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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Elizabeth Dutton's Saren, I was just talking to the

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Speaker 2: decembrist about you.

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Speaker 3: Were you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they wanted me to ask you something. Oh my

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Speaker 2: gosh what the whole band wanted to know this? He said,

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Speaker 2: do you think Elizabeth knows? I don't know, but I'll

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Speaker 2: ask her. They're like, okay, ask her. And the question

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Speaker 2: was this, do you know what's ridiculous? I do?

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Speaker 3: Could tell him I do.

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Speaker 2: Will let me get my phone people.

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Speaker 3: Hellos, Uh, this is what's ridiculous.

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Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna report back.

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Speaker 3: It's something that we've gotten a lot, a lot, a

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Speaker 3: lot a lot of mail about. Oh really, oh yeah,

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Speaker 3: oh buddy. And it's it's something that you will absolutely

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Speaker 3: love and something you could probably use right now. Okay,

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Speaker 3: because you you are getting over a cold.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I've been. Yes, both of us are getting over.

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Speaker 3: I'm getting over a cold, which I kind of feel

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Speaker 3: like I'm always getting over.

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Speaker 2: This is the worst cold I've had since I was

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Speaker 2: a kid. Oh really, Oh my god, it's kicking my

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Speaker 2: Oh my god. I got it from a kid. It's

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Speaker 2: a kid's called oh you did, And it's just kicking

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Speaker 2: the playground, like yes, I have remote controlled planes, and

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Speaker 2: I was like hey, and then I let them once

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Speaker 2: one kid because I'm like, yeah, you can play a

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Speaker 2: flag fir second, get back.

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Speaker 3: Now I got to wipes his nose and then hands.

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Speaker 3: That's not how it happened, Sure it is. So anyway,

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Speaker 3: have you been using a lot of cough drops?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Definitely, Like yeah, I don't ast say brands, I don't.

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Speaker 3: What's your favorite flavor?

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Speaker 2: Cherry cherry cough drops?

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Speaker 3: Have you ever tried chicken soup cough drops? I can't

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Speaker 3: help it.

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Speaker 2: Dude, I thought we were having a real conversation. Was

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Speaker 2: so you drew me so far in taking advantage of me.

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Speaker 3: That is why CEO of I Heart Admiral iHeart hired

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Speaker 3: me to do this, to do these mashups. iHeart Progresso

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Speaker 3: teamed up with I don't know progress, some factory to

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Speaker 3: make Progresso soup drops.

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Speaker 2: I'm listening and there.

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Speaker 3: Are cough drops that taste like chicken soup, and.

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Speaker 2: That tastes like and when you're sick. People like that.

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Speaker 3: So this is like, well, what if I'm on the

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Speaker 3: bus and I can't I can't have a pocket. I

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Speaker 3: don't know. So the Taste of Home you have.

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Speaker 2: A gummy bear that tastes like carpet.

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Speaker 3: I mean, why not Taste of all? I don't know

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Speaker 3: if you're familiar with this publication.

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Speaker 2: Taste of Home. That's her publications report on the.

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Speaker 3: Soup industry very Middle America in the South. There's a

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Speaker 3: lot like really like it's a website. But they also

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Speaker 3: I feel like they have like a cookbook series, like

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Speaker 3: there's gardening guns magazines. Garden guns pretty great anyway, Taste

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Speaker 3: of Home the Brave Alison Robt Shelley and Taste of

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Speaker 3: Home of her isn't she great?

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Speaker 2: She just wrote a piece do you produce your Do

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Speaker 2: you live in a world I don't even know about?

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Speaker 3: Well, you join us up here in the clouds. She

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Speaker 3: wrote a piece about this is what the internet famous

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Speaker 3: progressive soup drops really taste like? And not good?

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Speaker 2: Bob shocking? How did?

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Speaker 3: She said? I wish I could tell you the drops

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Speaker 3: tasted like a cup of homemade chicken. And then of

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Speaker 3: course people you can click through to their their recipe

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Speaker 3: for it. But the drops don't taste like souper, even

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Speaker 3: like chicken. She said, Now this is where this I

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Speaker 3: think you'll like this. The only flavor I have confidence

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Speaker 3: in naming is quote, crushed black pepper from a spice

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Speaker 3: rack that was manufactured in nineteen comes through.

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Speaker 2: You're a big pepper pepper.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, very strong.

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Speaker 2: It's a it's a hey, I'm here kind of flavor.

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Speaker 3: So it's it's basically like it's isomol. It's a hard candy,

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Speaker 3: but it's got it just looks like anyway, if you

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Speaker 3: go to progressovesoup drops dot com, they should be paying

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Speaker 3: for me for this hello, but they're not. They're out.

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Speaker 3: They're sold out, but apparently they're going to drop more.

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Speaker 2: Who are all these jokers who buy these and they

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Speaker 2: give them gifts?

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Speaker 3: You get you get twenty individual drops in a mini

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Speaker 3: soup can and then a full size can of chicken

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Speaker 3: noodle soup, so you can have an immediate comparison of

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Speaker 3: oh no, that doesn't taste the same to forty nine

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Speaker 3: plus ship.

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Speaker 2: I don't understand this is all right?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, but you know what I'm goofing off.

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Speaker 2: Yes you are. I'm proud of you that I'm not.

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Speaker 3: Dark honoring the solemnity of our ridiculous stories. Right now,

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Speaker 3: this is too goofy.

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Speaker 2: You're creating and saving space.

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Speaker 3: I want to I want to honor the solemnity of

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Speaker 3: ridiculous stories. So that's ridiculous, ridiculous done, that's ridiculous, Elizabeth.

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Speaker 2: Please tell me, please, like I got something. Please, this

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Speaker 2: is really ridiculous. I swear to goodness America, Land of

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Speaker 2: the Free, home of the brave, and I mean absolutely

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Speaker 2: shaken to its core by what, Elizabeth, the appearance of

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Speaker 2: the sudden and surprising threat that was man.

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Speaker 4: Oh, this is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and

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Speaker 4: outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's all weighs ninety nine

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Speaker 4: percent murder free and one under the ridiculous.

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Speaker 2: Totally they count, right, Elizabeth.

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Speaker 3: Moral panics, I love them.

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Speaker 2: Right, we talked about him before. I told you about

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Speaker 2: Senator Estes Favo and his mid century fight against comic books.

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Speaker 3: Right. Remember, I'm still I have no idea how his

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Speaker 3: names spelt.

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Speaker 2: It's basically spelled like that. It's real close to that. Well,

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Speaker 2: you're ready to hear about the United States versus pac Man.

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Speaker 3: Please?

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Speaker 2: What does it take to drive a moral panic? I'm

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Speaker 2: so glad you asked.

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Speaker 3: I'm just a gog.

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Speaker 2: For One, you need an existential threat, right, preferably one

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Speaker 2: that's mostly imagined. Those work best, and then they can

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Speaker 2: be as big as you want, as scary as you want,

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Speaker 2: as perfect Kitchcock would have loved it. Two, you need

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Speaker 2: some moral scolds to get all hot and bothered and

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Speaker 2: worked up and about it, right.

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Speaker 3: My favorite.

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Speaker 2: Three, you need the media to play along. They need

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Speaker 2: to do this because it helps them sell papers or

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Speaker 2: push ads at their viewers, their listeners, whatever. Right. But

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Speaker 2: the folks in the media typically they don't actually believe

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Speaker 2: in the moral panic they report on so breathlessly, but

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Speaker 2: they have to do it so breathlessly because that way

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Speaker 2: it convinces their you know it's serious, yes, because they

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Speaker 2: are the they impute gravitas.

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Speaker 5: Yea.

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Speaker 2: You know the whole question, why isn't anyone reporting on this? Well,

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Speaker 2: when the media is reporting on something, it makes it important,

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Speaker 2: so they know that, and yet they kind of like

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Speaker 2: forget it sometimes, or at least, you know, they're willing

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Speaker 2: to trade that for clicks or whatever.

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Speaker 3: You get the idea, because.

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Speaker 2: That's how you can get the panic going. They're like, oh,

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Speaker 2: we're reporting on it, it's serious now, pac Man. How

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Speaker 2: did that make our nation lose its ever loving mind.

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Speaker 2: Great question, Elizabeth, thank you, because we're so good at

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Speaker 2: losing our minds, like we love a moral penn.

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Speaker 3: Oh sure.

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Speaker 2: Now, before video games, there was already an adjacent lifestyle

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Speaker 2: that America wanted to believe it had finally shaken out

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Speaker 2: of its system. What was that lifestyle? Yeah, great question?

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Speaker 2: Is game this morning? It starts with a p and

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Speaker 2: it ends with a ball. That's right. Pinball. Pinball was

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Speaker 2: basically invented in nineteen thirty one. It is a coin

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Speaker 2: operated game.

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Speaker 3: I love pinball.

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Speaker 2: Great game, great game, comeback time.

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Speaker 3: Since I've played?

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Speaker 2: Really, how long you think?

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Speaker 3: I don't know, fifty sixty years?

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Speaker 2: Damn you should get back too. And I got some

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Speaker 2: quarters all, I'll lend you a couple. It didn't take

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Speaker 2: even a full decade before there was a moral panic

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Speaker 2: about pinball. It's starting. In nineteen thirty nine, city leaders

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Speaker 2: outlawed pinball in the City of Angels. Really, this ban

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Speaker 2: in LA lasted for decades. It was never actually technically repealed.

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Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy four, the California Supreme Court overturned the

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Speaker 2: pinball ban. Oh really, okay, Now, what was the result. Well,

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Speaker 2: Pinball comes out of the shadows where it had been

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Speaker 2: existing for decades. Now. In nineteen seventy six, two years

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Speaker 2: after that band was overturned, a staff writer at the

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Speaker 2: La Times pens this story about an amusement arcade that's

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Speaker 2: located at the Santa Monica Pier right now. The La

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Speaker 2: Times staff writer colorfully sets the scene by describing how,

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Speaker 2: quote two skinny twelve year old boys with long hair

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Speaker 2: smoke cigarettes manfully as they try to jiggle a pinball

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Speaker 2: machine for a higher score. A little further down the pier, quote,

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Speaker 2: three black hippies and wide brimmed leather hats high on

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Speaker 2: themselves and possibly something more potent, sit down to play

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Speaker 2: chess at the edge of the fiesta auto scooters end quote.

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Speaker 2: This was, like the La Times, a little sad obituary

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Speaker 2: to a bygone era of the amusement arcade.

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Speaker 3: Right, it sounds dreamy, don't really?

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Speaker 2: I totally wanted to visit this crazy Now? Do you

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Speaker 2: mind if I tell you about the demon game pinball? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: Please doo.

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Speaker 2: You might think of it as this harmless game of

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Speaker 2: flippers and steal balls. Often people do, know, Elizabeth, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: this game has a sordid history. The pinball crase starts

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Speaker 2: back in nineteen thirty one's they told you when it

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Speaker 2: first starts, the first coin operated game was called baffle Ball,

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Speaker 2: like baffled baffleball.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, now like media type thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, it's like dampening to Yeah. So they immediately

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Speaker 2: come worrywarts. They just go, oh my god, what is

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Speaker 2: this game the children? So they're terrified about what these

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Speaker 2: new pinball games are doing to the kids. This reaction,

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Speaker 2: it's the same coast to coast. It's not regional, it's everywhere.

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Speaker 2: I told you about the La band over in the

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Speaker 2: East Coast. In January forty two, Mayor of New York

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Speaker 2: Fiarello LaGuardia bands pinball in New York City. LaGuardia called

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Speaker 2: the cities like pinball impresarios, quote slimy cruise of ten horns,

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Speaker 2: well dressed and living in luxury on penny thievery.

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Speaker 3: Was it like they were thinking it was attached to

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Speaker 3: gambling of some.

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Speaker 2: Sort a little bit, but no, interesting, it was just

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Speaker 2: I'll explain that. So he was something of a moral crusader.

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you know about that, Mahira LaGuardia.

