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Speaker 1: Everyone. It's Joshua. For this week's select, I've chosen our

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Speaker 1: twenty eighteen episode on ET the video game. It's one

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Speaker 1: of those topics that you thought you knew about, but

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Speaker 1: after you hear this episode, you'll realize that you've been

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Speaker 1: grossly misinformed by the Internet. Who knew that could happen?

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Speaker 1: Enjoy this trip down nostalgia lane.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of Iheartradioy.

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Speaker 1: And welcome to the podcast. I'm josh and there's Chuck

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Speaker 1: and there's Jerry, and it's like the holiday season. I

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Speaker 1: feel great.

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Speaker 3: It is Holidays with a Z, and we're gonna do

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Speaker 3: what we almost did for a short stuff.

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, Chuck, you're commended for that call.

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Speaker 3: Well, I was just like I kind of wanted to

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Speaker 3: do this one. Always is a long stuff. We don't

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Speaker 3: have a show called mediums stuff yet.

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Speaker 1: No, we have a so so stuffed called Stuff you

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Speaker 1: Should Know.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but yeah, I saw that documentary Atari game over

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Speaker 3: a few years ago.

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Speaker 1: It's a good one.

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Speaker 3: And I also guested on tech Stuff and did a

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Speaker 3: two part episode on the history of Atari.

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Speaker 4: It's a good one with Strickland.

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Speaker 3: He's great too, and we could probably do Atari on

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Speaker 3: its own at some point too.

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Speaker 1: I agree, I think we definitely should.

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Speaker 3: But this is I mean, I was about to say

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Speaker 3: if Strickland and I could get two episodes out of it,

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Speaker 3: but you know how that guy goes on.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, he's the hardest working man in podcast business.

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Speaker 1: I'll tell you that.

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Speaker 4: Just ask.

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Speaker 1: So we're talking today about what is widely believed to

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Speaker 1: be the worst video game of all time, except that

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Speaker 1: it's not. Except that it's not. Yes, it's true. I

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Speaker 1: love stories like this where it's like everything you thought

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Speaker 1: you knew was wrong, and really stop and ask yourself,

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Speaker 1: how did you even know that this truth that you

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Speaker 1: knew before. I love that man.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, E t the Atari video game a lot of people.

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Speaker 4: It's that whole.

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Speaker 3: Internet bandwagon thing. I think, Yes, worst game of all time.

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Speaker 3: They tried to bury it in the desert. It was

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Speaker 3: so bad.

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Speaker 4: Killed Atari, killed the whole stinking industry.

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Speaker 1: Right, But it was just that bad of a game.

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Speaker 1: But you've played it.

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Speaker 4: No, Yeah, I will say this, it may be one

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Speaker 4: of the one of the most disappointing games of all time.

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Speaker 4: It could be, Yes, because if you were a kid

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Speaker 4: back then like me, and you and you played Atari

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Speaker 4: like I did. It was it was a disappointment.

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Speaker 1: It was greatly anticipated. I'm sure a lot.

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Speaker 3: Of anticipation that was part, you know, that was that

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Speaker 3: was probably the biggest reason why it gets all the

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Speaker 3: attention because it was e t It wasn't what said,

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Speaker 3: dumb game sorcerer, yeah, or fast food. There were so

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Speaker 3: many bad video games for Atari.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there were a lot.

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Speaker 4: It was awful.

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Speaker 1: So will this come out and say, no, ET is

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Speaker 1: not the worst video game of all time. There were

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Speaker 1: a lot of worst, far far worst video games. Yes

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Speaker 1: than ET, But like you were saying, as far as

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Speaker 1: the anticipation went, as far as the letdown went, as

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Speaker 1: far as the loss of money went, you can understand

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Speaker 1: how people would say this is the worst of all time.

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Speaker 1: But also the timing of its failure was so utterly,

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Speaker 1: amazingly perfect that it just took it from worst video

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Speaker 1: game of all time to worst video game of all time.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like here Atari in video home console game industry,

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Speaker 3: you're not doing well, and I notice you're sinking. Let

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Speaker 3: me tie this anvil around your ankle that's shaped like ET.

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Speaker 1: Yep, that's right.

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Speaker 4: It's just really bad timing.

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Speaker 1: So let's get into the story because it's one of

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Speaker 1: the more interesting ones, and it features a great guy

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Speaker 1: named Howard Scott wore Shaw, who if you've seen the

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Speaker 1: movie Game Over, you have probably come to really like

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Speaker 1: and admire good dude.

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Speaker 4: Good dude, brilliant designer.

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Speaker 1: Huh and like a just a genuinely great guy. He

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Speaker 1: The story begins back in nineteen eighty two, I believe, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was nineteen eighty two. He was a designer at Atari.

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Speaker 1: He'd apparently started out writing Coda Hewlett Packard and was

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Speaker 1: very unhappy, so he made the move over to Atari,

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Speaker 1: even though he had zero experience with game design, but

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Speaker 1: he was really an exciting game designer because he came

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Speaker 1: up with some really innovative ideas.

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Speaker 3: Yes, he Yars Revenge is one of the best Atari

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Speaker 3: twenty six hundred games of all time.

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Speaker 1: Did you have that one?

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Speaker 4: Oh?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I never played it.

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Speaker 4: It's great. It's great.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of space invaderies or something. It's like a

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Speaker 1: shooter thing, kind of yeah, single screen shooter.

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Speaker 4: Well, you're a I guess you were a Yar, and

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Speaker 4: you're this sort of bug like Reacher and instead of

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Speaker 4: shooting at something to chip away at it. You do

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Speaker 4: it so with your body, so you just fly into this.

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Speaker 1: Oh I think I had that went You.

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Speaker 4: Would fly into this. I mean, of course all this

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Speaker 4: stuff was supposed to represent like a spaceship or a planet,

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Speaker 4: but it was made up of you know, blocks and cubes,

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Speaker 4: so I don't even know what it was. But your

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Speaker 4: whole point was to make it.

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Speaker 1: Smaller, gotcha, and you would fly into I know.

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Speaker 4: You instead of yeah, shooting, you would fly into it.

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Speaker 1: For my money, that kind of game the best of

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Speaker 1: all time with Centipede.

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Speaker 4: Cinipede is great.

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Speaker 1: It was great.

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Speaker 3: I mean a lot of those games I played today

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Speaker 3: when I happened upon an arcade, Galagha and Frogger and

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Speaker 3: Centipede and Defender, like those are still really good challenging

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Speaker 3: jus sure, miss fun games, yeah, miss bac man, they

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Speaker 3: just stand up still. It's not like you go to

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Speaker 3: Galagha or Jousts now and you're like, this is easy.

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Speaker 1: What was I thinking? I was such a kid.

