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Episode 11 - (PREVIEW) The Top 10 Was a Lie? (ft. Misty)
42 Plays3 months ago
For a decade and a half, kids could tune into a channel available on basic cable and watch speedrunning video games. Or rather, maybe a few minutes of video games scattered amongst fifteen minutes of movie "reviews", expensive consumer hardware pushing, music previews, and everything that is either a top 5 or top 3, but never a top 10.
Why is it called "Video and Arcade Top 10" then? Listen to find out!
If you like Misty, check her out!
https://cohost.org/Dog
https://bsky.app/profile/cdrom.ca
https://cdrom.ca/
This is a Patreon-exclusive episode. If you wish to listen to it in its entirety, please support us!
https://patreon.com/shawiniganmoments
Shawinigan Moments is written and recorded on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Stó:lō (Stolo), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) first nations in what is otherwise called Vancouver.
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Transcript
Introduction and Patreon Preview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello! Please enjoy this preview of this Patreon-exclusive episode. If you're interested in hearing the episode now, please consider subscribing to us by visiting patreon dot.com-slash-a-winnegan-moments. We aim to have a bonus episode on Canadian-related topics each month, and will use the money we raise to help support the show and our work. Thanks!
Second Amendment in Canada: Historical Context
00:00:20
Speaker
I am a firearms owner, as are many in my family. And unfortunately, the my brothers-in-laws are the sort that have become a little bit Facebook and Fox News brand. And every now and then we'll slip up and start talking about their Second Amendment right. ah So that sort of begs the question, like, we do have a constitution here. What is our Second Amendment to the Constitution?
00:00:49
Speaker
oh It's covered in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, right? you know um I think it's something to do with provinces existing. ah No, the Second Amendment to our Constitution is from 1868, and it's the ratification of the Rupert's Land Act, which transferred all the land that the Hudson's Bay Company ruled over to the gu to the Dominion of Canada. So I, in fact, do enjoy my constitutional rights.
00:01:16
Speaker
my constitutional right to ah go to the Yukon or Alberta and not be under the auspices of the Hudson Bay Company. Keep the Hudson Bay Company's hands off my land. Yeah, exactly. Now,
00:01:34
Speaker
there's The plot thickens mildly because ah there also is another set of constitutional amendments. These proposed by primarily by the provinces, primarily the province of Quebec.
Quebec's 1867 Amendment and Monarch Allegiance
00:01:47
Speaker
And do you know what? I am a huge fan of that second amendment. ah Because in 1867, they deleted the oath of the allegiance to the Canadian monarch from the oath of office in Quebec's National Assembly.
00:02:04
Speaker
yo That's a good amendment. That is a fantastic amendment. I stan our second amendment. Was this as early as 2022? Or as late as 2022 rather? Yes. Holy crap.
00:02:18
Speaker
Yeah, they they started in 2022 and then Saskatchewan First Act of 2023, which we do not stand. Oh, I think I know what you're talking about, the 2023 one. And yeah, um ah as he should have been thrown in jail for much longer for for that DUI charge because he killed somebody.
00:02:37
Speaker
ah The Saskatchewan First Act provides Saskatchewan autonomy with respect to all matters falling under its executive legal jurisdiction, which is ah bullshit. I love this country. Yeah, yeah. All right, you want to start the show? Sure. One, two, three.
00:03:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to this Winnegan Moments podcast. You know, it's Heather and
Guest Introduction and Canadian Content Significance
00:03:04
Speaker
Tamarack. We don't need to introduce ourselves. This is a special Patreon only episode. If you're listening to this, it either means, well, you're a patron or you pirated this or somehow I guess down the road, we decide to unlock it because we can't record an extra episode during whatever time period we're in. But we have a guest. We have a guest.
00:03:28
Speaker
Introduce yourself. Hi, my my name's Misty. I'm not a usual podcast speaker, but I feel it's my national duty to perform for CanCon, what I'm called.
00:03:41
Speaker
And boy, do we ever have a lot to talk about with CanCon on this show, but we can only do them on the bonus episodes because our entire um series or rather show is on a CanCon. It can con it is is qualified as CanCon under the CRTC.
Canadian Upbringing and Territories Invitation
00:03:56
Speaker
But I guess to kind of give you all an idea here, when I say video games, what do you all first think of? I'm mildly poisoned because I still think of the subject of this show.