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Speaker 2: And so he has a Prohibition era or post Prohibition

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Speaker 2: era as well, mayor of New York, right, so he decides,

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Speaker 2: like we're in forty two. Prohibition's done, but we are

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Speaker 2: in the middle World War two. So he's like, I'm

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Speaker 2: gonna run some Prohibition style raige to you know, rouse

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Speaker 2: people to more like morality or whatever. And just he

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Speaker 2: hits some pinball parlors. So he's going down there, like

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Speaker 2: there are images of the mayor with a sledgehammer in

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Speaker 2: his hand ready to smash the glass tops of pinball machines,

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Speaker 2: and the confiscated pinball machines they get sent to munitions

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Speaker 2: factory so they can use them in the war efforts

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Speaker 2: once again forty two. So in these picks you can

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Speaker 2: tell it's clearly a post prohibition moral crusade energy, let's

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Speaker 2: rouse the people, you know, good for the war effort.

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Speaker 2: But imagine you're like an eight year old kid, some

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Speaker 2: New Yorker. You're hanging out to your local pinball parlor.

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Speaker 2: All of a sudden, you hear the banging on the doors.

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Speaker 2: Axes are splitting through the wood. Next thing you know,

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Speaker 2: you're getting loaded into the back of a police truck.

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Speaker 2: I mean, just imagine Elizabeth the poor kids. Now. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: the municipal bands against pinball all over the place. They

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Speaker 2: become commonplace all through the forties, fifties, sixties, even into

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Speaker 2: the early seventies. Pinball is illegal outlaw band associated with

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Speaker 2: lude and lascivious behavior.

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Speaker 3: Was it banned in Oakland?

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Speaker 2: Yes, totally, I thought I knew that. Do you remember

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Speaker 2: anything about this.

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Speaker 3: I think my brother used to manage a bar where

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Speaker 3: they had a pinball machine and it was still illegal.

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Speaker 2: You're still legally it could have been because a lot

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Speaker 2: of the books in your old state of South Carolina,

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Speaker 2: it's still legal. Pinball for under eighteen illegal, still legal

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Speaker 2: for people. Yeah, not supposed to do it.

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Speaker 3: But it's like in the mid it was like.

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Speaker 2: Twenty twenty fourteen when they lifted a local band.

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Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, that makes that lines up,

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Speaker 3: I guess.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Anyway, the pinball had a certain, as I said,

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Speaker 2: criminal coolness. Because of all this illegality and these bands

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Speaker 2: and so forth. It becomes the leisure sport of bad boys,

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Speaker 2: teen rebels, society's myth and throw. It becomes also this

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Speaker 2: backroom game, something you'd find like in a dive bar,

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Speaker 2: in a Greenwich Village like or Hell's Kitchen.

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Speaker 3: Bar or in Oakland or Oakland, or porn.

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Speaker 2: Shop in Times Square. You know, right back in Times

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Speaker 2: Square was gritty. This was when Time Square is gretty.

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Speaker 3: Pinball machines, corn store.

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Speaker 2: Totally, all those any adult bookstores that you'd say a

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Speaker 2: pinball machine, like, hey, I want to play the thirty game, right,

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Speaker 2: So pinball becomes synonymous with greaser rebels like Marlon Brando

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Speaker 2: in the movie The Wild One, he's a pinball player.

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Speaker 2: Same thing for the Fawns on Happy Days, like that's

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Speaker 2: why the Fawns is next with a pinball game. It's

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Speaker 2: supposed to show you he's like a bad boy totally,

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Speaker 2: and he's got the magic touch, like a he's the

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Speaker 2: bad boy's bad boy man.

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Speaker 3: He can make the machine h Winkler.

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Speaker 2: And you're right about the pinball Wizard, Tommy the Who,

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Speaker 2: their big rock opera that's in sixty nine though, so

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Speaker 2: that's more towards the end of this era. So but

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Speaker 2: it is still why it was a risky thing and

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Speaker 2: why it had this edge that they could ride and

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Speaker 2: make it like future cool or whatever they did with it.

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Speaker 2: Now back to New York City, LaGuardia. He's got his

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Speaker 2: band against pinball. It lasts until nineteen seventy six, which

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Speaker 2: is the same year Chicago repeals its band. Your hometown

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Speaker 2: of Oakland has its pinball band because of seventy four,

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Speaker 2: because of California. But then they have individual stuff about games.

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Speaker 2: You'll get into that in a second. So on the

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Speaker 2: California Supreme Court overruled it. It was for the whole state.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't just LA's band.

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Speaker 3: Okay.

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Speaker 2: Now, following this reversal on the ban of pinball, La Times,

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Speaker 2: as they told you, they're reporting on this, they're finding

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Speaker 2: kind of cute. I found another story where they go

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Speaker 2: up to Hollywood Boulevard and they find teenage runaways and

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Speaker 2: underage male hustlers gathered in pinball parlors on Hollywood Boulevard

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Speaker 2: because it's still part of the CD part of Hollywood.

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Speaker 2: They're here's here's what pinball is doing.

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Speaker 3: You're taking like these this kind of escapist thing that

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Speaker 3: people who don't have much else as a means escape

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Speaker 3: isn't Yes, it's like they're a very who you know.

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Speaker 2: Living on the end is the game. You get a player,

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Speaker 2: you're still a kid, or you're.

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Speaker 3: An eight year old the middle of World War Two,

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Speaker 3: and you're just like, there's this swirl of uncertainty that

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Speaker 3: you live in.

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Speaker 2: Let them play them, let them hit the flippers, right,

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Speaker 2: come on. Ibout Another La Times article about that same time,

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Speaker 2: late seventies. It was quoted from a Beverly Hills real

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Speaker 2: estate developer who was in court to testify against a

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Speaker 2: fortune teller that was doing business in his tony neighborhood

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Speaker 2: and he wanted them out amazing, right, So he's testifying,

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Speaker 2: he compares the fortune teller to pinball to disparage the

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Speaker 2: fortune teller, he testified, and I quote amusement like centers

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Speaker 2: such as fortune telling stores, massage parlors, and pinball arcades

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Speaker 2: would seriously lower property values than Beverly Hills. He lumps

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Speaker 2: them all together like these degenerates. Now, even those cities

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Speaker 2: were reversing their bands on pinball in the mid seventies. Clearly,

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Speaker 2: there was still plenty of fear mongering about pinball, especially

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Speaker 2: in the suburbs where people still had spent now two

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Speaker 2: decades basically fleeing from the cities, and everything that they

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Speaker 2: feared was going to was failing. It was going direct

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Speaker 2: and lead to moral ruin. So the suburbs, as I said,

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Speaker 2: they feared those cities moral rot so they now believe

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Speaker 2: that stuff's coming to infect the kids. This includes now

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Speaker 2: legal pinball, so they're like, we're gonna have to do

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Speaker 2: this on our own. So they'd come up with vagrancy

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Speaker 2: laws to keep pinball parlors at in arcades from setting

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Speaker 2: up shop on the suburbs. Right, But the game still

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Speaker 2: came Elizabeth because you couldn't say no to profit. No

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00:14:54,520 --> 00:14:57,400
Speaker 2: pinball threat. It can't be stopped. It spreads from the

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Speaker 2: back of the dive bars, the massage parlors, whole bookstars

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Speaker 2: and porn theaters, the dark pool halls and forgotten amusement

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Speaker 2: park like piers, and soon pinball shows up in shopping

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Speaker 2: malls of the suburbs. Right, pizza parlors newly opened arcades.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, arcades, pizza parlor.

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Speaker 2: That's the US in nineteen seventy six, God bless them.

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Speaker 2: At this point, we're seven years past nineteen sixty nine

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Speaker 2: when you said the who dropped their pinball themed rock

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Speaker 2: oper Tommy. So it's kind of cresting a new zenith,

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Speaker 2: if you will. There's a new energy to it. It's

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Speaker 2: not such a dark greaser sport. Yeah, but at this point,

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Speaker 2: also in nineteen seventy six, pinball machines were moving out

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Speaker 2: of the dark and CD pass the future comes a calling,

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Speaker 2: because that's just how it goes, and sometimes technology changes everything, Elizabeth, Right,

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Speaker 2: when American culture thought the nation's kids might finally be safe, boom,

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Speaker 2: here comes video games. You better believe America loses it's

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Speaker 2: ever loving mind all over again. Now, quick question, if

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Speaker 2: you had to name one person who would you would

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Speaker 2: say is to blame for the video games that came

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Speaker 2: to rot the minds of American youth? Do you name

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Speaker 2: that person?

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00:16:01,160 --> 00:16:02,320
Speaker 3: One person responsible?

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Speaker 2: One person and one person is very famously you people

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00:16:05,480 --> 00:16:08,120
Speaker 2: point out and go, that's that's the guy. He's the one,

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Speaker 2: your honor.

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Speaker 3: I think it was definitely.

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Speaker 2: It's a tough question. I didn't know the answer before

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Speaker 2: I researched this.

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Speaker 3: It's uh, Lieutenant General Nintendo very close, Joe Asuzu both yes,

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Speaker 3: you two lea.

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00:16:22,760 --> 00:16:24,640
Speaker 2: All right, let's take a break. I'll let you guys

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Speaker 2: google the answer, and then we come back. I'll tell

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Speaker 2: you the answer. Elizabeth Zaren, did you google the answer?

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00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:50,240
Speaker 3: No?

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Speaker 2: Okay, his name.

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Speaker 3: Been sitting here is staring at the wall.

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Speaker 2: Nolan Rotten bush Bush No, Nolan bush Noll.

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Speaker 3: Nolan Bushnell like of Bushnell Binoci.

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Speaker 2: I don't know, but I actually did not. That was

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00:17:03,600 --> 00:17:06,439
Speaker 2: not in anything I read. So maybe his family had

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00:17:06,480 --> 00:17:07,679
Speaker 2: something to do with that. I don't know.

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Speaker 3: Very Zaren question.

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00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:12,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was good. So he's the American businessman who started.

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00:17:12,520 --> 00:17:15,400
Speaker 3: Not Zaren question would be like, oh, well, how old

361
00:17:15,520 --> 00:17:17,320
Speaker 3: was he in nineteen fifty six?

362
00:17:17,359 --> 00:17:20,080
Speaker 2: Because I can't do math, That's why I ask those questions.

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Speaker 3: So was he someone who preferred you know, editions or geez?

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00:17:24,200 --> 00:17:27,520
Speaker 3: I don't know, man, what kind of researcher are you?

365
00:17:27,600 --> 00:17:29,679
Speaker 2: I don't know. Did you ever consider looking up his

366
00:17:29,680 --> 00:17:33,440
Speaker 2: pants preference? So? Noan Bush. Now he's an American businessman.

367
00:17:33,480 --> 00:17:37,000
Speaker 2: He started not one, but two great video game institutions,

368
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Speaker 2: the Atari Company and Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theater.

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Speaker 3: Charles Entertainment Cheese.

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00:17:42,920 --> 00:17:44,480
Speaker 2: Yes, that's him. Wow.

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Speaker 3: Wait, so the same guy started Atari. Ang you know

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Speaker 3: what today I learned totally right.

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Speaker 2: And he also he knew Chuck E. Cheese was like

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Speaker 2: the hit about to be and he when he sold

375
00:17:56,480 --> 00:17:58,679
Speaker 2: I jumping out of the story, but he held on

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Speaker 2: to it when he went to sell it, It's like,

377
00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:02,560
Speaker 2: I want to keep this one, right, let me keep

378
00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:03,920
Speaker 2: the red the rat.

379
00:18:04,040 --> 00:18:06,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I want the pizza rat. They're like, okay.

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Speaker 2: I was doing research And The Verge had a great

381
00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:10,440
Speaker 2: story about all of this. They put in their story

382
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Speaker 2: from twenty thirteen. He said in a quote, to say

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00:18:12,840 --> 00:18:16,000
Speaker 2: that Nolan Bushnell single handedly created the arcade would probably

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00:18:16,040 --> 00:18:19,119
Speaker 2: be overstating it, but not by much because, as The

385
00:18:19,200 --> 00:18:22,560
Speaker 2: Verge also points out quote, it is also undeniable, however,

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Speaker 2: that the video game arcade would not have happened without him.