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Speaker 4: There are still hard challenging games, and I think that's

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Speaker 4: sort of they to a good video game is it's

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Speaker 4: got to be winnable, but it's got to be hard

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Speaker 4: because a kid didn't want to you know, a pushover, right,

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Speaker 4: but a kid also wants to win.

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Speaker 1: So Howard Scott Warshaw knew this like he was a

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Speaker 1: game designer. He wasn't like a code monkey or anything

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Speaker 1: like that. He was a game designer, an artist. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure he considered himself, especially at the time, and he

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Speaker 1: should have. One of the other things he was known

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Speaker 1: for was he was the guy who realized that you

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Speaker 1: could make a game way more enjoyable if you created

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Speaker 1: a backstory for it. So rather than like, drive this

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Speaker 1: car there, you're actually running away from this gang of

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Speaker 1: you know, international mafia guys who are trying to kidnap

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Speaker 1: your girlfriend or whatever. Yeah, you make up a backstory

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Speaker 1: for it. The player reads this backstory and then plays,

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Speaker 1: they care that much more about the person because their

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Speaker 1: imagination is now kicked in. They're not just doing a

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Speaker 1: mindless task. They're imagining what's going on in computer world.

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Speaker 1: And he did that for games, and he was one

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Speaker 1: of the first, if not the first designer to create

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Speaker 1: backstories and biographies for his characters and games.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know what just now is sort of

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Speaker 3: hitting me that part of the appeal was the imagination

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Speaker 3: of the kid. So like when you got the game

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Speaker 3: Adventure or Asteroids and Asteroids, you were a pencil drawn

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Speaker 3: triangle shooting at pencil drawn shapes.

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Speaker 1: Shooting pencils at pencil drawn shapes.

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Speaker 3: Shooting dots at pencil drawn shapes. An Adventure, you are

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Speaker 3: a cube that flew around with an arrow attached to

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Speaker 3: you that was supposed to be your sword. But when

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Speaker 3: you look at the actual cartridge or the box that

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Speaker 3: it came in, they had this great artwork of this

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Speaker 3: night on a horse with his sword drawn in asteroids,

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Speaker 3: this han solo like pilot like cruising through a you know,

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Speaker 3: an asteroid field, and that would kickstarts. That starts the

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Speaker 3: imagination of a ten year old, right, and then they

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Speaker 3: forget they're a cube, right or an arrow?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes it that much more real.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it was really really cool.

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Speaker 1: Because the imagination can do some pretty amazing stuff with

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Speaker 1: eight bytes of graphic.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you know for sure.

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Speaker 1: So Warshaw figured.

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Speaker 4: This out, Yeah, designing worlds.

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Speaker 1: He would design easter eggs into his games too. Yeah

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Speaker 1: he wasn't the first, but yes, no, but he was

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Speaker 1: an early person to do that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Adventure was the first, I think.

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Speaker 1: And in addition to Yours Revenge, he also already had

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Speaker 1: a hit in the Raiders of the Lost Art game.

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Speaker 1: He had designed that and it's still laid so much.

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Speaker 1: I read you did. Oh yeah, so from what I

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Speaker 1: never played that one. From what I understand you, it

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Speaker 1: was extremely difficult. You it required both joy sticks. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there was. I think I read somewhere that there were

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Speaker 1: thirty three screens, which is unheard of.

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Speaker 4: I could buy that.

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Speaker 1: And that like people still have trouble beating it today.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's it was really hard. I remember very specifically.

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Speaker 3: There was one part where you were to parachute parachute

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Speaker 3: from one screen and it would all of a sudden,

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Speaker 3: you went to the bottom and it would pop up

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Speaker 3: and you're on the next screen going down and there's

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Speaker 3: a tree on the left, and you had to start

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Speaker 3: that jump early, going hard left and hook onto that

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Speaker 3: tree with your parachute. If you hit at the wrong angle,

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Speaker 3: it burst your parachute and you would die, and if

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Speaker 3: you didn't, you would hook onto it and slide perfectly.

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Speaker 3: And it was probably one of the hardest things I've

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Speaker 3: ever had to do in a video game.

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Speaker 1: I know, you get to this day life.

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Speaker 4: No, as far as video gameplay though.

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Speaker 3: Really it was very, very challenging, but it was possible.

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Speaker 3: So when you tried it twenty seven times and you

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Speaker 3: nail it on that twenty eight, like you would run

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Speaker 3: around the neighborhood telling all your friends that you nailed

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Speaker 3: the parachute jump really really hard.

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Speaker 1: But it was so hard that it was like you

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Speaker 1: would get frustrated or it kept you sucking.

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Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, You're like, I know I can get it.

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Speaker 1: There's the key and that's.

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Speaker 4: Where ET messed up. But we'll get to that, okay.

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Speaker 1: So on June, it's funny, he remembers us the date

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Speaker 1: on June twenty seventh, nineteen eighty two, Howard s Gott

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Speaker 1: Warshaw's hanging around Atari and he gets a phone call.

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Speaker 1: He gets a phone call from the CEO, Ray Casar himself.

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Speaker 1: That was a big deal back then. Oh sure, and

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Speaker 1: Ray Casar says, hey, kid, we know you, we love you.

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Speaker 1: We've got something going on with Steven Spielberg. He remembers

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Speaker 1: that you made the Raiders of the Lost Art game

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Speaker 1: for him. He thinks, you're a certifiable genius, but we

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Speaker 1: have a special assignment for you. We want you to

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Speaker 1: make the et video game. Can you do it? Wait,

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Speaker 1: don't answer yet. Can you do it in five weeks?

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Speaker 1: Then he went sure, yeah, he said yeah, which I

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Speaker 1: mean even today, you're like five weeks. That doesn't sounding

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Speaker 1: very long. That was less than a tenth of the

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Speaker 1: time that it would normally take.

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Speaker 3: And he had the little secret is that he had

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Speaker 3: already called some other people in the company and said,

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Speaker 3: the CEO has this, like is this even possible? Or

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Speaker 3: am I just crazy for asking this guy to do

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Speaker 3: this in five weeks because it takes five or six months.

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Speaker 3: And they all said, no, it's not possible. And he said, well,

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Speaker 3: I'm going to ask him.

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Speaker 1: Anyway, right, And Howard Scott Warshaw didn't realize that they'd

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Speaker 1: already told him like, no, this can't be done when

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Speaker 1: he said yes, but he was locked in the punch

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Speaker 1: and he was twenty four years old and sure, full

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Speaker 1: of full of exuberants and hubris and all sorts of stuff,

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Speaker 1: and said I can do this. So he did. And

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Speaker 1: the reason we should say, the reason why this this

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Speaker 1: schedule was so short and usually took five to six

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Speaker 1: months for a game to be developed, and he had

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Speaker 1: five weeks to do it, and The reason why is

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Speaker 1: because the haggling the deal to get the rights for

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Speaker 1: the et game for Atari to purchase them, which they

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Speaker 1: bought for twenty one million dollars, took way longer than expected,

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Speaker 1: and they really wanted this game out for in time

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Speaker 1: for Christmas.