00:04:14
Speaker
Misty, do you have anything? I just feel like it dates us that it immediately comes to mind. ah Well, growing up, all of elva rather all of us grew up in Canada. I myself grew up in Vancouver. Tamara, I can mean to hear. Misty, where did you grow up? I grew up in Nova Scotia. So we got two two spectrums of the country. We got full coastal coverage.
00:04:39
Speaker
Yeah, well, whole we forgot about the other coast though. Sorry, we have two-thirds coastal coverage.
00:04:47
Speaker
Everybody seems to forget about the Arctic, you know, like we might have that one person that lives up in like, was it Inuvik or Tuktayuktuk or whatever. If you live in any of the territories and want to be a guest, please send, please send us an email at mailbag at shorting at moments.ca. I will, I will, I will personally, like,
00:05:06
Speaker
make certain you can be on the show if i if if you think the vibes are good. I'd be absolutely impressed if you could actually get broadband service up there that's good enough to do a recording like this.
Nostalgic Video Game Shows and Childhood Memories
00:05:18
Speaker
Fine, you could record offline and then just edit over. Could you just imagine just doing a podcast by letter mail, like just sending USB sticks around by Canada Post and saying like, having each bit of the conversation slowly being increased by like numbered WAV files?
00:05:36
Speaker
Or you send a single like, ah not VHS, but ah like ah a recording, a tape recording around. Just keep keep ah keep adding to it. Well, I'm going to go play a little bit of a musical clip here. um Hopefully this doesn't get as dinged by any sort of copyright stuff. I don't think it will, but I'm certain that this is going to jumpstart the memories of many people who grew up watching youth television. So here we go.
00:06:28
Speaker
Welcome to Video Arcade, top 10 the only show out where you get to see the latest and greatest video games on planet earth only on this show where you learn all there is to know about your absolute favorite video games. That's right, that is the opening bit from Video & Arcade Top 10.
YTV History and Canadian Content Regulations
00:06:44
Speaker
It is a TV show that basically had speedwriting on national television. Yes, and I also want to clarify for the audience. Professionally, I am a game developer, and still when video games, like the word, enters my brain, this is where it goes.
00:07:04
Speaker
Now, I watched the show as a kid, but the did the both of you do so as well? I did. Oh, yeah. Yeah, this show definitely was on the air pretty much. I want to say it was on a couple of times a week, but it originally aired on YTV, AKA you've television from September, 1991 to November of 2006 of a grand total of 768 episodes, making it one of the longest running TV shows on English language television in Canada. It's only bested by let's the CBC show front page challenge, which strangely enough, I think I made an appearance on when I was nine years old.
00:07:41
Speaker
Oh, wow. Yeah. If anyone is like trying to remember what this TV show is, if they're of a certain age, they'll remember it. It didn't last much longer when um the last host was on, which was um Jack Webster. And if you know who Jack Webster is, you definitely grew up in British Columbia. um True. Early claim to fame there. Yes.
00:08:01
Speaker
I actually got to meet Robert Munch on that show. So that was oh uncle cool. Yeah, that's why I have a huge affinity for Robert Munch. The premise of the show was to get competitors to get a high score or the furthest in a video game during the course of a half hour or rather during the course of a half of the show.
00:08:16
Speaker
since they often would show two games. And for the first season, it was hosted by YTV personality or PJ Gordon Michael Woolvitt. And he's most notable for his starring role in the syndicated TV show Andromeda alongside the likes of the Mel Gibson defending Christian film producer Kevin Sorbo. We do not stand. Yeah, and definitely don't stand.
00:08:37
Speaker
I liked Andromeda. It wasn't that bad of a show, but it's tainted by Kevin Sorbo. I was trying to find out if ah if like PJ Gourd was on anything else, but i couldn't I couldn't find anything. He's an acting school teacher these days. We're going to talk about him, though. really Yeah, all the subsequent seasons were hosted by Nicholas Pickles, which is in fact his real name. um But we'll get to that in a bit. For those of you who are not familiar with YTV, it first aired in Canada on September 1, 1988, originally owned by Rogers Entertainment on his first day hosted in special by John Candy.
00:09:13
Speaker
so I think it had a live broadcast, which was not like live broadcast on YTVs existed when they had the zone, although um they recently got rid of their on air personalities, I think about two years ago. So like YTV is definitely a shell of itself. But and for Americans that makes sense. why there was like such a component of like the like you had like the cutaways to the PJs and like a lot of times they would kind of simulate like a larger studio or I think they even had like some either fake or real audience for some of the segments.