387
00:18:26,200 --> 00:18:28,600
Speaker 2: Huh So, Elizabeth, you could say video games really popped

388
00:18:28,640 --> 00:18:31,760
Speaker 2: up in nineteen seventy one. That's when the first coin operated,

389
00:18:31,800 --> 00:18:35,000
Speaker 2: commercially sold video game was out there, right, ok. Created

390
00:18:35,040 --> 00:18:38,359
Speaker 2: designed by Nolan Bushnell and his partner Ted Dabney. The

391
00:18:38,400 --> 00:18:42,520
Speaker 2: game was called Computer Space Space Space. The rig was

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Speaker 2: built into a thirteen inch black and white TV and

393
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:47,520
Speaker 2: that TV screen was set inside this like sleek, futuristic

394
00:18:47,560 --> 00:18:50,119
Speaker 2: looking wood cabinet. And that's the first game. And it

395
00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:53,359
Speaker 2: was a flop, this total bomb. I mean, you couldn't

396
00:18:53,359 --> 00:18:56,920
Speaker 2: give this thing. Yeah. Trouble was it was too hard

397
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Speaker 2: to play. They made the game too hard to play,

398
00:18:58,600 --> 00:19:01,560
Speaker 2: and it's taught Nolan Bushnell and important lesson. Games should

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00:19:01,560 --> 00:19:03,600
Speaker 2: be easy to learn yet hard to master.

400
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Speaker 3: Oh that's good, that's a good.

401
00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:09,480
Speaker 2: Yeah. The failure computer Space, though, was a seed planted

402
00:19:09,640 --> 00:19:12,879
Speaker 2: and it grew a mighty forest because you see, Elizabeth,

403
00:19:12,920 --> 00:19:15,000
Speaker 2: they didn't give up. Nolan and Ted kept at it,

404
00:19:15,480 --> 00:19:17,440
Speaker 2: and the next year they were back with a new

405
00:19:17,520 --> 00:19:21,920
Speaker 2: game based on tennis. They placed their new tabletop video

406
00:19:21,920 --> 00:19:24,399
Speaker 2: game into a local bar that helps, and it was

407
00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:27,680
Speaker 2: it was easy to play, but hard to master. This time,

408
00:19:27,760 --> 00:19:29,720
Speaker 2: their second video game is a hit. I mean it's

409
00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:31,960
Speaker 2: a huge hit, Elizabeth. Can you guess what game?

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00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:32,320
Speaker 4: This was?

411
00:19:32,800 --> 00:19:33,119
Speaker 3: Pond?

412
00:19:33,400 --> 00:19:37,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, buddy. With that, Nolan bush Now and Ted Dabney

413
00:19:37,200 --> 00:19:40,000
Speaker 2: start their own video game company. They call it zizig

414
00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:44,840
Speaker 2: z s y z y g y You know what.

415
00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:47,720
Speaker 2: That was the name of an X Files episode. Real

416
00:19:47,880 --> 00:19:50,120
Speaker 2: it was a famous X Files episode. I don't know why,

417
00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:53,000
Speaker 2: but yeah. They tried to incorporate their new company to name,

418
00:19:53,080 --> 00:19:55,720
Speaker 2: and they found that zizig z was taken. So in

419
00:19:55,800 --> 00:19:59,600
Speaker 2: June seventy two they picked a new name ATARII. It's

420
00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:02,040
Speaker 2: a name or a move in the ancient Chinese game

421
00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:05,679
Speaker 2: of go oh okay. Yeah, so they dropped Pong from

422
00:20:05,760 --> 00:20:08,720
Speaker 2: for the people they create Atari. Things are just about

423
00:20:08,760 --> 00:20:11,679
Speaker 2: to take off, which means, we know, moral skolds are

424
00:20:11,680 --> 00:20:14,720
Speaker 2: about to get back to business. So this second game,

425
00:20:14,760 --> 00:20:17,720
Speaker 2: as it's you know, hitting the market in seventy two,

426
00:20:17,800 --> 00:20:21,560
Speaker 2: it starts this mild video game craze, and Atari's value

427
00:20:21,600 --> 00:20:24,960
Speaker 2: starts to explode overnight. The company, though it's still small,

428
00:20:24,960 --> 00:20:27,359
Speaker 2: they have like six employees, right so, but over the

429
00:20:27,400 --> 00:20:30,600
Speaker 2: course of nineteen seventy four nineteen seventy five, Pong starts

430
00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:33,719
Speaker 2: to become a household name. Yeah, and everybody's loved. Everyone's

431
00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:35,280
Speaker 2: heard about it. People are wanting to play it once

432
00:20:35,320 --> 00:20:36,600
Speaker 2: they see it. They're like, oh, I got to get

433
00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:38,040
Speaker 2: one of those from my kids or whatever.

434
00:20:38,119 --> 00:20:39,640
Speaker 3: Right, you've played it.

435
00:20:39,640 --> 00:20:41,240
Speaker 2: Oh, totally. I played it back in the day, like

436
00:20:41,280 --> 00:20:44,800
Speaker 2: I had older cousins who still had the Yeah, they

437
00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:49,920
Speaker 2: had like the turn knob control. Totally, So your guy.

438
00:20:49,960 --> 00:20:54,440
Speaker 2: San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caane he once wrote about

439
00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:57,639
Speaker 2: how he and then Governor Jerry Brown battled over some

440
00:20:57,760 --> 00:21:00,679
Speaker 2: games of Pong. Yeah, the two like pong at a

441
00:21:00,720 --> 00:21:03,119
Speaker 2: restaurant overlooking the Sacramento River. I like to think it

442
00:21:03,160 --> 00:21:05,280
Speaker 2: was like Chevy's by the River. I know it was

443
00:21:05,320 --> 00:21:08,080
Speaker 2: not by the river. I bet it was my old

444
00:21:08,080 --> 00:21:08,720
Speaker 2: town Sacramento.

445
00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:12,160
Speaker 3: I just just I'm vibrating at a higher plane right now.

446
00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:14,679
Speaker 3: Herbcane and Jerry Brown.

447
00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:16,480
Speaker 2: I got one more person to throw in this mix.

448
00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:19,679
Speaker 2: No Great Davis, chief of staff.

449
00:21:22,359 --> 00:21:25,080
Speaker 3: Those two playing pong at a restaurant looking over the

450
00:21:25,119 --> 00:21:28,240
Speaker 3: Sacramento River. My life's mission is to now find out

451
00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:29,280
Speaker 3: what restaurant that was.

452
00:21:29,359 --> 00:21:31,080
Speaker 2: Oh that's good. Look that up. I bet you could

453
00:21:31,080 --> 00:21:31,840
Speaker 2: probably narrow it down.

454
00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:32,680
Speaker 3: I need a hobby.

455
00:21:32,840 --> 00:21:37,119
Speaker 2: Apparently herbcane got beat by Jerry Brown. He wrote quote

456
00:21:37,160 --> 00:21:39,600
Speaker 2: Governor Jerry Brown beat me, his chief of staff, Gray

457
00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:42,880
Speaker 2: Davis beat me. Sacramento be editor c K. McClatchy beat

458
00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:47,680
Speaker 2: me Sacramento three s F zip. So now you want

459
00:21:47,720 --> 00:21:49,520
Speaker 2: to guess who hated pong?

460
00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:51,960
Speaker 3: Anyone? Anyone?

461
00:21:52,880 --> 00:21:58,119
Speaker 2: Pinball machine makers Perry Industry was like, oh man, they

462
00:21:58,160 --> 00:21:59,719
Speaker 2: could see the writing on the screen.

463
00:22:00,480 --> 00:22:03,480
Speaker 3: The mids this is.

464
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:05,800
Speaker 2: No longer the cool edgy thing. I means they hung

465
00:22:05,840 --> 00:22:07,560
Speaker 2: around for a while, but it was clearly like this

466
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:09,560
Speaker 2: is no longer the space. We just got legal. We

467
00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:12,840
Speaker 2: just got legal. So by the mid seventies video Games

468
00:22:12,840 --> 00:22:16,320
Speaker 2: with the Future, and so by seventy six, Warner Communications

469
00:22:16,480 --> 00:22:20,600
Speaker 2: right purchases Atari from Nolan Bushnell for twenty eight million dollars,

470
00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:22,480
Speaker 2: and then he goes, let me buy back Chuck E

471
00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:25,040
Speaker 2: Cheese Pizza Time Theater because he's already got that going

472
00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:26,600
Speaker 2: in the company, and he's like, let me have that.

473
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:28,439
Speaker 2: They're like, of course, you can have your little Pizza

474
00:22:28,480 --> 00:22:31,679
Speaker 2: Time theater. Do you want the animatronic robots too? So

475
00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:33,679
Speaker 2: it's a genius move though, right, we say this all

476
00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:37,000
Speaker 2: the time in a gold rush, don't mind gold sells shovels,

477
00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:40,159
Speaker 2: yeah right. Bush now creates this family friendly arcade of

478
00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:43,679
Speaker 2: video games and he sells pizza parties perfect right, instead

479
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:46,880
Speaker 2: of the old CD pinball amusement arcades people are used

480
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:49,800
Speaker 2: to that you'd find on like a dilapidated pier. He's like,

481
00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:51,880
Speaker 2: what if we got rid of the greasers, the bikers,

482
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:54,240
Speaker 2: the teen rebels, the hustlers, the drug dealers, the adult

483
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:56,919
Speaker 2: bookstore owners, and we replaced all of that with an

484
00:22:56,960 --> 00:23:04,240
Speaker 2: animatronic animal band someone hinge selling shovels. At this point, right,

485
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:07,560
Speaker 2: so the pinball starts going the way the Nickelodeon and

486
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:11,400
Speaker 2: seventy six is you can start just tracking video game

487
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:14,439
Speaker 2: with now and just a stratospheric lyne going straight up

488
00:23:14,480 --> 00:23:15,120
Speaker 2: the chart. Right.

489
00:23:15,280 --> 00:23:18,119
Speaker 3: Ball was like it had that like you're saying that

490
00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:20,879
Speaker 3: that like rebellious aesthetic of like you had to be

491
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:25,600
Speaker 3: wearing tight pants or something. And it was suggestive, very suggestive. Yeah,

492
00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:27,760
Speaker 3: but then they took it to the next level with it.

493
00:23:27,760 --> 00:23:30,960
Speaker 3: Here just grab this joystick, yes, jerking around.

494
00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:35,080
Speaker 2: It's more onanistic and less the communal.

495
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:37,520
Speaker 3: Exactly, that's what it. Yeah, and then here we are

496
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:39,480
Speaker 3: like everyone just living in a bubble.

497
00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:42,520
Speaker 2: Following that idea. And also it introduced like there was

498
00:23:42,560 --> 00:23:44,520
Speaker 2: like a certain violence if you want with the pinball,

499
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:46,760
Speaker 2: and there's also more of a sexual direction with the

500
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:49,000
Speaker 2: drawing back and hitting the ball then keeping it going.

501
00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 2: You know, I got to keep this going clippers right.

502
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:54,000
Speaker 3: There was like crazy and then hit some stuff.

503
00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:58,159
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, so you're like banging against the machine. I

504
00:23:58,280 --> 00:24:00,639
Speaker 2: was really into the game. It was about high score.

505
00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:04,480
Speaker 2: I'm taking that thing, go tut. So my point being

506
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:06,359
Speaker 2: people don't really do that with video games. And also

507
00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:08,680
Speaker 2: it becomes it's about violence. There's a lot more like oh, mandy,

508
00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 2: we run these people over throw.

509
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:12,520
Speaker 3: Like yeah, the goal is to blow stuff up or

510
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:13,880
Speaker 3: shoot piece shoot people.

511
00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:15,919
Speaker 2: Like destroy aliens and a lot more.

512
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:19,720
Speaker 3: You know, delightfully roll through up a hill and down.

513
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:21,919
Speaker 2: And around a little middle cage and they get banged

514
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:25,240
Speaker 2: around with a bunch of little bumpers. So nineteen seventy

515
00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:27,000
Speaker 2: six we see our first game that comes out as

516
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 2: an ultra violent like oh, and people were like, this

517
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:31,480
Speaker 2: is not like Pong. Right.

518
00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 3: The game was called Death Race Death Ray. Yeah.

519
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:37,399
Speaker 2: It was the Grand Theft Auto before GTA Okay, player

520
00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 2: with drive a car. The goal is to run down gremlins,

521
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:42,119
Speaker 2: which were like pedestrians you could hit. Your goal is

522
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:45,160
Speaker 2: to hit pedestrians basically is like yeah. The video game

523
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:47,680
Speaker 2: maker's marketing director. He explained that the game was quote

524
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:52,119
Speaker 2: A it's a humorous arcade piece requiring dexterity. Yeah, you know,

525
00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:53,920
Speaker 2: you gotta be quick if you want to hit these pedestrians.

526
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:57,120
Speaker 2: So but if you ask video game historian Steve L. Kent,

527
00:24:57,280 --> 00:25:00,280
Speaker 2: he'll tell you. Quote what kind everyone upset about Death

528
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:02,639
Speaker 2: Race was that you heard this little ah when the

529
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 2: person got hit and then a little gravestone came up.