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Speaker 4: That was the whole deal.

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Speaker 1: So because of the because the deal had worked all

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Speaker 1: the way up into the summer and Christmas was on

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Speaker 1: the other edge, they needed also several weeks to manufacture

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Speaker 1: the actual cartridges and get them into stores. Yeah, if

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Speaker 1: you lay it all this timeline out, they left five

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Speaker 1: weeks to develop a game from scratch. So they they

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Speaker 1: knew just the guy to do it, and it was

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Speaker 1: Howard's got Warshaw and Howard said I'll give it a shot.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to do it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And I should point out that when you say five

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Speaker 3: or six months is the usual time, five or six

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Speaker 3: months was fast.

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Speaker 4: The usual time was more than that.

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Speaker 1: Well, you also probably had a team working on it.

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Speaker 4: Like five or six months was the Rush version?

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Speaker 1: Right?

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Speaker 4: Anyway? Yeah, I mean I think I think.

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Speaker 1: That the pretty delightful prog Rock version.

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Speaker 4: Did that have a they should add their own video game.

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Speaker 1: I'm surprised they didn't. They were like, right there, they

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Speaker 1: did in that wheelhouse.

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Speaker 4: We would like the twenty one to twelve game or something.

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Speaker 1: We would know. Yeah, there's no way we wouldn't know

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Speaker 1: about the Rush twenty one to twelve Atari game.

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Speaker 3: So Warshaw gets to meet with Steven Spielberg in la

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Speaker 3: and was not given direction or a brief. He meets

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Speaker 3: with Spielberg says, here's what I proposed, this adventure game

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Speaker 3: that follows a plot of the film somewhat where the

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Speaker 3: kid is et playing the game. You are et, right,

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Speaker 3: and you got to go around and collect all these

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Speaker 3: pieces to build a phone so you can phone home,

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Speaker 3: and the government's after you and these bad doctors are

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Speaker 3: after you. It's just like your movie, right, And Spielberg

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Speaker 3: was like, well, can't you just have him like running

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Speaker 3: around eating Reese's pieces like pac Man?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and he went, oh.

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Speaker 1: There's this great there's this great quote where he's like, here,

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Speaker 1: here's one of my idols, Steven Spielberg asking me to

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Speaker 1: knock off pac Man for the ET game. And I thought, well, gee, Stephen,

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Speaker 1: couldn't you make something more like The Day of the earthstud?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Burn right, burn? So he apparently had to do a

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Speaker 1: little fancy footwork to talk Spielberg into going with his

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Speaker 1: vision rather than a pac Man knockoff of ET, which

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Speaker 1: who knows, may have sold a lot better, but it

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Speaker 1: was he got him to agree to his vision for

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Speaker 1: this game. He said, no, this is a groundbreaking movie.

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Speaker 1: We need to make a groundbreaking game. And so Spielberg

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Speaker 1: agreed to it, and Warshaw started to get to work.

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Speaker 1: So we should probably take a break before Scott, Howard

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Speaker 1: Scott really jumps in it, all right, Chuck. So it's

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Speaker 1: basically the beginning of July nineteen eighty two, and Howard

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Speaker 1: Scott Warshaw is the sole programmer for an ET video game.

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Speaker 1: Atari's biggest bet. That they spent twenty one million dollars

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Speaker 1: on the rights too, that they're going to spend an

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Speaker 1: additional five million dollars on the advertising budget, for the

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Speaker 1: most anyone's ever spent on a video game up to

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Speaker 1: that point. He's the only programmer who's going to make

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Speaker 1: this game, and he has five weeks to do it,

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Speaker 1: which from what I understand, no one had ever done before.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and this was Atari was a giant at the time.

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Speaker 3: If video If the video game industry was beginning to slip.

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Speaker 3: It wasn't like the public didn't really realize that yet.

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Speaker 3: The industry may have, but Atari held about eighty percent

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Speaker 3: of the market. They were at about two billion in

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Speaker 3: annual sales and about three quarters of billion in profit,

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Speaker 3: which is just unheard of.

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Speaker 1: About two billion in profit in today's money.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so a ton of money. But they saw the

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Speaker 4: writing on the wall.

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Speaker 3: They knew that the personal computer like the Common or

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Speaker 3: sixty four that could play games but also do a

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Speaker 3: lot more, was a real genuine threat to the home console.

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Speaker 1: So I read a contemporary article in the New York

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Speaker 1: Times from nineteen eighty three talking about this, and Atari

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Speaker 1: said they did not see the writing on the wall.

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Speaker 4: Well, one of.

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Speaker 1: Them said, the first six months of nineteen eighty three

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Speaker 1: was one way. The second six months it was like

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Speaker 1: we were in a totally different business.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but if you read interviews with him now, I

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Speaker 3: think that might have.

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Speaker 1: Been, Oh, the guy covering is well, yeah.

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Speaker 3: I don't think you want to go out in the

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Speaker 3: press in the moment and say, hey, everyone, we're super

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Speaker 3: scared investors.

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Speaker 1: Don't freak out, don't panic, You're right, Chuck. I feel

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Speaker 1: a little foolish.

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Speaker 3: So they what they did was they set Warshaw up

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Speaker 3: with everything he would have at work. They set him

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Speaker 3: up at home. So the only time he could not

337
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Speaker 3: be working on this game was his very short drive

338
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Speaker 3: over to the office. And he worked on it almost

339
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Speaker 3: NonStop for five weeks.

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Speaker 1: He had a manager that was assigned to him to

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Speaker 1: make sure that he ate. That was I'm sure not

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Speaker 1: the manager's only duty, but it was. One of the

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Speaker 1: manager's new jobs was to make sure that Warshaw ate

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Speaker 1: every day.

345
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Speaker 4: How about a waffle?

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Speaker 1: Sure, whatever, Stop bothering me.

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Speaker 4: ET's in the pit again.

