for being "video game-like" would be fine by me: Groundhog Day (because it's similar to a video game loop)? Why not. Star Trek holodec episodes? You bet.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2021 8:31:16 GMT -5
OK guys, this thread will be amended in due course to incorporate windfisch's overarching topic, but for the time being please feel free to post about video game appearances as per the original post.
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Oct 22, 2021 12:00:03 GMT -5
In sweden there used to be a morning show where you could call in and play a dubbed version of Hugo on your keypad phone. Dunno how popular that was outside of certain european countries. You could also buy this game so I think some had more practice than others! www.youtube.com/watch?v=doCFB-LNpE0Starts at 1:25. *beeeep* I think the The Wizard movie with SMB3 was the first one I ever saw. This sort of thing doesn't seem quite as special anymore since streaming/video sites and games becoming mainstream blurred the lines between the mediums.
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Post by spanky on Oct 22, 2021 13:01:14 GMT -5
Here's a bit of an obscure one.
Did anyone watching Nickelodeon in the mid 90's remember a show called U 2 U? It played frequently on Sunday afternoons which was a pretty dreadful time to be watching Nick - it's almost like they were trying to tell you to get off your butt and go outside.
To be honest... I don't really remember what exactly the show was about. I think the show about communication? Viewers would send in letters and emails and shit and they would read them and do videos. It was really boring for the most part though I might enjoy it nowadays in a "90's time capsule" sort of way.
Because I was a video game obsessed freak as a child I do remember two game related segments.
One was a segment where a kid sent in some of his video game designs for something called Bouncy Boy to Nickelodeon and they made a "video game" out of it. I don't think the game exists in any form - the footage looks like a proof of concept animation for a very basic arcade style platformer. It looks like a relative of the kid uploaded the segment to Youtube.
The second segment involved Egghead Shred, which was a tech demo developed by Paradigm Simulations (the same people who did Pilotwings 64). It's a skiing game starring Humpty Dumpty with a spiked mowhawk. I can't find the segment online but they had the audience play the game by waving these wands at the monitor in the studio. If the wands faced one way, the character would steer right, if they faced the other way, it would steer left in sort of a demo of analog controls. I remember thinking it was pretty neat. Here's a video of the game itself.
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Post by alexmate on Oct 22, 2021 13:22:23 GMT -5
In sweden there used to be a morning show where you could call in and play a dubbed version of Hugo on your keypad phone. Dunno how popular that was outside of certain european countries. You could also buy this game so I think some had more practice than others! www.youtube.com/watch?v=doCFB-LNpE0Starts at 1:25. *beeeep* I think the The Wizard movie with SMB3 was the first one I ever saw. This sort of thing doesn't seem quite as special anymore since streaming/video sites and games becoming mainstream blurred the lines between the mediums. I saw Hugo cartoons when I was on holiday in France in the 90s. In the UK we had that keypad phone in thing around the mid-90s on Saturday morning TV. At first it was a generic game like a man walking around a maze dodging obstacles, but I think later it did feature Hugo. It was weird because I already knew the character before most people in England.
The film Enemy of the State with Will Smith and Gene Hackman features rare handheld PC Engine Express for some reason as part of the plot. Why not a GameBoy?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2021 14:07:00 GMT -5
The film Enemy of the State with Will Smith and Gene Hackman features rare handheld PC Engine Express for some reason as part of the plot. Why not a GameBoy?
Because PCE Turbo Express is better?
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Post by alexmate on Oct 22, 2021 14:13:57 GMT -5
The film Enemy of the State with Will Smith and Gene Hackman features rare handheld PC Engine Express for some reason as part of the plot. Why not a GameBoy?
Because PCE Turbo Express is better? It sure is. But it would have been a dead portable by the time the film came out even in Japan; it was also Hen's Teeth to get in the West.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Oct 22, 2021 15:27:20 GMT -5
First one I thought of was Frogger in Seinfeld as well. Shouldn't his high score be gone if he unplugs it though? The one that's been driving me insane since I saw this movie last spring is Shopping (1994), in which a handheld appears with some game (Crazy Cars according to some online sources?). I can't figure out what the handheld is (it's not a Game Gear is it?) Other ones from the top of my head are Mario Kart (and some other) references in this scene from Workaholics: Also, a scene in Searching (2018) in which a character gets asked what her favorite Pokémon is, and truly gives the most random answer that made me laugh out loud: Uxie. At least they put in the time to pick something unique that an actual Pokémon fan would know instead of just going for a super well known one. Can't find that scene anywhere online. Can't remember the specific episodes, but Ray and Debra's kids are pretty spoiled in Everybody Loves Raymond: they have an N64 AND a PS1.
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Post by condroid on Oct 22, 2021 15:33:43 GMT -5
In sweden there used to be a morning show where you could call in and play a dubbed version of Hugo on your keypad phone. Dunno how popular that was outside of certain european countries. You could also buy this game so I think some had more practice than others! There used to be a German TV Show called Telespiele that did the same thing back in the 70s. It ran from '77 to '81 and mostly featured contemporary Arcade and VCS games. This is an episode from 1981, the first game is Sky Diver but does anybody know what they are playing at around 24:00? Must be some kind of arcade machine and looks pretty advanced for a game from that year:
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Oct 22, 2021 15:36:55 GMT -5
Nice, that's gotta be one of the first. Don't know the game sadly.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2021 16:01:32 GMT -5
That's awesome. I love the fact that the car structure rotates as they turn the steering wheel - just like a real car! Can't remember the specific episodes, but Ray and Debra's kids are pretty spoiled in Everybody Loves Raymond: they have an N64 AND a PS1. What are you trying to say about me??? I don't think they actually showed any onscreen games in that show, but did show them using the consoles like you say - though I remember it being the adult characters actually doing the playing. What I find really noticeable in scenes like this is that you can easily spot which actors have played a video game and who hasn't based on the way they hold the controllers and how they push the buttons.
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