530
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:09,360
Speaker 3: No, what do you want.

531
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:12,400
Speaker 2: So then along comes sixty minutes the Sunday night news

532
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:16,160
Speaker 2: program comes in hard for this first ultraviolent video game, right,

533
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:19,120
Speaker 2: which leads to a wave of moral outrage from concerned parents.

534
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 2: And then they would to protect their future profits, this

535
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:24,600
Speaker 2: company yanks it's game from the shelves. This capitulation that

536
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 2: it kind of it's like that first taste of blood for.

537
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 3: The moral he won got some power.

538
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:32,919
Speaker 2: Now, so the moral scandal first one claims the first victim.

539
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:35,440
Speaker 2: Now the moral scolds, they put pinball in the rear

540
00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 2: view mirror and they never looked back. Now they're focused

541
00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:41,199
Speaker 2: on video games, right, But they couldn't still stop this

542
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:44,200
Speaker 2: coming video green craze because it was leaking out everywhere.

543
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 2: And also it was fast moving and it wasn't just

544
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 2: one game. There's lots of games. But do you know

545
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:51,719
Speaker 2: when it really went Yahya, Elizabeth, you want to take

546
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:55,080
Speaker 2: a guess at what game pushed over like video.

547
00:25:54,800 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 3: Games man, like Space in Vasi those are.

548
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:03,159
Speaker 2: All good one, yeah, and there was a bunch of

549
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:05,840
Speaker 2: early couple hits and stuff, yeah, Space Invaders being one

550
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:08,159
Speaker 2: of them. But pac Man's the one. I know. You

551
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:11,160
Speaker 2: were born in the early nineteenth century was eighteen twenty.

552
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:12,160
Speaker 3: Or something like that, fifty six.

553
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:14,320
Speaker 2: But did you ever play pac Man in the nineteen

554
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 2: eighty you bet you my favorite Miss pac Man.

555
00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:19,760
Speaker 3: I loved Miss pac Man, Yes, and I'll tell you

556
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 3: that I was the best. It was the peak of

557
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 3: my game with both Miss pac Man and pole position positions.

558
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 3: After you go, after you go skiing or snowboarding, you're

559
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 3: just like, you're just super odd. But you've been focused

560
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:38,560
Speaker 3: on like avoiding and going fast and like quick reaction times.

561
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 2: You're all hyped up.

562
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 3: So then like you you get warmed up, but you

563
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 3: go in there and you play video games and you

564
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:44,720
Speaker 3: just dominate.

565
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:45,399
Speaker 2: That's true.

566
00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 3: That's and you're Elizabeth at ten and you got braces

567
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:51,879
Speaker 3: and you're like, I could beat Mesh pac Man on

568
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 3: day ecd.

569
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 2: That's me a fair number two at the top of

570
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:57,360
Speaker 2: the list. I'm gonna get number one.

571
00:26:57,359 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 3: If I had friends, I'd tell him about it.

572
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 2: What a picture pac Man legit.

573
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 3: Like Mary's we were at in bowl cut on top

574
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 3: of that.

575
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:13,119
Speaker 2: That's I want to need to see picks. It did happen?

576
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 3: I got it?

577
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 2: So pac Man comes out in May nineteen eighty sequel,

578
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 2: misspac Man comes out in February eighty two. Pac Man

579
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:22,399
Speaker 2: is considered the most successful video game of all time.

580
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:25,399
Speaker 2: Miss pac Mans considered the greatest, one of the greatest

581
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 2: video games of all time. It always really highly Yes.

582
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,600
Speaker 2: Together the two games launched what is called pac Man Fever. Now,

583
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 2: when America catches pac Man Fever, oh birds, suddenly everywhere

584
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:39,120
Speaker 2: there's t shirts, hats, stickers, trapper keepers, lunch boxes. There

585
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:43,160
Speaker 2: was even a Saturday morning cartoon TV show. That's right, yes,

586
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:46,640
Speaker 2: only Rocky boal Boa and the theme song Survivors aka

587
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 2: I Have the Tiger. That was the only thing that

588
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:51,119
Speaker 2: was more popular in nineteen eighty two than pac Man.

589
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 3: Nineteen eighty two. It feel that feels way I I'm

590
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:55,639
Speaker 3: thinking of it later on.

591
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:57,359
Speaker 2: Oh it lasted. I'm saying, well, this is when it

592
00:27:57,520 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 2: this is when.

593
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 3: It Okay, I'm saying it was like Broke broke, Yeah, yeah.

594
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson basically breaks in eighty three and eighty four.

595
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:05,679
Speaker 2: People he was ahead. He seventy eight, He's got you know,

596
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 2: Off the Wall or seventy nine or whatever. Maybe it's eighty.

597
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 2: I don't actually do know know the year, but I think

598
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 2: the previous album and that it's been a thriller that

599
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:16,640
Speaker 2: breaks for him. Right. So if you think I could say, oh,

600
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 2: when did Michael Jackson break, well these solo albums when

601
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:21,679
Speaker 2: he breaks, right, But no, it's the second album. It's

602
00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:24,480
Speaker 2: kind of like the pac Man breaks at this point,

603
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:26,439
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, people are like, oh, and

604
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 2: all these worried parents they start focusing on this because

605
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:30,920
Speaker 2: you know, pac Man's got ghosts. It's lightly violet. I

606
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:33,640
Speaker 2: don't know, they own nuts about this, it is really,

607
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:35,399
Speaker 2: it's just the fact the game is too popular. These

608
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 2: kids just want They're dishoveling quarters in these machines and

609
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 2: they're not doing their homework, they're not listening to their parents.

610
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 2: They're riding off the arcades with dark windows they can't

611
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 2: look in and see going on in there.

612
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 3: Like associate with social media, which really does have, like

613
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 3: I believe, a completely addictive quality to it.

614
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 2: Yes, it's designed, it's.

615
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 3: Designed for that. But you see that with these you know,

616
00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:00,200
Speaker 3: with even like games now like iPad the iPhone games.

617
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, these games were designed to be games. Those

618
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 2: games were designed to be addicted, right, But even in.

619
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 3: The beginning it was addictive, like you wanted to keep

620
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:10,360
Speaker 3: playing it and make a high score, and yes, your

621
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 3: initials were ass but in.

622
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 2: Some ways you could say that, like you know, solitaire

623
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 2: is addicting or you know what I'm saying, don't you

624
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:18,080
Speaker 2: can obsess?

625
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me?

626
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 2: I met the cards? But yes, okay, I'm talking about Okay,

627
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't know.

628
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:27,320
Speaker 3: Advanced solitaire for those of us with a lot of friends.

629
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:28,880
Speaker 2: All right, I know you're always a couple levels above

630
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 2: me on these games. Elizabeth. We see all these gen

631
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 2: X memes these days about how the kids in the eighties,

632
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:37,160
Speaker 2: like drank from hoses, stayed out until the street lights

633
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:39,160
Speaker 2: came on. They smoked two packs a day while riding

634
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 2: their BMX bikes to after school shift at the steel

635
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 2: factory or whatever. The whole thing. Oh great way to go. Yeah,

636
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 2: you're on the Cold War. I don't know to your kids,

637
00:29:47,720 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 2: but uh, can you help me separate fact from fiction?

638
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 2: What do you remember of the bikes and roller skates

639
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 2: and arcades and shopping walls of the eighties. How close

640
00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 2: to stranger things was it?

641
00:29:56,440 --> 00:29:59,479
Speaker 3: I feel like it was it was in line with

642
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:02,479
Speaker 3: that I that as a kid in the eighties we

643
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 3: rode our bikes all over the place nobody knew where

644
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 3: we were. Yes, we got up into all sorts of hygieninks.

645
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 2: What were video game parlors? Like, can you explain to me?

646
00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 3: Because usually like we'd go to like pizza parlors that

647
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:16,280
Speaker 3: would have them in there, or like there was a

648
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:17,320
Speaker 3: Foster's freeze.

649
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 2: We went to local pizza places primarily. And then we

650
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 2: had an actual place called the Library in downtown Davis

651
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 2: that oh yeah, an actually dedicated arcade with a blacked

652
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:28,480
Speaker 2: out window, and people were like, oh, that's where the

653
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 2: druggies go.

654
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 3: And then they'd have the arcade like in the lobby

655
00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 3: of the movie theater.

656
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:37,560
Speaker 2: Sometimes yeah, there's totally yeah. So shopping walls, bowling alleys,

657
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 2: roller skating rinks, these are all places. Yeah, the remaining

658
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 2: discover two from when you're not dancing. So this is

659
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:47,280
Speaker 2: what the American parents become so fearful of this type

660
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:50,960
Speaker 2: of chicanery and criminality, I guess. So they're all worried

661
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 2: about what kids are doing in front of like Space

662
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 2: Invader and Gallica and tabletop pac Man. So by eighty one,

663
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 2: as early as eighty one in the San Francisco Chronicle,

664
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 2: you'll see news stories with scare mongerie titles like quote

665
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 2: addicts gopher broke. How kids feed their habit, right, So

666
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 2: just imagine kids pumping quarters of the machines, little like

667
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 2: beady eyed kids going can I get to fix them

668
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:13,480
Speaker 2: with games? I don't know what they were trying to push,

669
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 2: but that's the imagery, right. The best part of the story, though,

670
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 2: is this one local kid who spoke with the Chronicle.

671
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:20,959
Speaker 2: Your man Peter hart Love. He pulled this story recently

672
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 2: when he did a look back at San Francisco's war

673
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 2: against pac Man, and in his story he found he

674
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:29,160
Speaker 2: included this quote quote. Tommy Guerrero fourteen, who established a

675
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 2: local scramble record with a score of twenty five thousand,

676
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 2: says he has no problem bumming money to keep on playing.

677
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 2: What else am I supposed to do? He says? Yeah?

678
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 3: What else? Is?

679
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:40,120
Speaker 2: You catch that name Tommy Guerrero?

680
00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:42,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was wondering, is that's one of the same.

681
00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:46,560
Speaker 2: Tommy Guerrero stop, future professional skateboarder, future super dope musician

682
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:48,480
Speaker 2: who does like funk, jazz, low fi.

683
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 3: Music, incredible?

684
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:53,000
Speaker 2: Is the best artist? Yes, he's amazing and they recognize that.

685
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 2: The reporters like, when we talk to that kid. Obviously,

686
00:31:57,160 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 2: the moral panic about pac Man it's not limited to

687
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 2: the Bay Area of New York. The Times. The New

688
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 2: York Times is reporting on the latest scourge, this ghost

689
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:08,440
Speaker 2: consuming pac Man and his equally Poultergey's goblin wife and

690
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 2: how they're threatening American youth. Headline the Battle for America's

691
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 2: Youth dateline January fifth, nineteen eighty two.

692
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 3: Wow.

693
00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:18,840
Speaker 2: The story features is very worried mother Ronnie Lamb. That's

694
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:22,080
Speaker 2: Lamb with two ams no b okay, as she's filling

695
00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 2: her mister Coffee coffee pot a lot of product plus

696
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 2: mister coffee machine. So Ronnie Lamb tells The Times that

697
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 2: a quote these games are corrupting our youth. They're not wholesome.

698
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 2: They mesmerize our children, They add dictum and force them

699
00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:38,520
Speaker 2: to mindlessly pour one quarter after another into the slots.

700
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 2: We see fifteen year olds playing these games at ten

701
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 2: thirty on school nights and during school hours. We want

702
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 2: them out of our town now, Ronnie Lamb. She worries

703
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 2: that where she lives in the suburbs and as The

704
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 2: New York Time points out, quote, where there are more

705
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:54,600
Speaker 2: children with more money to spend, and where she believes

706
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 2: there are fewer cultural activities than in the city. You

707
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 2: heard that, right, Elizabeth, This very concerned things that New

708
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 2: York in the early eighties is a safer option for

709
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:06,280
Speaker 2: children than the boredom of the suburbs and the seduction

710
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 2: of video games. Okay, So, as Ronnie Lamb tells the

711
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:13,320
Speaker 2: Times quote, suddenly they are everywhere in our mall, the

712
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:17,480
Speaker 2: shopping centers, pizza places, movie theaters, little corner delicatessens, and

713
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:21,719
Speaker 2: even the laundromat. We hear unacceptable language and see anti

714
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:25,800
Speaker 2: social behavior in the arcades. Only the bad kids go

715
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 2: into them, and we worry about the young children, not

716
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 2: old enough to make value judgments. Those without strong moral

717
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 2: codes can be drawn in. They don't know they are hooked.