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Speaker 1: So for five weeks he worked almost like you said,

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Speaker 1: twenty four hours a day. He said, it's the hardest

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Speaker 1: he's ever worked in his entire life.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And when five weeks came and went, he handed off

353
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Speaker 1: his He handed off the game. He finished it. He

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Speaker 1: completed it in time. And it wasn't done in his opinion,

355
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Speaker 1: or it would turn out in anybody's opinion, but it

356
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Speaker 1: was done. It was a complete game that he had

357
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Speaker 1: finished in five weeks, the et video game. And it

358
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Speaker 1: wasn't just something like a pac Man knockoff. He'd given

359
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Speaker 1: real thought to it and created a world that was

360
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Speaker 1: much different from a lot of the other games at

361
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Speaker 1: the time. At the time, it was a world like

362
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Speaker 1: it was a cube shape told with six screens, and

363
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Speaker 1: so if you walk to the left, you knew you

364
00:18:04,960 --> 00:18:06,479
Speaker 1: were going to end up on this other screen. If

365
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Speaker 1: you walked up, you wouldn't end up on the other screen.

366
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Speaker 1: It was a world that you were navigating, rather than

367
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Speaker 1: say like Yars Revenge, which is just one screen and

368
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Speaker 1: everything's happening on the one screen and it may imply

369
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Speaker 1: motion or something like this. With the Et game, you

370
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Speaker 1: were moving from one area of this world to the next. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: which is it was new. It wasn't new, but it was.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't. It wasn't standard to have six screens, especially

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Speaker 1: if you have five weeks to do it. Give a

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Speaker 1: guy a break.

375
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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, No, I'm not saying it should. What I'm

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Speaker 4: saying is that.

377
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Speaker 3: It wasn't like some big revolutionary thing like the Raiders

378
00:18:41,800 --> 00:18:44,240
Speaker 3: game was pre this and it had thirty something screened. Okay,

379
00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:46,919
Speaker 3: all right, fine, and adventure like kids were used to

380
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Speaker 3: this by this point. Okay, So it wasn't like, oh

381
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Speaker 3: wait till they get a load of six screens, like

382
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Speaker 3: leaving the screen.

383
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Speaker 1: I see, but I think Howard Scott Warshaw should have

384
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Speaker 1: gone to everybody's house and been like, here's your copy

385
00:19:00,560 --> 00:19:02,560
Speaker 1: of et game as well. You know I made this

386
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Speaker 1: in five weeks.

387
00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:06,320
Speaker 3: Well he designed Easter eggs in there too, and I

388
00:19:06,400 --> 00:19:07,960
Speaker 3: kind of wondered, like, how much time did he spend

389
00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:11,640
Speaker 3: doing that with his own initials and like the little

390
00:19:11,720 --> 00:19:12,800
Speaker 3: Yards Revenge Flower.

391
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Speaker 1: I hadn't really thought about that.

392
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Speaker 3: I don't know, so he says time was of the essence,

393
00:19:17,840 --> 00:19:20,359
Speaker 3: though I just maybe put that last on the list.

394
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Speaker 1: He says today that had he had one more week

395
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Speaker 1: to just troubleshoot, he could have worked out all the kinks.

396
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Speaker 4: He could have worked out the kinks and one more

397
00:19:28,240 --> 00:19:28,720
Speaker 4: Easter egg.

398
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Speaker 1: But he handed it out. He handed it off to Atari,

399
00:19:31,920 --> 00:19:35,080
Speaker 1: and Atari said genius. They gave it to Steven Spielberg

400
00:19:35,160 --> 00:19:38,800
Speaker 1: to play. Spielberg apparently liked it. And in the game

401
00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:44,240
Speaker 1: it wasn't it wasn't just some dumb clunky game. It

402
00:19:44,280 --> 00:19:47,080
Speaker 1: was a mediocre game, but it was a game, and

403
00:19:47,119 --> 00:19:49,439
Speaker 1: it was done, and it was out the door, and

404
00:19:49,480 --> 00:19:52,440
Speaker 1: they got it out in time for Christmas. The cartridges shipped.

405
00:19:53,280 --> 00:19:56,679
Speaker 1: If you go back onto YouTube and search ET game

406
00:19:57,680 --> 00:20:04,080
Speaker 1: ad or commercial of some extraordinarily nostalgic ads of ET

407
00:20:04,240 --> 00:20:07,760
Speaker 1: dressed to Santa Claus playing his own video game of

408
00:20:07,800 --> 00:20:10,440
Speaker 1: a kid like receiving the ET video game from ET

409
00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:14,040
Speaker 1: out in the shed. Amazing stuff. So not only is

410
00:20:14,080 --> 00:20:17,200
Speaker 1: it like Christmas time feeling, but like Christmas time nineteen

411
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Speaker 1: eighty two.

412
00:20:17,800 --> 00:20:20,360
Speaker 4: Feeling Christmas plus ET who over the top.

413
00:20:20,480 --> 00:20:24,600
Speaker 1: It's nice. It's just like the the taste of ice

414
00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:27,359
Speaker 1: sugar cookies swells from the inside of your mouth. You

415
00:20:27,400 --> 00:20:29,440
Speaker 1: almost gag on it. It's so overpowering.

416
00:20:29,960 --> 00:20:34,520
Speaker 3: So they produce, well, we don't know for sure how many,

417
00:20:35,040 --> 00:20:38,560
Speaker 3: maybe as many as twelve million copies of this, at

418
00:20:38,640 --> 00:20:39,560
Speaker 3: least four million.

419
00:20:39,840 --> 00:20:41,119
Speaker 1: That's part of the urban legend.

420
00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:44,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's an exact exact number,

421
00:20:44,359 --> 00:20:48,320
Speaker 3: but millions of copies of these were produced. Twenty one

422
00:20:48,359 --> 00:20:52,000
Speaker 3: million dollars invested in the licensing, plus five five million

423
00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:55,560
Speaker 3: dollars in advertising and marketing, not just I mean, who

424
00:20:55,560 --> 00:20:59,560
Speaker 3: knows what they paid Warshaw or for the actual production.

425
00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:02,840
Speaker 3: I mean, I doubt if it was millions of dollars.

426
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Speaker 1: But he was probably salaried.

427
00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:04,760
Speaker 4: They sunk a.

428
00:21:04,800 --> 00:21:08,160
Speaker 3: Whole lot of money into this thing and sold. Okay,

429
00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:10,120
Speaker 3: at first they sold about a half a million copies.

430
00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:14,760
Speaker 3: And then and I remember, oh you do oh yeah,

431
00:21:14,920 --> 00:21:18,840
Speaker 3: oh nice. Word got around And this was obviously long

432
00:21:18,880 --> 00:21:21,640
Speaker 3: before the internet, uh huh, like you could still sell

433
00:21:21,640 --> 00:21:25,119
Speaker 3: some stuff back then, before everyone realized it stunk. But

434
00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:28,399
Speaker 3: and that's what was going on. But literally, kid to

435
00:21:28,560 --> 00:21:33,200
Speaker 3: kid to kid in cul de sacs and classrooms got

436
00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:37,520
Speaker 3: the word that the ET game stunk and it killed it.