00:09:45
Speaker
So that makes sense. We're going to be talking about the audience in this show because it kind of shows like the decline of the series over time. um I have two
Video Game Shows: Formats and Media Depiction
00:09:53
Speaker
audio clips I'm really interested in playing for you both. Potential future subject, the television game show, uh oh, also has a similar thing. Well that would be so much fun to talk about.
00:10:04
Speaker
So Americans, if you're not familiar your fear is still a bit lost on what YTV is, um just think of Nickelodeon. YTV was Canada's answer to Nickelodeon. And the main reason why it existed is because Nickelodeon could not exist in its current form or its contemporary form in 1991 due to rules enforced by the Canadian Radio Telecommunications Commission or the CRTC.
00:10:26
Speaker
which ensured that Canadian content had a share of broadcast, ah radio, cable, TV, that sort of thing. Some of the rules included that because YTV ended up having a lot of Canadian content, because 60% of it had to be made in Canada, although ah in 2010, after review, it was lower to 55%. I imagine this was some sort of Harper decision.
00:10:46
Speaker
The other thing is that to qualify as made in Canada, it had to include like a producer who was a resident or a citizen of the country. Certain quotas for cast members and screenwriters all have to be Canadian. and And other things included like rules within productions had to be credited to Canadians. So like producer and production manager. If you as an American have ever wondered why there are so many Canadians in like television and ah like TV animation in particular, this is why.
00:11:16
Speaker
Yeah, and as a result, that's also why 75% of production and post-production has to be done in Canada. There's a lot of television made in Canada and it's largely because we have these rules in place because there's a fear of being too Americanized or whatever. Which in our in our open ah in our cold open has not been working so great.
00:11:39
Speaker
So what we're gonna do is we're gonna dive right in and let's you gave me a sec you gave me an audio clip and I might just use it for each part. Yeah, that was the point. Okay, well, let's do this.
00:11:56
Speaker
All right, so you're welcome. I have selected, god damn it, selected four episodes for us to watch. And I feel like they all demonstrate the sort of change in the show and all that. And I wanted to start off with what was labeled as episode one, but I suspect is probably later into the series because they had things like letters and everything being read on air. But let's start this off here. So we're introduced to all the kids, every kid gets introduced. And we also are like told, like, what are the prizes being given out? Like, ah we got a consolation prize given out to the kids that the game handler, have you all seen the game handler?
00:12:38
Speaker
The game handler? Yeah. Game handler. It's for the NES. It's it's like a one handed controller. Let me I'll drop this in the chat here. I didn't realize here. Here's an eBay listing for it. Oh, this thing. Oh, huh. Yes. So it's a weird plug.
00:12:55
Speaker
I'm sorry, what? It's got like this double-ended plug thing on the bottom. Oh, I see. to with throw throat off by that' stage that was That was not how I interpret that either.
00:13:09
Speaker
it's like right that okay Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. tim Yeah, so this is the controller. It's very strange looking. This is this is one of the prizes. And this is one of the things the kids aren't playing for money. They are playing for they're playing for an opportunity to get something from the prize wall. And often they would have all sorts of weird prizes. And in this episode, we're playing Battle Clash SS six. And of course, I have purposely spelt it wrong because it's spelt wrong in the episode.
00:13:40
Speaker
So the SS6 stands for the Superscope 6. Which I had. You had a superscope? I had a superscope.
00:13:51
Speaker
like what if you yeah it's uh okay the super scope is like the highest quality of the light guns of that era in the worst form factor fair enough bizarrely pinpoint precision on that sucker like it it was it was a really good system it just uh was unfortunate that it was in that form as a light gun oh it would have been wow perfect So we I didn't make mention of the video game, but do you know how long it took for them to start playing any video games on the on this 24 minute episode? ah It was like at the screaming end. No, no, it was four minutes in. So four minutes in, we're finally seeing some people play video games. So they they spent the first four minutes just talking about who are the kids are. So that took about a minute. And then they introduced the game handler. And then finally, after that period of time, we
00:14:44
Speaker
get to see some video game action. ah Yeah. ah Sorry. This was the, this was the one that I watched like way back and didn't, didn't rewatch the night before. I liked that they spent a bunch of time on the game handler, but they don't, if they don't really spend a lot of time introducing the other weird controller that they're using. the super They're just like, here you go kids. Fucking figure it out. yeah Here's a gun, use it on TV. Yeah. The, the interesting thing is, is that we lasted about one minute.