718
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:39,000
Speaker 2: Oh again, Ronnie Lamb prefers the kids in New York City.

719
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:41,720
Speaker 2: They will be safer from the scourge of video game

720
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:45,840
Speaker 2: arcades in New York City. Yeah, yeah, Anyway, how times change.

721
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 2: So back to Ronnie Lamb and her worried little heart quote.

722
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 2: The game rooms teach gambling and breed aggressive behavior, and

723
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 2: so many are operated by scum coming out of woodwork

724
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 2: whose only interest is a fast buck. They say that

725
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:01,720
Speaker 2: they do not allow them drinking of alcoholic beverages. But

726
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 2: I've seen bottles in the parking lots. Ronnie Lamb promises

727
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:08,280
Speaker 2: the New York Times reporter that she and her army

728
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:12,280
Speaker 2: of fellow concerned parents will be victorious over this community threat.

729
00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:14,680
Speaker 2: She says she lives in the town of Brookhaven and

730
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 2: that she and her army already convinced the town leaders

731
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:20,280
Speaker 2: there to drop a six month moratorium one any permits

732
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 2: for new video game arcades, and apparently there's a lot.

733
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 2: There's like twelve pending. They shut them down. Oh yeah,

734
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:27,760
Speaker 2: so how did she and her army do it? Quote?

735
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:31,959
Speaker 2: Her relentless campaign has included circulating petitions, making speeches before

736
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:35,160
Speaker 2: official bodies and community groups, sending out mass mailings, and

737
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:38,240
Speaker 2: talking with state officials about legislation to control the games.

738
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:41,360
Speaker 2: Other tactics have included making calls to the fire department

739
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 2: to check for overcrowded conditions at the more popular amusement centers.

740
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 2: Super Karen, I just like jumped out all that.

741
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 3: Energy and time. Could you imagine if she focused it

742
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 3: on something uplifted.

743
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:54,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, like helping the local library instead of trying to

744
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 2: shut down, like construct something instead of destroying something constantly.

745
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:01,800
Speaker 2: What if she was going out there browbeating them for

746
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 2: money for books for the library and more resources for that,

747
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:06,640
Speaker 2: as opposed to going what are those kids doing in

748
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 2: the room? I can't see it.

749
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:09,040
Speaker 3: Now, there's too much no, no, no no.

750
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 2: It pays off for at one point video games. The

751
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 2: threat it gets kicked all the way up to the

752
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 2: Supreme Court. They're willing to hear a case about what

753
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 2: this is going on. And meanwhile she's celebrating the fact

754
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:22,200
Speaker 2: that President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines of Amelda's corrupt.

755
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:26,040
Speaker 2: He bans video games in his whole nation because parents

756
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 2: there believe that pac Man was quote wreaking havoc on

757
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 2: the morality of the nation's youth. So old super Karen

758
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 2: Ronnie Lamb. She boasts about her side secret superpower against

759
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:39,440
Speaker 2: video games. We are finding it surprisingly easy. Actually, some

760
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:41,279
Speaker 2: of those who want to open these places are the

761
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:45,280
Speaker 2: absolute dregs, and they are battling motherhood and apple Pie.

762
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:48,440
Speaker 2: So she knows the symbols and how things appear, and

763
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 2: she's leveraging that. Now, Las, why I keeps saying Karen's

764
00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:54,239
Speaker 2: she knows her identity versus theirs. Yeah, and Apple pie

765
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:56,799
Speaker 2: and motherhood, powerful combo now old Ronnie Lamb when she's

766
00:35:56,840 --> 00:35:58,759
Speaker 2: not done. She also spoke about how whether or not

767
00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:01,800
Speaker 2: she was a hatchet woman. She put it and I quote,

768
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 2: there are those who would say that I am a

769
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 2: hatchet queen of amusement centers. But I do not see

770
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:08,759
Speaker 2: myself as a hatchet queen of amusement centers. I've even

771
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 2: been in those game rooms. I do not play the

772
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 2: games for the same reasons I did not gamble when

773
00:36:13,239 --> 00:36:15,360
Speaker 2: I was in Puerto Rico.

774
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 3: I don't want to know.

775
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,080
Speaker 2: So at this point our story, pac Man is mostly

776
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 2: a symbol for this free floating and generalized fear of

777
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 2: video games and the worried ones. They don't have proof

778
00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:28,560
Speaker 2: yet or evidence of this threat, but they'll get some

779
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 2: take a little regularly, and when we get back, things

780
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:54,440
Speaker 2: are gonna get even more serious. And We're back, Elizabeth,

781
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:55,960
Speaker 2: Yes we are. I'm fun with this.

782
00:36:56,200 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 3: I'm having a blast, pac Man.

783
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:00,400
Speaker 2: Do you have believed in America?

784
00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 3: I have no clue.

785
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:03,760
Speaker 2: So, as I told you, we got all these scolds

786
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:06,960
Speaker 2: like our girl Ronnie Lamb, who are just leading this charge.

787
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 2: But they need they don't have evidence. They're always pointing

788
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 2: at things going. What's going on in that dark room

789
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 2: behind the windows? I can't see it, right, Yeah, I've

790
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 2: been in the room, like she's got to prove she's

791
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:16,880
Speaker 2: been in there. You can see that they need something better.

792
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 2: So at this point we get terms like pac Man

793
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 2: elbow and Space Invader's wrist. Way, Yeah, the medical community

794
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 2: starts coining these catchy phrases for injuries sustain from playing

795
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 2: too many video games. Yeah, even PBS gets in on it.

796
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:33,920
Speaker 2: The mcnail lear News Hour describes Fritz viewers how Atari's

797
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:36,800
Speaker 2: game breakout was so all consuming for one young player

798
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 2: that he was driven to submerge his aching hand in

799
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 2: ice water just so he could go on playing. God,

800
00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 2: look at my pos son with his fingers all and

801
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:48,759
Speaker 2: twisted in bed. He's got the pac Man elbow. So

802
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:52,840
Speaker 2: e Liz Abit toxicologist saying, this does fs the poison, right,

803
00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 2: That dose makes the poison. So that basically means is

804
00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:57,479
Speaker 2: water can kill you if you drink enough of it.

805
00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:00,640
Speaker 2: It's not nothing is a poison, it's how you use it. Well,

806
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:04,239
Speaker 2: this imagine threat becomes a powerful narrative because it's an

807
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:06,840
Speaker 2: imagined poison, and it gets so strong because it's however

808
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:09,600
Speaker 2: strong you need it to be to be toxic. So

809
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 2: beyond these new injuries, it gets so bad that it

810
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:14,600
Speaker 2: becomes a backlash. To the backlash, now we got to

811
00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 2: fight on both sides. The first big cool video game movie,

812
00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:19,720
Speaker 2: do you know what it is? The o g video

813
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 2: game movie. The movie is centered on a video game,

814
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 2: was called Tron. There was video game movies. That's the

815
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 2: first big hit that's actually cool. People are like, oh,

816
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:30,120
Speaker 2: it was great or whatever. So that video game movie

817
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:32,040
Speaker 2: came out eighty two, right at the peak of this

818
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:34,799
Speaker 2: first wave of video games. Now the guy who directed it,

819
00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 2: Steve Lisberger, he comes out in defensive video games against

820
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:41,640
Speaker 2: all this fear mongering by Concerned America. San Francisco Cronnell

821
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:44,960
Speaker 2: recorded how the Tron director said, quote, the older generation

822
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 2: has no qualms about leaving us with dirty air, dirty water,

823
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:51,439
Speaker 2: and nine thousand nuclear warheads, but they worry about whether

824
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:54,560
Speaker 2: video games are good for us. So, yeah, what do

825
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:57,280
Speaker 2: you gotta say about that, Ronnie Lamb. So it doesn't

826
00:38:57,280 --> 00:38:59,399
Speaker 2: matter because those are real threats. But at this point,

827
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:01,760
Speaker 2: the moral pan doesn't care about that. They no longer

828
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:04,399
Speaker 2: they're not focused on reality. They're focused on what they're

829
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:07,319
Speaker 2: imagining is about to happen? What's coming? Right? And that

830
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 2: panic it's too far?

831
00:39:08,719 --> 00:39:10,120
Speaker 3: Do you sag with that?

832
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:10,439
Speaker 2: Yeah?

833
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:10,760
Speaker 3: Exactly.

834
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:13,400
Speaker 2: Problem gathering momentum and noise. Now it's it's its own thing.

835
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 2: It's creating its own weather. You know. It's so the

836
00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:19,160
Speaker 2: evidence for this, this campaign against video games. They need something,

837
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 2: so they start focusing on drug use and drug abuse

838
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:24,719
Speaker 2: and making parallels. Video game arcades become dens of sin,

839
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:28,000
Speaker 2: places where druggies go to do druggy things. But turns out,

840
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:30,319
Speaker 2: as I told you, because the dark screens like well

841
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 2: you know, they have dark windows because you want to

842
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:34,759
Speaker 2: have darkness in there for the video games, so you

843
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:36,839
Speaker 2: can see nothing else being playing a video game. Also,

844
00:39:36,960 --> 00:39:41,000
Speaker 2: you can't see Batman, so anyway, So to show that

845
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:43,279
Speaker 2: people are getting tough on crime. In nineteen eighty two,

846
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:47,000
Speaker 2: left leaning mayor of San Francisco, Diane Feinstein later future

847
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 2: Center of California, steps into fight against pac Man and Frogger.

848
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 2: Feinstein leads this new battle to make the world safe

849
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 2: from Donkey Kong. As your Boy Peter hart Low pointed

850
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:58,880
Speaker 2: out in his San Francisco Chronicle story, I found quote

851
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:01,480
Speaker 2: it was February third, eighteen eighty two in San Francisco,

852
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 2: and the city had officially declared war on pec Man.

853
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:06,919
Speaker 2: This new band makes it illegal for anyone to play

854
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:09,319
Speaker 2: arcade games during a school day. The new law is

855
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:12,440
Speaker 2: so popular of civic leaders around the Bay started adopting it.

856
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:14,320
Speaker 2: Sure most of the cities in the Bay passed similar

857
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 2: legislation within a year and a half. Okay, Then, to

858
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 2: make matters worse, the US Surgeon General steps into the

859
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,320
Speaker 2: fray way. Do you remember that one? The US Surgeon

860
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 2: General who looked like you'd meet him at an Amish

861
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 2: barn raising.

862
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:27,879
Speaker 3: Sea ee Cooper. Yeah, Tim, Look, sometimes I have these

863
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:29,840
Speaker 3: flashes of knowing things.

864
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:33,719
Speaker 2: I always believe kidding me. He was the first celebrity

865
00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 2: surgeon general. Yeah right.

866
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 3: Though he did that wild beard totally.

867
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 2: He was like his beard looking like he was happy.

868
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:41,000
Speaker 2: I'm like em, he's got a happy beard.

869
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 3: So he wants to sell you apple butter.

870
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:45,920
Speaker 2: It was the first time most people in America, or

871
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:47,880
Speaker 2: a lot of people America knew the surgeon general's name.

872
00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 2: Yeah right. He became an actual thing. He was always

873
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 2: on TV doing health hits on morning shows, and there

874
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 2: in his uniform and his happy lush beard and uh anyway,

875
00:40:56,600 --> 00:41:00,399
Speaker 2: this beloved, well regarded surgeon General. He wades into this,

876
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:03,960
Speaker 2: this culture war, looking to cure America of the dangers

877
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:07,120
Speaker 2: of pac Man fever. So it's November nineteen eighty two,

878
00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:10,040
Speaker 2: Surgeon General. He's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's giving a speech at

879
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:13,440
Speaker 2: the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. It's on child abuse

880
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:17,279
Speaker 2: and domestic violence. Not a fun talk. After he's done,

881
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 2: he's doing a Q and A and someone asks about

882
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:21,399
Speaker 2: the dangers of pac Man and Donkey Kong. Like, enough

883
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 2: about all that, what about pac Man and Donkey Kong?

884
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 2: So Seaver Coop starts explaining how the kids are getting

885
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 2: really into these games. He concedes it, he says, and

886
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 2: I quote, they are into it body and soul. Their

887
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 2: body language is tremendous, and everything is zap the enemy.