437
00:21:37,520 --> 00:21:39,159
Speaker 4: It did it is little kids killed it.

438
00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:41,239
Speaker 1: They sold like a half a million copies right out

439
00:21:41,280 --> 00:21:43,680
Speaker 1: of the gate, almost and then it peaked right there

440
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:47,000
Speaker 1: very quickly, right around the Christmas season, right yeah, I.

441
00:21:46,920 --> 00:21:49,160
Speaker 4: Mean, just think about that. Though. It was children led

442
00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:49,920
Speaker 4: to the demise.

443
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:53,119
Speaker 3: It's not like kids read an article in the newspaper,

444
00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:55,160
Speaker 3: even a review on the ET game.

445
00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:59,200
Speaker 4: It was kids going, man, that game stinks. Yeah what

446
00:21:59,400 --> 00:22:01,280
Speaker 4: you bought that? Oh, don't buy it. It stinks.

447
00:22:01,359 --> 00:22:02,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's terrible.

448
00:22:02,920 --> 00:22:05,160
Speaker 4: And that happened like a game of telephone all around

449
00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:05,560
Speaker 4: the country.

450
00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:06,280
Speaker 1: That's really cool.

451
00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:10,000
Speaker 4: Simultaneously, kids get things done, they do, man.

452
00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:13,480
Speaker 1: So, like you said, it happened pretty fast. They peaked

453
00:22:13,480 --> 00:22:16,199
Speaker 1: at a half a million copies, and over time it

454
00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:18,679
Speaker 1: managed to sell another million on top of that, So

455
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:21,400
Speaker 1: a million and a half copies success. I think it's

456
00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:25,679
Speaker 1: like actually inn Atari's top ten of best sellers. But

457
00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:29,239
Speaker 1: the problem is, if this story is a story of

458
00:22:29,280 --> 00:22:34,080
Speaker 1: everything or anything, it's not the story of a over

459
00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:40,560
Speaker 1: over confident game designer making a terrible game. It's a

460
00:22:40,680 --> 00:22:44,760
Speaker 1: very confident game designer making a middling game. If it's

461
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:49,920
Speaker 1: a story of anything, it is of executives being drunk

462
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:53,720
Speaker 1: with confidence in Hubris. Yes that no matter what they

463
00:22:53,760 --> 00:22:57,359
Speaker 1: put out, if it's tied to a hot property of

464
00:22:57,400 --> 00:23:00,000
Speaker 1: like a movie or something, it's gonna sell. Doesn't matter

465
00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:03,680
Speaker 1: what the game is, it's gonna sell. Problem one. Problem

466
00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:08,239
Speaker 1: two was they forecasted based on that Hubris too. So

467
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:11,720
Speaker 1: not only did they say it's gonna sell no matter

468
00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:14,520
Speaker 1: what we put out, it's gonna sell bigger than anything

469
00:23:14,600 --> 00:23:17,879
Speaker 1: we've ever put out before, and they ordered four million cartridges.

470
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:20,600
Speaker 1: Well again, it sold a million and a half and

471
00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:23,680
Speaker 1: two and a half million cartridges were sitting in warehouses.

472
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:26,359
Speaker 1: Not to mention ones that we're starting to be taken back,

473
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:30,600
Speaker 1: because not only did did kids go I don't want

474
00:23:30,600 --> 00:23:33,440
Speaker 1: this game, I want to take it back, and took

475
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:36,720
Speaker 1: it to the stores. The stores started taking their games

476
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:40,640
Speaker 1: back to Atari. So Atari's like, wait, wait a minute, everybody,

477
00:23:40,680 --> 00:23:44,160
Speaker 1: this is et the game. What are you doing? Put

478
00:23:44,200 --> 00:23:47,479
Speaker 1: this in your twenty six hundred and shut up and

479
00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:48,399
Speaker 1: people then listen.

480
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:52,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you can hardly blame the executives. I mean

481
00:23:52,760 --> 00:23:57,119
Speaker 3: they were like, Warshaw plus Spielberg is going to be

482
00:23:57,119 --> 00:24:00,440
Speaker 3: another hit because we had it in Raiders, so sort

483
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:01,879
Speaker 3: of get it. But it was it was just it

484
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 3: was that timeline, right, like that was that was the

485
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:07,680
Speaker 3: big problem. It was all the timeline. He could have

486
00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:09,639
Speaker 3: created a game as good as Raiders.

487
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:13,360
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, given five six months, I'm sure. Yeah, even

488
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 1: given two months, he probably probably could have made an

489
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 1: even better game. But it was It was kind of

490
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 1: a boring game. It wasn't that fun. There's a very

491
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:26,879
Speaker 1: famous quote from a New York Times article in nineteen

492
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:29,479
Speaker 1: eighty two where a little ten year old said, it

493
00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:30,359
Speaker 1: wasn't that fun.

494
00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:32,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was kind of it.

495
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all you need to say.

496
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:36,000
Speaker 3: And it wasn't. And not only was it not fun,

497
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 3: but and I don't know, I guess you could call

498
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:40,480
Speaker 3: it a bug.

499
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:41,440
Speaker 1: It was a bug.

500
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:46,440
Speaker 3: It seems more like bad design than just a mistake.

501
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:51,040
Speaker 3: But what would happen as Et would fall into these

502
00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:55,680
Speaker 3: pits and then he could levitate back out. But depending

503
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:58,679
Speaker 3: on which way you were or even how you were

504
00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:02,640
Speaker 3: holding the joystick, the slightest little move would cause Et

505
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 3: to fall back into that pit.

506
00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:06,680
Speaker 1: No matter what direction you went. Sometimes.

507
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:09,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it wasn't like all the time it was.

508
00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 3: It happened enough though to where as a kid, Remember

509
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:17,359
Speaker 3: you asked me earlier if it was frustrating trying to

510
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 3: parachute as Indy. Yeah, it was not, because you knew

511
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:24,440
Speaker 3: you could do it. This was frustrating. Kids got frustrated

512
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 3: because Et was falling in the pit and he would

513
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:28,760
Speaker 3: get out and he would fall in the pit.

514
00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:31,240
Speaker 4: And then you do that enough times and.

515
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:34,240
Speaker 3: You're like, I'm going to play Yards Revenge or any

516
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:35,159
Speaker 3: of my other games.

517
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:36,119
Speaker 1: Do you have fast food?

518
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:40,399
Speaker 3: And kids put it down? Yeah, you know they put down. Well,

519
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:43,120
Speaker 3: they didn't put down the joystick and go outside and play.

520
00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:44,920
Speaker 3: That would be like the movie ending.

521
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:47,400
Speaker 4: They just popped it out and put in the game

522
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 4: that they liked exactly.