00:15:13
Speaker
And then we have, it we go to Nicholas, Nicholas pickles, talking about a video game tip. Yes. And that segment lasts a little over a minute. Yeah, this sort of is like a, it's like a recurring segment that kind of becomes more topical where they like just cut away and talk about a tip. It's sometimes not even for the game that is being featured. I think actually oftentimes not even a game that's featured. and I didn't note the game, but what was the game tip? Super Mario Land, something about it. Did any of you play Mario Land? I did. Yeah, I played Mario Land.
00:15:50
Speaker
I got my Game Boy too late. I had a Game Boy Color, so it was just a Pokémon machine. And still is. I didn't have my own copy, but it was one of those ones where, you know, you'd be trading cartridges with friends on the bus somewhere, play a friend's copy. I didn't get Mario Land until like 1995, and I probably played through that game like a million times. I just heard somebody's Game Boy going. Me! ah God damn it. I keep it right here.
00:16:18
Speaker
Of course you do. I have a living Pokedex on Pokemon Red and Blue. Oh dear. So we go back to the game action and Lisa is asking Gord about how to beat the game. And what's interesting is these two have really awkward chemistry. So awkward. It is awkward. and And the main reason why it's awkward is because the two of them ended up starring in Andromeda later.
00:16:39
Speaker
Interesting that they both have two distinctly very high quality genders, though, so i'm I'm willing to let it pass. And then finally, after another minute of them talking about how to beat the game, we go to talking about the Pioneer Laserdisc karaoke system. Yes.
Laserdisc Technology in 90s Media Culture
00:16:57
Speaker
Misty, tell us about this. Yeah, so Later Disc was the high end video format of the 90s. It didn't hugely take off in North America, but partly just because it was expensive to get the players. So it was for people who had a lot of money or who really cared about stuff. But karaoke was where it was really big. A lot of people who bothered getting Later Disc at all did it because the really good karaoke was on there. Did they have like a data like a data layer on there that they're able to like put the lyrics on the tracks? Is that kind of why? So it's like it had multiple audio tracks, up to four audio tracks, up to four mono audio tracks or two stereo tracks on one disc. So you can switch between versions with lyrics or versions without or you can have, you know,
00:17:53
Speaker
mix the audio level or what have you as you're playing kind of thing, which is something you couldn't really do on VHS. ah Okay, cool. Yeah. So Lisa's gonna go over the laser discs that were in the top five. I didn't make a clip of this, but I will play a clip in the next for the next episode. But here are the top five movies starting in descending order. White man can't jump. Wayne's world, the hand that rocks the cradle, the lawnmower man,
00:18:22
Speaker
and fried green tomatoes. I'm fascinated by these choices. i do i i admit I like I need to know who picks these because they do they do game ah like rankings as well. And like, ah where do these come from? Who decides these? Well, here's like the the age age rating for the like the show itself. It's clearly you targeted at what ages seven to twelve. Yeah, I'm going to make this worse for you all because I posted about this on co-hosts org um about a year and a half ago.
00:18:57
Speaker
and it reflects the movies but like white men can't jump as rated R yeah and so is lawnmower man i think also i'm sure you have this in the script but top five top five well we're gonna be talking about why it's top 10
00:19:16
Speaker
You're going to notice a pattern as we go through this episode about why or rather there's like no top 10 at any point in this show. No. And like the video games aren't a top 10 aren't a top five either. So it's not like they sum together to be a top 10.
00:19:33
Speaker
So here's our james's our trivia question for, uh, so you can win like a laser disc or something. What TV show did Wayne's world premiere on? I have no fucking idea. And better data i like yeah, Misty got it right. You know, a show meant for children who stay up until 11 30 watching global.
00:19:53
Speaker
Yeah, no laserdisc for me, which I think is honestly a blessing because like, okay, you get the player, but the discs themselves are really expensive and chances are your parents have only VHSs.
00:20:06
Speaker
Misty, what's the MSRP on the Pioneer Laserdisc player or or any of these movies? And these higher end players would definitely be in the hundreds and hundreds of dollars. These weren't going to be cheap and the movies were probably going to be like, what, $80? I mean, you that buying VHS was expensive at the time, but most people were renting most of their movies.
00:20:29
Speaker
and he Anyway, in most video stores, we're renting VHS. You had fewer options for renting something else, so it's... I don't know. i I'm sure they were just being sponsored by Pioneer to get the stuff out there. but oh they were Oh, you are correct. like Why did Pioneer think this was the option to get these extremely expensive players and movies for adults in front of an audience of mostly young children?
00:21:02
Speaker
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