888
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 2: There's nothing constructive in the games. So the Surgeon General says,

889
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:40,680
Speaker 2: the kids are becoming addicts and out there jonesing for

890
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:43,680
Speaker 2: these video games, right, which throwing away their precious time,

891
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:47,279
Speaker 2: leading to quote aberrations of childhood behavior. Right. So sea

892
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:51,200
Speaker 2: Ever Coop he clarifies that there's no evidence about the

893
00:41:51,239 --> 00:41:54,360
Speaker 2: toxic nature of pac Man, not yet, but he also

894
00:41:54,719 --> 00:41:57,480
Speaker 2: he also explains he's offering his opinion. He says all this,

895
00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:00,160
Speaker 2: but he says that he believes the video game are

896
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:01,120
Speaker 2: addictive and harmful.

897
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:03,359
Speaker 3: Well, he believed this man of.

898
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 2: Science believes this, so doesn't have evidence, but he believes it.

899
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:10,320
Speaker 2: At Elizabeth nice work, doc, wait, undercut science with and

900
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:12,840
Speaker 2: feed the flames of a moral panic with what you believe.

901
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 2: So after seaver coop, he sees that he's like basically

902
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:18,759
Speaker 2: stoked the fury and people reporting it's all over the news, right,

903
00:42:18,800 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 2: He's like, oh right, I'm Surgeon General. I gotta be

904
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 2: more responsible. So he tries to calm down to America's

905
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 2: fears and he tries to settle down the pitchfork mob.

906
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:29,240
Speaker 2: So he releases a statement to clarify his previously quoted statement.

907
00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 2: And you know who who reads like newspaper corrections, that's

908
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:35,319
Speaker 2: how many people read his statement he released after the

909
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:38,720
Speaker 2: first one. Yeah, same folks. Right, So the press reports

910
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:41,440
Speaker 2: on how Surgeon General said video games are toxic and harmful.

911
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:44,279
Speaker 2: This means pack man, donkey Kong, they're gonna turn your

912
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:47,880
Speaker 2: kid into a videot right into a junkie. Yeah, So

913
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:51,760
Speaker 2: this happens just before the holiday season in nineteen eighty two. Okay,

914
00:42:51,800 --> 00:42:53,760
Speaker 2: so what do you think happened to video game sales

915
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:55,759
Speaker 2: in the holiday season of nineteen eighty two.

916
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:58,840
Speaker 3: I guess they just spiked at the no.

917
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:02,080
Speaker 2: They tanked the Yeah, this was when people still listen

918
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:04,239
Speaker 2: to like the US Surgeon General. They listened to all

919
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 2: these experts. They thought, oh my god, we got to

920
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:08,919
Speaker 2: protect the kids. This is heroin for a little Jimmy,

921
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:11,279
Speaker 2: because these are brand new things. They don't have this

922
00:43:11,400 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 2: history of thinking of them. This is like a new,

923
00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:15,319
Speaker 2: brand new thing, and they're used to pinball already being

924
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:17,799
Speaker 2: a danger, so they just transpose it onto video games

925
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:19,719
Speaker 2: and they're like, this is even worse. Oh my god,

926
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:21,719
Speaker 2: they're going right to they throw the eyeballs into their

927
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 2: soul or whatever. So at this point, the Atari twenty

928
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 2: six hundred is all the rage. That's the game machine.

929
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:29,760
Speaker 2: Everybody wants this game. You can play these video games

930
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:32,920
Speaker 2: at home on your own TV. So everybody's like buying

931
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:35,319
Speaker 2: the games of cartridges. That's what they're asking for. And

932
00:43:35,640 --> 00:43:38,279
Speaker 2: Christmas and Hanukkah and the holidays, sees the baty one.

933
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:40,560
Speaker 3: You're bringing all of the arcade games.

934
00:43:40,560 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 2: At home right, So that's what their parents are now

935
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:45,279
Speaker 2: worried about. It's happening inside the house, Elizabeth. So that's

936
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:47,319
Speaker 2: you can see why the Surgeon General going this is

937
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:49,239
Speaker 2: toxic and harmful, and he's using words like you would

938
00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:51,920
Speaker 2: use about drug abuse. Sure, so once he says the

939
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 2: video games are gonna take your kid from you and

940
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 2: turn them into a heroin junkie, degenerate gambler who lives

941
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:58,360
Speaker 2: in a van up by the racetrack, no atari for

942
00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:01,680
Speaker 2: that kid, right, this demon scourge. But there's also this

943
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:04,719
Speaker 2: other demon scourge. Why there's a reason why people keep

944
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:10,600
Speaker 2: comparing video games to drugs. Nancy Reagan anti drug campaign.

945
00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 2: Just say no, yeah, Andy, wasn't Nancy Reagan scaring kids

946
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:16,359
Speaker 2: with drugs? I mean she was. It wasn't like that.

947
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:20,920
Speaker 3: So in nineteen a lot about drugs.

948
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:25,400
Speaker 2: Yeah right, I learned all the best drugs, A menu down.

949
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 3: I knew how, I knew what to say on the street, like.

950
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:29,799
Speaker 2: I don't want the Bennys. Maybe you'll mess with some

951
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 2: angel dust. No, but in eighty two, Nancy Reagan, she's

952
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:36,040
Speaker 2: out there scaring the hell out of mister and missus America.

953
00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:38,880
Speaker 3: Tell fourth graders about angel dust is so funny.

954
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 2: Oh my god, completely right. I mean, well, like not

955
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:44,359
Speaker 2: only like Nancy Reagan talking about like how how these

956
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:47,040
Speaker 2: kids are like smoking like rocks and classrooms and trying

957
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:50,000
Speaker 2: angel dust the ten year old friends in the bathroom, right,

958
00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 2: and stealing PCP out of their mom's person or whatever. I

959
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:55,200
Speaker 2: don't know how it's working. Shooting got school kids on

960
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:58,840
Speaker 2: that dust on the back of the bus. So wild times, right,

961
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:02,319
Speaker 2: But do you know where just say no started? Where

962
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:04,960
Speaker 2: Nancy Reagan first said it? Or she put down hey,

963
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:07,400
Speaker 2: put down the pipe kids, where Nancy Reggon knocked I mean,

964
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:11,439
Speaker 2: I'm paraphrasing there. But it was here in Oakland. Wait,

965
00:45:11,640 --> 00:45:15,879
Speaker 2: it was in Oakland at Longfellow Elementary. Nancy was here

966
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty two at Longfellow, and the schoolgirl asked

967
00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:21,640
Speaker 2: her what she should do if one of her peers

968
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 2: offered her PCP or angel does her drugs? Right, the

969
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:27,560
Speaker 2: first lady told the little girl just say no, And

970
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:29,880
Speaker 2: just like that, an eighties catchphrase was born. Because they

971
00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:32,640
Speaker 2: had the TV cameras recording it and a whole way

972
00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 2: of looking at the world takes hold right Dare program,

973
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:36,680
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden you got no, just a

974
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:38,719
Speaker 2: no school program. See to Shining Sea.

975
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 3: What's that little girl doing right now?

976
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 5: Right?

977
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:43,279
Speaker 2: I would love to hear her side her?

978
00:45:44,600 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 3: Do you regret asking?

979
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:48,560
Speaker 2: Do you remember, like I know we talked about like

980
00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:50,280
Speaker 2: Dare and how they showed you the menu of drugs.

981
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:51,719
Speaker 2: But they also had things where they would have like

982
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:55,080
Speaker 2: some teacher, like maybe like somebody who helps you cross

983
00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:58,399
Speaker 2: the street to get to your school. They would come

984
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:00,400
Speaker 2: in and like put on like a dirt bag jacket

985
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:01,800
Speaker 2: and had all of a sudden you got to practice

986
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:04,240
Speaker 2: streaming no at them, and they try to offer you drugs.

987
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:06,840
Speaker 2: You you know what I mean talking like this, I

988
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:08,680
Speaker 2: was looking at they have like low life street dealer

989
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:11,360
Speaker 2: in the multipurpose room, and the kids take turns going no,

990
00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 2: screaming at them already.

991
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:18,279
Speaker 3: Like sister Mary, Catherine walks like a ga, opens up

992
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:22,640
Speaker 3: her jacket. Your kids want.

993
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:22,279
Speaker 2: What would you kids say?

994
00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:24,120
Speaker 5: No? Right?

995
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:26,799
Speaker 2: This explains how bout eighty three the moral panic about

996
00:46:26,880 --> 00:46:30,440
Speaker 2: video games is shifted focus entirely to the addictive aspect. Right,

997
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:33,359
Speaker 2: kids are now video game junkies, and the first big

998
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:36,280
Speaker 2: wave of video game popularity at bursts. Pac Man Fever

999
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:37,960
Speaker 2: is killed by.

1000
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:43,240
Speaker 3: The encroaching on the high fruit toast corns business getting

1001
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:43,960
Speaker 3: in on it.

1002
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:46,720
Speaker 2: That actually hadn't taken hold yet, that we were close.

1003
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:49,840
Speaker 2: How big of a hit was this? Like it was

1004
00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 2: kind of complicated, right, because he had a couple of things.

1005
00:46:52,640 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 2: You have one factor, which is there have been all

1006
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 2: the sudden success? Do you have all these multiple competing

1007
00:46:56,719 --> 00:46:59,040
Speaker 2: game players. I told you there's a Star twenty six hundred.

1008
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:01,320
Speaker 2: But then also so there was PC gaming, There was

1009
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:03,480
Speaker 2: Apple two, and then there was that came out in

1010
00:47:03,520 --> 00:47:06,400
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy seven. They had the television machine that was

1011
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 2: an eighty, the Calecovision, and the Commodore sixty four in

1012
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 2: eighty two. Yeah, all these things were coming out, right,

1013
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 2: So we were.

1014
00:47:12,600 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 3: Like, I did no friendo Nintendo come out?

1015
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 2: Oh well we'll get to that in a second.

1016
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:16,759
Speaker 5: Yes.

1017
00:47:17,120 --> 00:47:19,239
Speaker 2: So as a result, the market starts getting overrun with

1018
00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:21,880
Speaker 2: all these different gaming systems controllers. It's a mess, right,

1019
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:23,640
Speaker 2: So it's not cheap for the parents. They get the

1020
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:25,440
Speaker 2: wrong one. The kids are mad at them, like I

1021
00:47:25,480 --> 00:47:28,319
Speaker 2: hate these games, right, So it becomes this thing. Right.

1022
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:31,480
Speaker 2: So the biggest sign though that the first big video

1023
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:34,319
Speaker 2: game craze is over, wasn't pac Man. It was a

1024
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:36,640
Speaker 2: game called ET. You ever heard about this game?

1025
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:39,320
Speaker 3: Oh? I think, I know, I think that.

1026
00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:42,120
Speaker 2: This story so over the show. I co hosed very

1027
00:47:42,120 --> 00:47:44,680
Speaker 2: special episodes. We've covered this one. It's an insane story.

1028
00:47:44,719 --> 00:47:46,959
Speaker 2: I'll to give you some of the highlights. The game

1029
00:47:47,080 --> 00:47:49,239
Speaker 2: was made for Atari. It was meant to piggyback off

1030
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:52,360
Speaker 2: the success of Steven Spielberg's movie about a waddling alien

1031
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:54,719
Speaker 2: with a light up finger. Right. The game was meant

1032
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:57,000
Speaker 2: for the Christmas holiday season, which meant had to be

1033
00:47:57,080 --> 00:48:00,480
Speaker 2: rushed through design and production. The game designer worked butt off.

1034
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 2: He's promised like a trip to Hawaii when he's done.

1035
00:48:03,239 --> 00:48:05,480
Speaker 2: Then before that, he's flown to Warner Brothers in LA

1036
00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:07,959
Speaker 2: to meet Steven Spielberg and show him the ET game

1037
00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:11,040
Speaker 2: what he's got going. After he watches the demo, Spielberg's like,

1038
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:14,560
Speaker 2: couldn't you do something more like pac Man? This quote,

1039
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 2: that's a direct quote. He said, couldn't you do something

1040
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 2: more like pac Man? So they don't. They put the

1041
00:48:19,280 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 2: Rush game into production. Atari figures this is going to

1042
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:25,040
Speaker 2: be a huge hit. They produce millions of cartridges, millions

1043
00:48:25,080 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 2: four million. Pac Man fever is passing. They don't know it.