523
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 1: So this was a big deal for Atari because it

524
00:25:56,880 --> 00:26:01,080
Speaker 1: came at the worst possible time. And speaking of the

525
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:04,239
Speaker 1: worst possible time, let's take a break and do an

526
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 1: ad breaking. We'll come right back, all right, Chuck. So,

527
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:29,439
Speaker 1: like I was saying, this came at a really terrible

528
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 1: time for Atari. You kind of talked about how the

529
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 1: personal computer industry was starting to eat into their profits

530
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:38,879
Speaker 1: big time and they really needed this ET bet to

531
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 1: pay off. And not only did it not pay off,

532
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:44,919
Speaker 1: they lost tens of millions of dollars on this. It

533
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 1: was a huge catastrophic bet for Atari. And the numbers

534
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:55,879
Speaker 1: are just stunning. In like you said, in nineteen eighty two,

535
00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 1: Atari's profits were two billion dollars.

536
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 4: Well in today's money.

537
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 1: No, that was yeah, the profits, I'm sorry, in today's money. Yeah,

538
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:09,960
Speaker 1: their gross was two billion. Yeah. In the second quarter

539
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:13,880
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty three, they posted a loss of three

540
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 1: hundred and ten million dollars five hundred and thirty six

541
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:20,720
Speaker 1: million dollar loss for the whole year. By nineteen eighty four,

542
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 1: the company had been sold. So it went from two

543
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 1: billion dollars in profits to a loss of five hundred

544
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:30,680
Speaker 1: and thirty six million dollars over the course of a year.

545
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:33,400
Speaker 4: Yes, and it was not because of ET.

546
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:35,880
Speaker 1: But this is the thing, Okay, So it gets even

547
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 1: worse hold on, We're not there yet. I'm getting excited.

548
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:43,400
Speaker 1: The whole video game industry actually went down. Oh yeah,

549
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: So there's something called the North American video Game Crash

550
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty three, where not only did the did

551
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:53,879
Speaker 1: Atari go under, basically the industry did so the whole.

552
00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 1: The whole industry in nineteen eighty three had a three

553
00:27:56,800 --> 00:28:00,240
Speaker 1: point two billion dollars in sales. By nineteen eighty five,

554
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 1: two years later, they had one hundred million dollars in sales.

555
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 1: It was a crash, like that is a catastrophic crash.

556
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 1: And like you're saying, no, it wasn't because of ET,

557
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 1: but imagine this. Think about this. All of that has

558
00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: been laid ever since then at the feet of ET

559
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:23,119
Speaker 1: the video game and Howard Scott Warshaw. People look at

560
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 1: him and say, you ruined the video game industry single handedly.

561
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:28,840
Speaker 1: That's how he's thought of.

562
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 4: I think that was the case.

563
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:33,360
Speaker 1: Up until like twenty fourteen or fifteen, right.

564
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think people in the know knew

565
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 3: that that was not the case, but.

566
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 1: The popular pop culture opinion of him.

567
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 4: Yeah maybe.

568
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 1: Yeah.

569
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 4: But let's say ET was a big hit. It would

570
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 4: not have saved Atari.

571
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:50,080
Speaker 1: No, it might have like staved the bleeding a little bit.

572
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: Maybe it would have been a drop in the bucket basically.

573
00:28:52,880 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I certainly feel bad for Warshaw, but

574
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 3: he's a good inning, so stick around for that.

575
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere.

576
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 3: After ET, he took some time off. He said that

577
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 3: he just needed to sort of recover. I believe was

578
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 3: the words he used. He went into real estate and

579
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 3: did not enjoy that at all, and eventually he became

580
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 3: a psychotherapist and that's what he does today. He's labeled

581
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 3: the Silicon Valley psychotherapist and sort of specializes in talking.

582
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 3: He jokes that he's fluent in English and NERD, so

583
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 3: I think kind of specializes in talking to Silicon Valley types.

584
00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 4: About their work problems. Certainly a man.

585
00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 3: That can identify Yeah, yeah, I bet he's a great psychotherapist.

586
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: It seems like he definitely would be.

587
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, so he.

588
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 1: Definitely made peace with the whole thing. And I think

589
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 1: he very frequently jokes. I've seen it in more than

590
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 1: one article that he says he kind of enjoys it

591
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:57,720
Speaker 1: when people say that ET's the worst video game of

592
00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 1: all time, because people also say that Yours Revenge is

593
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 1: one of the best video games of all time. So

594
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:05,840
Speaker 1: he has the greatest range of any video designer ever.

595
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: So he definitely has like a I think it took

596
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 1: him a little while, that's the impression, I have to

597
00:30:11,080 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 1: make peace with it. But he made peace with it.

598
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: And I think one of the reasons he was able

599
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 1: to make peace with it, and I'm just armchair psychologizing here,

600
00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 1: but he came to realize, yeah, I've used it before

601
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: and you said the exact same thing. I think too. Yeah,

602
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:29,240
Speaker 1: he realized that it wasn't the worst video game of

603
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 1: all time, and that a lot of the people who

604
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: were saying it was the worst video game of all

605
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 1: time didn't know what they were talking about, which has

606
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 1: to be super liberating. Sure, and the whole world's like

607
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 1: you ruined everything. And then you realize, like they don't

608
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:42,520
Speaker 1: even know what they're saying, you can just kind of

609
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 1: lay roll off your back a little more easily.

610
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 3: So the cherry on top of this story, we mentioned

611
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 3: this documentary Atari game Over. It is about the legend

612
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 3: of the story of the et game, which continued after

613
00:30:56,840 --> 00:31:01,719
Speaker 3: its demise, with this urban legend that Atari was so

614
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 3: distraught and embarrassed by this game that they had all

615
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 3: the remaining boxes shipped out and buried in the desert

616
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 3: under cement. Initially, You're like, that doesn't make any sense.

617
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 3: Why would Atari spend all this money to do this

618
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 3: when they could just burn them, sell them in the

619
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 3: dollar bin, do anything other than this weird plan to

620
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 3: bury them out in the desert of New Mexico.

621
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, And a lot of people took it when it

622
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 1: was kind of an initial rumor that like, Atari was

623
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:35,600
Speaker 1: trying to bury their shame. That's all right, It just

624
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 1: went that much further to point out how bad the

625
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:41,280
Speaker 1: video game was. Atari was trying to bury it and

626
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:42,000
Speaker 1: forget about it.

627
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:42,280
Speaker 4: Right.

628
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:47,560
Speaker 3: So in twenty eleven, there was a party where there

629
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:52,040
Speaker 3: was an Atari former Atari person there and a guy

630
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 3: named Mike Burns was talking to him and said something about, yeah,

631
00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:59,440
Speaker 3: the urban legend that you guys did this, and apparently

632
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 3: the answer was just sheepish enough to where he was like,

633
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:05,520
Speaker 3: wait a minute, is that true?