1044
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:31,440
Speaker 2: The craze is over. They don't know it. It turns

1045
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:34,640
Speaker 2: out nobody wants this stupid ET game that's nothing like

1046
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:36,919
Speaker 2: pac Man or not enough like pac Man. The four

1047
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:39,560
Speaker 2: million games produced, they get sent to stores. Three and

1048
00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:42,359
Speaker 2: a half million games are sent back to Atari as

1049
00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:46,360
Speaker 2: unsold stock and customer returns. Is often called the worst

1050
00:48:46,480 --> 00:48:50,160
Speaker 2: video game ever. What does a tari do? Well, now

1051
00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:52,399
Speaker 2: that they have the worst game ever, Well, they come

1052
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:54,520
Speaker 2: up with a plan. They decide, what's barry.

1053
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:56,759
Speaker 3: The et game crazy?

1054
00:48:56,800 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 2: They go into a landfill and they go, where are

1055
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:01,960
Speaker 2: some people we can places where it could be forgotten forever.

1056
00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 2: No one will ever find it, No one ever, no

1057
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:06,600
Speaker 2: we ever did this. So they pick up Alma Gordo,

1058
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:09,480
Speaker 2: New Mexico, in the Land of Enchantment. They go and

1059
00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:11,560
Speaker 2: they get a landfill. They buy up's a bunch of

1060
00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:13,600
Speaker 2: a space they can. They get a bunch of backos

1061
00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 2: and trucks and a bunch of wet cement, and they go,

1062
00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:18,560
Speaker 2: we got big plans. They're not gonna build a mazzle

1063
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 2: lium to this thing, right, rev than me tell you

1064
00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:23,400
Speaker 2: about Elizabeth. I'd like you to close your eyes, and

1065
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:27,440
Speaker 2: I'd like those to picture it. Elizabeth, you were standing

1066
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:30,400
Speaker 2: in a landfill in Alma Gordo, New Mexico. It's September

1067
00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:33,319
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three. The reason you're standing around waiting for

1068
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:36,279
Speaker 2: backcos and big rigs with tractor trailers is that in

1069
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:39,560
Speaker 2: the second quarter of nineteen eighty three, Atari lost a

1070
00:49:39,600 --> 00:49:42,080
Speaker 2: boatload of money on this game, and you've been tasked

1071
00:49:42,080 --> 00:49:44,319
Speaker 2: with making sure no one ever finds evidence of this

1072
00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:47,520
Speaker 2: colossal failure. So you wait with your clipboard for the

1073
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:50,800
Speaker 2: heavy vehicles to arrive. Finally, you spot the convoy pulling

1074
00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:54,239
Speaker 2: into the landfill. There are fourteen eighteen wheelers and a

1075
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:57,880
Speaker 2: handful of backos or caterpillars, all come from the Atari

1076
00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:01,560
Speaker 2: warehouse in El Paso, Texas. Smart you hired private guards

1077
00:50:01,600 --> 00:50:04,840
Speaker 2: to stand outside the fence and keep away nosey folks

1078
00:50:04,840 --> 00:50:07,439
Speaker 2: and reporters from the local press outlets. You don't want

1079
00:50:07,480 --> 00:50:11,000
Speaker 2: any evidence of this mass barrier. The back goes dig

1080
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:13,960
Speaker 2: open the earth as a front loaders forklifts work in

1081
00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:17,000
Speaker 2: teams to take loads of ET video game cassettes from

1082
00:50:17,040 --> 00:50:20,359
Speaker 2: the eighteen wheeler tractor trailers, all fourteen of them. They

1083
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:23,799
Speaker 2: dump the ET games into the fresh dug pit after

1084
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:26,279
Speaker 2: the fourteen trucks are emptied and the deep scar and

1085
00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:30,080
Speaker 2: the earth is filled, next comes the fleet of cement trucks.

1086
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:32,960
Speaker 2: They come in, beeping and backing up into the scene,

1087
00:50:33,280 --> 00:50:37,000
Speaker 2: much like the stolen and recovered body of Abraham Lincoln.

1088
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:40,600
Speaker 2: Your answer to ET is to ensure these games are

1089
00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:43,640
Speaker 2: never again disturbed, So you drop an obscene amount of

1090
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:46,480
Speaker 2: concrete on top of them to seal the deal. The

1091
00:50:46,520 --> 00:50:50,920
Speaker 2: cement mixture trucks pour wet concrete into this mass burial site.

1092
00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:54,640
Speaker 2: May no one ever find these cursed ET games, You

1093
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:58,799
Speaker 2: think to yourself as you watch the concrete slush over

1094
00:50:58,960 --> 00:51:02,359
Speaker 2: the burial pit. Elizabeth, nice work, by the way, way

1095
00:51:02,400 --> 00:51:03,319
Speaker 2: to burry them a stake?

1096
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:04,399
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, thanks.

1097
00:51:04,560 --> 00:51:08,600
Speaker 2: Unfortunately it doesn't quite work. How about that in a second? Now,

1098
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:11,840
Speaker 2: the video game ET marks the death Now for Atari

1099
00:51:12,080 --> 00:51:16,000
Speaker 2: pac Man Fever, this early video game craze. For the record,

1100
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 2: in the second quarter of eighty three, Atari lost three

1101
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:20,759
Speaker 2: hundred and ten million dollars.

1102
00:51:21,080 --> 00:51:21,680
Speaker 3: Wow.

1103
00:51:21,719 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty five dollars, that would be nine hundred

1104
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:26,600
Speaker 2: and seventy seven million dollars, almost nine hundred and seventy

1105
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:29,960
Speaker 2: eight million dollars. Wow, it's nearly a billion dollars they

1106
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 2: lost in one quarter. Yeah, of course, like in Nvidia

1107
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:35,359
Speaker 2: just nearly lost a trillion dollars in one day from

1108
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:37,719
Speaker 2: AI bubble. But this is just at the time, this

1109
00:51:37,800 --> 00:51:40,160
Speaker 2: seemed like a lot of money. So nineteen eighty three

1110
00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:40,920
Speaker 2: it was devastating.

1111
00:51:40,960 --> 00:51:43,000
Speaker 3: This is eighty three. But I'm thinking, like I was

1112
00:51:43,080 --> 00:51:45,279
Speaker 3: playing all this stuff later than that, and it's like,

1113
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:46,360
Speaker 3: I guess.

1114
00:51:46,160 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 2: It, they helps the helps strong again.

1115
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:48,239
Speaker 3: Wrong.

1116
00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:50,520
Speaker 2: But I'm talking from the business standpoint of like, we're

1117
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:52,719
Speaker 2: gonna keep making more games. This is why you didn't

1118
00:51:52,719 --> 00:51:56,520
Speaker 2: see more Atari games than eighty five six. Okay, So

1119
00:51:56,600 --> 00:51:58,600
Speaker 2: at this moral panic, it looks like it's one. It's

1120
00:51:58,719 --> 00:52:01,840
Speaker 2: claims of addiction and toxic games have worked. Noel and

1121
00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:05,120
Speaker 2: Bushnell and his shovel business aka the family fun Center

1122
00:52:05,200 --> 00:52:07,840
Speaker 2: Chucky Eaches, they started to face tough times in the

1123
00:52:07,880 --> 00:52:10,640
Speaker 2: early eighties. All the new shopping ball arcades started to shudder,

1124
00:52:10,800 --> 00:52:14,000
Speaker 2: as did those dark, windowed suburban businesses that scared the

1125
00:52:14,040 --> 00:52:17,800
Speaker 2: parents so much. But then came Custer's Revenge, a video

1126
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:22,520
Speaker 2: game so offensive it spawned protests against it. In Custer's Revenge,

1127
00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:25,600
Speaker 2: you were played as General George Armstrong, Custer. Okay, you

1128
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:28,800
Speaker 2: are Custer and you face Native American opponents. The Natives

1129
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:30,759
Speaker 2: are armed with arrows. They try to kill you, and

1130
00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:33,040
Speaker 2: they fire them at Custer. That's you. And then this

1131
00:52:33,080 --> 00:52:35,080
Speaker 2: is where it really gets bad. Custer. If you can

1132
00:52:35,080 --> 00:52:37,279
Speaker 2: survive this reign of arrows successfully, you can reach a

1133
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:39,640
Speaker 2: Native girl who's bound to a pole. And if you

1134
00:52:40,040 --> 00:52:42,360
Speaker 2: try to get busy with her, and you score points

1135
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:45,320
Speaker 2: for getting busy with the Native girl. What Yes. The

1136
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 2: very first time this was ever unveiled at a demonstration,

1137
00:52:48,239 --> 00:52:50,239
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty people showed up just to boo

1138
00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:52,239
Speaker 2: the game. They'd already heard about it from people on

1139
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:54,080
Speaker 2: the inside. I've never heard of the game is a

1140
00:52:54,080 --> 00:52:56,799
Speaker 2: notable failure. They was up there with Ultra Violet game

1141
00:52:56,840 --> 00:52:58,920
Speaker 2: Death Race. It was just pulled from the shelves right

1142
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 2: Custer's Revenge. So in two thousand and three.

1143
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 3: Creep like DIRG came.

1144
00:53:03,760 --> 00:53:06,479
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so, researchers, these are the games also helped

1145
00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:09,120
Speaker 2: kill the video game early video game pase weird. In

1146
00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:11,560
Speaker 2: two thousand and three, researchers at Iowa State looked back

1147
00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:13,759
Speaker 2: at the early degenerate days of video games, and they

1148
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:17,000
Speaker 2: noted that the era of Atari was mostly abstract violence

1149
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 2: outside of Custer's Revenge, and Nolan Bushnell said that this

1150
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:23,160
Speaker 2: was intentional. It was an intentional choice on his part

1151
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:25,640
Speaker 2: because there's a huge difference between blowing up a tank

1152
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 2: or flying saucer and blowing up people. That's how he

1153
00:53:28,200 --> 00:53:31,520
Speaker 2: parned right As the co founder of Atari, also added quote,

1154
00:53:31,800 --> 00:53:33,600
Speaker 2: we felt that that was not good form, and we

1155
00:53:33,600 --> 00:53:36,040
Speaker 2: adhered to that all during my tenure. Right. So, but

1156
00:53:36,080 --> 00:53:37,640
Speaker 2: at this point it's too late, because the eighty three

1157
00:53:37,680 --> 00:53:40,399
Speaker 2: crashes nearly killed video games. They never become a thing.

1158
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:43,480
Speaker 2: The moral skolds have won, except for nineteen eighty five,

1159
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:47,399
Speaker 2: the Nintendo nes and the Sega Master gaming systems come

1160
00:53:47,400 --> 00:53:50,120
Speaker 2: over from Japan, and people were like, whoa, and they

1161
00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:52,399
Speaker 2: really changed the game, so to speak. Sure, they marked

1162
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:54,200
Speaker 2: the beginning of the modern video game era. And and

1163
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:56,359
Speaker 2: then now arcades they were still going at this point,

1164
00:53:56,400 --> 00:53:58,279
Speaker 2: but the tide has started turning to home, all to

1165
00:53:58,320 --> 00:54:01,840
Speaker 2: home gaming. Eighty five more arcades are closing than opening.

1166
00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:04,520
Speaker 2: The same year. One of the longest run arcades in

1167
00:54:04,600 --> 00:54:08,200
Speaker 2: Times Square closes, a place called Broadway Arcade. Fun fact,

1168
00:54:08,239 --> 00:54:11,080
Speaker 2: that's also where Lou Reed once got married. A Times

1169
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:14,360
Speaker 2: Square Arcade. The Broadway Arcade, Yeah, it was opened for

1170
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:16,680
Speaker 2: fifty years before. They'd had pinball before that and moved

1171
00:54:16,719 --> 00:54:19,879
Speaker 2: back from Times Square was dirty. But nineteen eighty five

1172
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:22,520
Speaker 2: New York was reclaiming and cleaning up Times Square. The

1173
00:54:22,520 --> 00:54:25,840
Speaker 2: Broadway Arcade was treated like its dirty neighbors, the adult

1174
00:54:25,880 --> 00:54:28,279
Speaker 2: bookstores and the porn shops. So the arcade was left

1175
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:30,400
Speaker 2: out of any plans for the future of Times Square.

1176
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:33,080
Speaker 2: It's not seen as a family entertainment, so it was

1177
00:54:33,160 --> 00:54:35,239
Speaker 2: forced out of business, part of a seat er pass

1178
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:37,080
Speaker 2: that New York wanted to forget. So one of the

1179
00:54:37,120 --> 00:54:39,680
Speaker 2: loyal customers at the arcade told The New York Times quote,

1180
00:54:39,719 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 2: it's a moral crusade. A lot of good things like

1181
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:44,080
Speaker 2: the Broadway Arcade will get swept out with the bad.

1182
00:54:44,280 --> 00:54:47,600
Speaker 2: So for a pinball operator in a video game impresario,

1183
00:54:47,680 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 2: this was not such a big shock. They had to

1184
00:54:49,080 --> 00:54:51,759
Speaker 2: see this coming. They've already paid a dirty business. But

1185
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:54,200
Speaker 2: it's still really a shame to lose this fifty year

1186
00:54:54,200 --> 00:54:57,880
Speaker 2: old treasure because of a random moral crusade. But and

1187
00:54:57,920 --> 00:54:59,640
Speaker 2: this is what happens in world crusade. You lose what

1188
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:02,319
Speaker 2: side of what's good because you're so focused on what's bad,

1189
00:55:02,400 --> 00:55:04,680
Speaker 2: and you're in such a rush be satisfied by all

1190
00:55:04,680 --> 00:55:07,279
Speaker 2: this emotional highs of it. Things can get swept up.

1191
00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:09,400
Speaker 2: And also you're so certain because you're mad and all that.

1192
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:12,160
Speaker 2: The moral skulds though they didn't fully win because now

1193
00:55:12,200 --> 00:55:15,359
Speaker 2: we have barcades. This is places where people can go

1194
00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:18,480
Speaker 2: and drink and play nostalgic retro video games. Yeah, they're

1195
00:55:18,520 --> 00:55:21,240
Speaker 2: like video game parlors for fun time drunks, the thirsty

1196
00:55:21,239 --> 00:55:24,759
Speaker 2: ga no no more like places actually called barcade. That's

1197
00:55:24,800 --> 00:55:26,759
Speaker 2: a business. Yeah, and that's like and you can, which

1198
00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:29,360
Speaker 2: is interesting. That's where Pong started was in a bar, remember,

1199
00:55:29,360 --> 00:55:30,960
Speaker 2: a local bar. That's how it became a hit.

1200
00:55:31,040 --> 00:55:34,160
Speaker 3: I think they sell the like upright arcade video game

1201
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:37,680
Speaker 3: thing like I want to get one Costco totally. I

1202
00:55:37,840 --> 00:55:39,960
Speaker 3: was actually for headquarters.

1203
00:55:40,120 --> 00:55:42,560
Speaker 2: I was thinking that. By the way, in twenty thirteen,

1204
00:55:42,760 --> 00:55:45,239
Speaker 2: some treasure hunters got approval to dig up your et

1205
00:55:45,400 --> 00:55:49,399
Speaker 2: video games, and in twenty fourteen they found some. There's

1206
00:55:49,400 --> 00:55:51,440
Speaker 2: a whole documentary about it if you want to watch. Okay, well,

1207
00:55:51,440 --> 00:55:54,400
Speaker 2: I guess your cement mixer plan with so flawless Elizabeth,

1208
00:55:54,960 --> 00:55:58,759
Speaker 2: December twenty fourteen. The Smithsonian Institute. They added an excavated

1209
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:03,600
Speaker 2: et game cartridge two exhibition collection, Yes, preserving Forever the

1210
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:06,279
Speaker 2: worst video game ever, marking the end of the pac

1211
00:56:06,360 --> 00:56:09,160
Speaker 2: Man Fever, and the first video game craze. So, Elizabeth,

1212
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:11,440
Speaker 2: what take away?

1213
00:56:11,440 --> 00:56:14,720
Speaker 3: Oh? You know, I keep thinking of that lady railing

1214
00:56:14,760 --> 00:56:16,839
Speaker 3: against the video games. And it's like, if you're going

1215
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:21,080
Speaker 3: to expend that kind of energy has to be positive energy.

1216
00:56:21,200 --> 00:56:24,200
Speaker 3: And I say this. You know, we joke about the

1217
00:56:24,239 --> 00:56:27,319
Speaker 3: Winter of Dark Elizabeth. This summer, I don't want to

1218
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:29,920
Speaker 3: do that anymore. Like, I don't want to be mad

1219
00:56:30,560 --> 00:56:32,880
Speaker 3: and so like, because it's not productive and it doesn't

1220
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:35,399
Speaker 3: feel good. And so it's like, if you if you're

1221
00:56:35,480 --> 00:56:38,040
Speaker 3: upset about the way things are, then like, come up

1222
00:56:38,080 --> 00:56:39,160
Speaker 3: with a good thing.

1223
00:56:39,719 --> 00:56:42,440
Speaker 2: Constructive, obstructive, connect something.

1224
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:46,960
Speaker 3: Concerned these kids. Oh I'm so mad. Don't don't try

1225
00:56:46,960 --> 00:56:47,360
Speaker 3: to give.

1226
00:56:47,400 --> 00:56:50,200
Speaker 2: Kids another choice, a better choice, an easier path to

1227
00:56:50,280 --> 00:56:50,959
Speaker 2: a better choice.

1228
00:56:50,960 --> 00:56:52,840
Speaker 3: Exactly, come up with a solution.

1229
00:56:53,160 --> 00:56:56,000
Speaker 2: Support them as individuals making choices, because that's going to

1230
00:56:56,040 --> 00:56:58,239
Speaker 2: be their future when they are adults. Teach them to

1231
00:56:58,239 --> 00:57:00,279
Speaker 2: make that and help them do that, and brother and go.

1232
00:57:00,440 --> 00:57:02,640
Speaker 2: I'm just gotta clear that I'm gonna get rid of those.

1233
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:05,040
Speaker 3: Don't give a list of negatives, come up with some positive.

1234
00:57:05,719 --> 00:57:07,480
Speaker 3: That's my takeaway, Zaren, what's yours?

1235
00:57:07,960 --> 00:57:09,799
Speaker 2: I didn't think you're gonna ask. I don't even have one.

1236
00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:12,280
Speaker 2: I mean, okay, here's one off the off, off the cuff.

1237
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:14,600
Speaker 2: I do want to buy a couple of old video games,

1238
00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:16,680
Speaker 2: and maybe I don't even where to put them, so

1239
00:57:16,720 --> 00:57:20,000
Speaker 2: I will probably put them. I'll put them in h Q. Yeah.

1240
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:21,880
Speaker 2: Would you be in Petersher? Do you play like a

1241
00:57:21,920 --> 00:57:24,040
Speaker 2: game like Timber where you chopped down as many trees

1242
00:57:24,080 --> 00:57:25,760
Speaker 2: as you can into you get attacked by a swarm

1243
00:57:25,800 --> 00:57:26,479
Speaker 2: of angry bees?

1244
00:57:26,640 --> 00:57:26,840
Speaker 3: Sure?

1245
00:57:27,200 --> 00:57:29,200
Speaker 2: How about Frogger? Will you try to get across traffic

1246
00:57:29,200 --> 00:57:31,800
Speaker 2: before run over and turned into a frog?

1247
00:57:32,280 --> 00:57:33,080
Speaker 3: Get hit by a car?

1248
00:57:33,720 --> 00:57:38,960
Speaker 2: The arm wrestling game? Oh? Hell yeah? Yeah, there you go. There?

1249
00:57:39,160 --> 00:57:41,000
Speaker 3: Is it gonna be the stand up or the table

1250
00:57:41,080 --> 00:57:41,720
Speaker 3: top kind?

1251
00:57:42,040 --> 00:57:44,240
Speaker 2: Maybe one of each? I get joust as a tabletop.

1252
00:57:44,280 --> 00:57:47,880
Speaker 2: That's what the like? The flying ostriches in space going

1253
00:57:47,880 --> 00:57:52,120
Speaker 2: from like I don't know past right or whatever? Yees yeah,

1254
00:57:52,160 --> 00:57:53,840
Speaker 2: I like that marble madness.

1255
00:57:54,080 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 3: Oh look at that we got we could we could

1256
00:57:56,320 --> 00:57:58,880
Speaker 3: open Yeah exactly.

1257
00:57:59,000 --> 00:58:00,520
Speaker 2: Eat y'all in the mood for a top. I am

1258
00:58:00,600 --> 00:58:05,160
Speaker 2: always in the mood. Can you favor us with Oh

1259
00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:15,960
Speaker 2: my God, I love che Hello.

1260
00:58:16,080 --> 00:58:18,560
Speaker 6: My name is Stop and Dragon. So from Atlanta, Georgia,

1261
00:58:18,680 --> 00:58:20,240
Speaker 6: and I just want to take a moment. You told

1262
00:58:20,240 --> 00:58:23,760
Speaker 6: my appreciation to the Ridiculous Crime Crew and everything that

1263
00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:27,560
Speaker 6: you guys do. I really appreciate every single episode. I

1264
00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:30,200
Speaker 6: never miss one, and I really hope you guys get

1265
00:58:30,200 --> 00:58:33,280
Speaker 6: some awards and accolades or whatever in the near future.

1266
00:58:34,800 --> 00:58:38,080
Speaker 6: I'm an eighties baby, so I grew up with the

1267
00:58:38,080 --> 00:58:40,080
Speaker 6: best cartoons of the best theme songs, and the theme

1268
00:58:40,160 --> 00:58:45,400
Speaker 6: song to this show it's awesome. Bump Bom the Ban's

1269
00:58:45,480 --> 00:58:46,120
Speaker 6: the greatest.

1270
00:58:46,240 --> 00:58:48,080
Speaker 3: I think that might be my favorite talk to Yeah,

1271
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:50,960
Speaker 3: thank you, brother, that was amazing. That makes me so happy.

1272
00:58:50,960 --> 00:58:52,480
Speaker 2: You gotta get love to trap on that one.

1273
00:58:52,960 --> 00:58:55,680
Speaker 3: Nice to trap for the theme song, but also eighties

1274
00:58:55,720 --> 00:58:59,520
Speaker 3: babies to eighties babies. I just I really thank you.

1275
00:58:59,560 --> 00:59:02,840
Speaker 2: We needed that you and that that is an award,

1276
00:59:02,880 --> 00:59:03,800
Speaker 2: Like I know, that's.

1277
00:59:03,720 --> 00:59:06,000
Speaker 3: What I'm saying, Like that's the kind of award I

1278
00:59:06,040 --> 00:59:09,280
Speaker 3: would love to get it. So when you guys say, yeah,

1279
00:59:09,880 --> 00:59:11,160
Speaker 3: that's awesome, thank you.

1280
00:59:11,960 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 2: Well. As always, you can find us on Ridiculous Crime

1281
00:59:13,920 --> 00:59:16,240
Speaker 2: on Instagram and blue Sky. If you like blue Sky,

1282
00:59:16,720 --> 00:59:19,080
Speaker 2: we also have our website Ridiculous Crime dot com and

1283
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:21,720
Speaker 2: obviously we loved you talk back, so please hit us

1284
00:59:21,800 --> 00:59:24,160
Speaker 2: up on the iHeart app record one. Maybe we'll hear

1285
00:59:24,200 --> 00:59:26,280
Speaker 2: your voice here, or you can email us if you

1286
00:59:26,360 --> 00:59:29,840
Speaker 2: like a Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and please,

1287
00:59:30,040 --> 00:59:33,560
Speaker 2: if you do, start the email dear producer d all right,

1288
00:59:33,920 --> 00:59:36,480
Speaker 2: thank you for listening. We will catch you next crime.

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Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett,

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Speaker 2: produced and edited by the man who once believed Tron

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Speaker 2: would be our future, Dave Pustein, and starring Analis Rucker

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Speaker 2: as Judi. Research is by Pong all time top I

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Speaker 2: scorers Versa Brown and Alex. Our theme song is by

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Speaker 2: the Pinball with zards Thomas Lee and Travis Duck. The

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Speaker 2: host wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred guest hair and

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Speaker 2: makeup by Sparkleshaw and mister Andre. Executive producers are the

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Speaker 2: only man who ever beat the cursed et game, Ben

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Speaker 2: Bowlin and the man who taught Elton John to play pinball.

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Speaker 2: So damn well, no.

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Speaker 5: Brown, Red Crime say it One More Time Crime.

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts

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Speaker 1: from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.