634
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 4: Right? So did he did he fund this documentary? Is

635
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 4: that how that worked?

636
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 1: I think he's a guy who makes things happen, he

637
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 1: brings people together. Okay, I think yes, he definitely puts

638
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:20,360
Speaker 1: some of his own money into it. But I think

639
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:23,320
Speaker 1: he also got others to put money into it as well.

640
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:24,800
Speaker 3: Okay, I didn't know if he was involved in the

641
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:27,960
Speaker 3: dock itself. Yes, yes he was, or just financing the

642
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 3: dig both. But Zach Penn made this documentary. Zack Penn,

643
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 3: a great, great writer, ironically wrote the movie Ready Player

644
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 3: one which talks about adventure and Easter eggs and all

645
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 3: that fun stuff. So he's written a bunch of movies,

646
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 3: a bunch of the Marvel movies and stuff, and it was.

647
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 4: Clearly a labor of love.

648
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 3: This this documentary, if you've seen it, you know Zach

649
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 3: Penn is like super excited about all this stuff.

650
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 1: Yeah.

651
00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:59,960
Speaker 3: So the old Alamagordo landfill in New Mexico has three

652
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 3: it's three hundred acres and then one hundred cells, which

653
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:07,200
Speaker 3: are these it says holes, but they're just these big square,

654
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:10,800
Speaker 3: deep pits where you you know, if you listen to

655
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 3: Our Landfills episode, then you know what goes on there.

656
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 4: They just dump stuff in there and cover it up.

657
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:18,800
Speaker 3: And the legend was that the ET is in one

658
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 3: of these cells, and these days they chart it and

659
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 3: it's mapped out, so they know what's where generally sure,

660
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 3: and if a cop comes and says, hey, there's some

661
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 3: evidence from four years ago. They could say, oh, well

662
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 3: that's going to be in this cell because it was

663
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 3: from this area of town where it was picked up

664
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 3: and we buried it here. Back then, they didn't have

665
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:39,720
Speaker 3: anything like that.

666
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: No, it was like they just dug a hole, put

667
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 1: garbage in it, covered it up, and went home. According

668
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 1: to a guy named joe Leewandowski, and Mike Burns lucked

669
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 1: out that a guy named joe Leewandowski worked at the

670
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 1: Alamagordo City Waste department because he is basically the institutional

671
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 1: memory of Alamagordo's waist, and he worked at the dump

672
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 1: for so long that he had a pretty good chance

673
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:10,880
Speaker 1: of remembering where the stuff was put. But he was

674
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:13,279
Speaker 1: kind of like, no, we didn't document it. I have

675
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:16,239
Speaker 1: no idea, leave me alone. And apparently Mike Burns is

676
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:18,840
Speaker 1: not the type to just be like, oh, okay, thanks,

677
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 1: didn't mean to bother you. He'll keep pestering you until

678
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: you do what he wants from what I understand, and

679
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 1: so he finally got joe Leewandowski on board, and in

680
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:32,919
Speaker 1: just an astounding turn of good luck, joe Leewandowski's wife

681
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:37,520
Speaker 1: had made a scrap book of Joe's time working for

682
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:42,279
Speaker 1: Alamagordo's waste department that included pictures of the dump from

683
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:45,600
Speaker 1: around this time. So they were able to narrow down

684
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:49,040
Speaker 1: these hundred cells over three hundred acres to two to

685
00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 1: just two, which narrowed the search enough that they could

686
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 1: actually start taking samples to try.

687
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 4: To fgd that. That was a very big breakthrough.

688
00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 3: And if you watch this documentary when when they're taking

689
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 3: these samples and they come across like newspaper clippings from

690
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 3: that year and that month where these cartridges were supposedly buried,

691
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:07,800
Speaker 3: it's really exciting.

692
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: It is.

693
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 3: I gotta admit, it's like, oh my gosh, it's like

694
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 3: finding buried treasure. So they narrowed it down. All of

695
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:22,080
Speaker 3: these people showed up, fans the what's his name, Ernest Klein,

696
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 3: who wrote the book Ready Player one, he showed up

697
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:28,720
Speaker 3: in his Back to the Future DeLorean, and.

698
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:30,080
Speaker 4: It was a very big deal.

699
00:35:30,120 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 3: They Howard Warshaw came in and he was there and

700
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:38,359
Speaker 3: people were just like embracing this guy instead of like

701
00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 3: it's not like he showed up and people are.

702
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 4: Like, there he is, get him.

703
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:46,799
Speaker 3: He's like this beloved cherished, dude, And I get the

704
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,080
Speaker 3: sense that this was a very big deal for his closure,

705
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 3: which is interesting because burying something is usually the closure.

706
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:56,840
Speaker 3: In this case, digging it up was the closure.

707
00:35:56,920 --> 00:35:57,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, good point.

708
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 3: And they did find uh thirteen hundred game cartridges. Yeah,

709
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:08,839
Speaker 3: which it makes you wonder like how this how they

710
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 3: got there, how the rumor got started to begin with?

711
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 4: Well, then the fact that there is some truth to it.

712
00:36:13,239 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, they feel like it definitely confirms that urban legend,

713
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:18,880
Speaker 1: like Atari definitely did cover up. They did dump these

714
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 1: these cartridges, but it wasn't just et cartridges, and it

715
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:26,440
Speaker 1: wasn't like the millions that they supposedly dumped, but they

716
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 1: probably buried some elsewhere in either California or Texas or both.

717
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:34,200
Speaker 1: But it confirmed that, yes, this actually did happen. The

718
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:37,520
Speaker 1: urban legend was real, and at the very least, it

719
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 1: gave Howard Scott Warshaw that closure year he got to see,

720
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:47,320
Speaker 1: you know, thirty something years on, people were still vibing

721
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:50,279
Speaker 1: out on his creation, although in ways he could not

722
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:53,320
Speaker 1: have possibly predicted when he was spending that five weeks

723
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:54,359
Speaker 1: programming this game.

724
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:56,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, he said, he was full of gratitude.

725
00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 1: That's really cool.

726
00:36:57,239 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 4: That's a very cool way to go through life.

727
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:03,400
Speaker 1: My friends. Oh man, you know, if you can remember

728
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:06,439
Speaker 1: to have gratitude, it truly does make you happy. Yeah,

729
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 1: it's insane. It's just remembering to be grateful is the trick.

730
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:11,480
Speaker 3: So they ended up a lot of these went on

731
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:15,560
Speaker 3: eBay auctioned off. I think they sold about one hundred

732
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:19,040
Speaker 3: thousand dollars worth of these things that went to the

733
00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:21,879
Speaker 3: city of Alamagordo. Of course they owned them. It's not

734
00:37:21,960 --> 00:37:23,799
Speaker 3: like they just gave them out to everyone that.

735
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 1: Was there as a party gift.

736
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 4: They should have. Sure, they should have given everyone one copy.

737
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 1: I think some of the like Mike Burns and some

738
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 1: of his crew got some, and Almagordo kept some. But

739
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:35,520
Speaker 1: I think the ones that were auctioned were auctioned by

740
00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:38,000
Speaker 1: Alamgordo to go to a fund of museum.

741
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:42,360
Speaker 4: I would love a copy assigned cartridge for moreshaw.

742
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 1: I mean, the most I think one went for was

743
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred bucks, So.

744
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:47,080
Speaker 4: We don't want it that bad.

745
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 1: But no that I'm saying like that's the most. That's

746
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:51,799
Speaker 1: the highest any of them went for. So you could

747
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:53,960
Speaker 1: probably give them for a couple hundred bucks if you tried.

748
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 4: I wonder if he listens to the show.

749
00:37:56,280 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 1: I hope so you never know. I hope so. I

750
00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 1: hope we cleared it up for you. Warshaw, your legend, sir, Yes,

751
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:03,000
Speaker 1: hets off to you.

752
00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:06,400
Speaker 3: Send me a signed cartridge, Josh needs one.

753
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:09,120
Speaker 1: Thank you, buddy. You got anything else?

754
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 3: No, it did. ET was not the worst game there were.

755
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:16,040
Speaker 3: There were games that were so bad that you don't

756
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 3: they were just in the dustbin of history.

757
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 4: They were so bad.

758
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, like Sorcer, like you said, Manjo's apparently pretty bad.

759
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were terrible, like all these not knockoff companies.

760
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 3: But you know, ari Atari opened it up to where

761
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:32,880
Speaker 3: anyone could could design a game that fit their console.

762
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:34,560
Speaker 1: And some people say that that was one of the

763
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 1: reasons why Atari lost market shares, because there's so much

764
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:40,920
Speaker 1: crudd on the shelves, right, people were tired of buying

765
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:44,320
Speaker 1: Creddy games for twenty five bucks. Yeah, and that they

766
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:48,520
Speaker 1: just oversaturated the market themselves. But they oversaturated with terrible

767
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:53,720
Speaker 1: stuff oversatched well at any rate, that's ET the game

768
00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 1: not the worst video game of all time, but a

769
00:38:57,200 --> 00:38:59,239
Speaker 1: heck of a story. I'll tell you what good one

770
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:03,359
Speaker 1: and gave you a little bit of nostalgia this holiday season. Yeah, great,

771
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:06,719
Speaker 1: feel that warm tingling. It's either a bladder infection or

772
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:11,719
Speaker 1: a nostalgia. Let's see. Since I said bladder infection, everybody,

773
00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 1: it's time for listener man, this.

774
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 4: Is about bird poop.

775
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 3: Hey, guys, listen to the Olive Oil podcast and loved

776
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:23,919
Speaker 3: it very much. Living in Italy, they use it every day.

777
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 3: That's my wonderful complexion and youthful looks. I want to

778
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:29,440
Speaker 3: tell you about a problem though, that we have it

779
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:32,719
Speaker 3: in Rome every year and directly caused by olives. Every winter,

780
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 3: the city center is home to millions of migrating starlings

781
00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:38,719
Speaker 3: who spend their days out in the local countryside, eating

782
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 3: olives and having a great time. In the evening, they

783
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:44,279
Speaker 3: come back to our warmer city center and sleep in

784
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:47,840
Speaker 3: the city center trees for the night. Great news for

785
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:50,880
Speaker 3: bird watchers, but bad news if you'd like to avoid

786
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:54,040
Speaker 3: being pooed on. The city gets covered in the stuff.

787
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:57,720
Speaker 3: And he sent me a video and of these cars

788
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 3: parked on the street and it's literally looks like it

789
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:06,120
Speaker 3: was painted with bird poop growth, completely solid every square inch.

790
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:07,760
Speaker 1: That's gotta be bad for the paint.

791
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 3: And yes, it's really bad, he said, What has this

792
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:14,120
Speaker 3: got to do with olive oil? While the olive stones

793
00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:17,880
Speaker 3: may not come out of the starling bird's bottoms, but

794
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:20,879
Speaker 3: the olive oil infused greasy pooh does, and it makes

795
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 3: driving along the roads almost impossible.

796
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:24,719
Speaker 4: I've fallen off my scooter.

797
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:26,720
Speaker 3: Twice in the past few years, Oh my god, because

798
00:40:26,719 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 3: of this, So I guess it's it's slippery oily poop.

799
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:30,560
Speaker 1: Oh my god.

800
00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 4: And that is from James in Rome.

801
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:36,120
Speaker 1: Well thanks James. That email's kind of petered out at

802
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 1: the end there. Yeah, I was expecting a big finish,

803
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:42,720
Speaker 1: just oily poop. All right. Well, thanks regardless, and stay

804
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: stay safe on your scooter.

805
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:46,800
Speaker 4: There, James, he said, people use umbrellas.

806
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 1: And hats off to you living in Rome. Have you

807
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:49,200
Speaker 1: been around?

808
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 4: Sure?

809
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,239
Speaker 1: When I went, I was like I could live here.

810
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 1: Pretty great, I told Jumie.

811
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:57,920
Speaker 3: She's like, maybe it's lovely city. It really is old

812
00:40:58,000 --> 00:40:59,959
Speaker 3: world charm cats. What's what else?

813
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:02,400
Speaker 4: Wine food, beautiful people.

814
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:06,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I've never seen men and women at every

815
00:41:06,520 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 3: turn that looked like runway models.

816
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 4: Sure, and they were just regular newspaper boys.

817
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:13,919
Speaker 1: Well, the fact that they do like a little twirl

818
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:15,879
Speaker 1: every once in a while as they were walking. Really

819
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:16,719
Speaker 1: kind of sold it.

820
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:20,040
Speaker 4: To Yeah and go Chell, Chell Bell Chow Bed.

821
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:23,879
Speaker 1: Wow, Let's turned out weird. If you want to get

822
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: in touch with us, you can go on to stuff

823
00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:28,719
Speaker 1: youshould Know dot com and hit us up through our

824
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:30,879
Speaker 1: social links, or you can just send us a good

825
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:37,920
Speaker 1: old fashioned email to stuff podcast HowStuffWorks dot com.

826
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:40,960
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

827
00:41:41,040 --> 00:41:45,239
Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

828
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.