Max Max Utmost.

Zoe, how are you?

I'm terrible.

How are you?

I'm.

So sorry, it's gives one such perspective when you know that even though you're stressed and doing bad, someone you care about is doing even worse.

So now I'm just worried about you.

Which feels better?

It's not a competition.

Well, thankfully.

That's true.

I also don't like even thinking about myself and my own problem, so when I get to think about somebody else's, I get excited.

Which brings me to this hot, cold, open idea I have for you.

OK, I think I had a question and now I don't remember what it was.

I think the question might have actually been, do you have a cold opening and introduction?

So.

I sort of do.

Well, sort of is good enough.

That's the best I've ever done and look how far I've come.

So I guess I can't.

It's impressive.

I had to do it twice.

The airplane noise of not agreeing with you that I'm impressive, but thank you so much.

So yeah, I worry about other people's problems and it drove me to suddenly want to help change the world recently because there's three issues I've seen on the inclined, the increase amongst the youth, like between 12 and say 15 before you get your driver's license.

So you're just figuring out what you're going to do with your life.

And those three issues have been Tide Pods, weed gummies and butt plugs.

Don't ask how I know this, but it seems as though the 12 to 15 year old age groups have been going back to Tide Pods for fun.

They think it's funny to eat them weed gummies that's more accidental from what I've seen.

They just think it's gummy bears and then eat like a whole bag and then before you know it they're so high that they might like stop breathing cause overdosing on weed hard to do but possible.

If you like, you know, do essentially like if I, if I drink 2 barrels of water, I might overdose on water and die like you, you can overdose on anything and in gummy form that weed, you know, people just chowing down and then butt plugs.

I don't understand, but they seem to be finding them and being like, what's this button do?

Except the button is their butt hole and they're shoving a a a plug in there not knowing why and then they get stuck because most butt plugs are not made for that size person.

So.

So I wanted to do a public service announcement about it in the style of the old Bugs Bunny.

Shriners Hospitals won.

Do you know that one?

Did they have that in Canada?

No, Well, I don't know what you're referring to.

On the many levels I I bet.

On many levels, yes.

I mean, I don't associate with 12 to 15 year olds.

That's good.

Me neither.

So that's the thing.

It's not like I'm hanging with them and I'm like, what's up, Bros?

And they're like butt plugs, weed gummies and Tide Pods.

That's not what's happening.

I can't.

I can't explain how I know what I know, but I know it, and I know it's trouble.

They need APSA.

And in the olden days when I was growing up, Bugs Bunny had one for pot handles, electric tea kettle wires.

And I can't remember what the third thing was.

It was something that might damage you in a kitchen.

Like a cookie jar.

Yeah, it was a cookie jar.

That kind of rings a bell, but I all I remember is like Tweety Bird saying something about being scalded in a bathtub.

Sounds like something you'd say Bugs Bunny said.

You know, keep cookies away from heat so kids don't get more than a treat.

There's a lot of things in here that can poign you and then like goes on without the damages that can be done.

But I don't know who would the modern cartoon character be?

Who could warn kids against hide pods, weed gummies and butt plugs?

Peter Griffin.

Oh wow, from the Family Guy.

Yeah, I, I don't know well all the.

Kids know him.

It's so weird because it's not a kid appropriate show in my opinion.

But my 9 year old totally knows Family Guy.

He doesn't know his name is Peter Griffin but he's like in Fortnite now and he's in all the memes and stuff.

So yeah, Peter Griffin, it's a great idea.

I knew Simpsons when I was a kid.

Like I watched Simpsons all the time when I was a kid.

Simpsons is still going.

It's still current with with kids too.

Dead.

No, it's dead.

I.

I I don't don't spread that heresy.

It's been dead after Season 10.

All I can do is tell you that my 9 year old is like, I want to watch Simpsons now.

I don't know.

It's back in their brains and I I can't even when I watch it, I don't even understand what's going on.

It's just like noises and sounds.

It's like so beyond what it used to be.

It's not its own world anymore.

But now I'm picturing Peter Griffin being like, what?

Butt plugs?

Is that how he talks?

Don't put a butt plug in your butt.

Kids like that.

Maybe I my brain just turned off there.

Who can?

Blame you, you're amazing voice acting.

It's just like, let's forget everything and listen to Jonathan Holmes do an accent.

It's.

Not the best weed gummies a real bad for you.

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Maximum Odd Cast.

It sounds like Outcast a little bit, which is a a rap group featuring Big Boy and Andre 3000.

If this was a if we are that outcast, I am definitely the big boy because I'm big and I'm a boy and Zoe is a girl, so it'd be Andrea 3000.

Perhaps make it worse?

Yeah, I accept that.

Oh, thank you for accepting my talking again.

I should just make AT shirt that says thank you for accepting my talking again.

So I can point at it because I'm always surprised that people accept anything I have to say.

And you, Zoe, I think on this star-studded episode, we're going to kick it over to Sarah, who is an amazing artist who also has a lot to say about the World Wrestling Entertainment Federation.

No, the FS gone now.

It's not the whiff.

Yeah, it's it's just World Wrestling Entertainment.

It's just words.

I have such mixed feelings.

I love wrestling, but I hate the WWE, and I hate Just in case there's any confusion about this later, I strongly dislike Harry Potter, and I morally hate JK Rowling, just in case there's.

That's not what I hate.

That's not what I hate.

It hurts.

It hurts so bad when you say something and just forget a keyword like don't.

So the phrase becomes I like and the don'ts just disappeared somehow, just never made its way out of the mouth.

But you like Kusoge, I think.

Yes, I do.

They're shitty games.

Shit games is.

I say crap games.

Crap is much.

Classier.

I think it's more like crap because I'm pretty sure you can say kuso around children.

OK.

That tells me it's more like crap, but they don't have ascending levels of of poop, crap and shit so.

In Japan.

In Japan I'm only aware of one word for it, but my my Japanese is not that deep.

I have a buddy in Japan right now.

Her name is Mihoko, she's a PhD.

She helped me translate some stuff for Nintendo Force not that long ago, a interview with the character designer of Captain Falcon.

And immediately when people found out she knew Japanese, they said tell us the swear words.

And she's like, they're kind of are none like Shinei.

You don't want to say that because it's just so mean.

Means I want you to die or you will die, I guess.

But other than that, she's like, we kind of just don't swear so it doesn't happen.

So yeah, good to good to know.

And there's a game you want to talk about that I don't think has swearing in it or does it?

I don't think so.

Good.

All right, so it's already clean for the kids.

I'm going to swear though.

Oh, I didn't know that.

I always swear.

I want to get you AT shirt that says that so people know what they're getting when they see you coming down the street.

Exactly.

They got to be warned.

I always swear with like a a a edgy font.

I think on the always but the swear would be like pink and and purple.

Yeah, fun zingy.

What is this game where they don't swear but you will swear?

So recently, a couple weeks ago, we Hulkamania stopped running wild.

Oh, 'cause he died.

Hulk Hogan died.

Yes, he did.

Yes.

And by many accounts he wasn't a great guy.

I think he was mostly just a dumb guy and would do basically anything so people would like him.

Right, right, right.

And then I guess just one sex tape kind of kind of blew the the cover off of that so.

Yeah.

One sex tape where he went on a racist rant which is impressive to fit two scandals into one.

I can't remember the details but did he talk about his member and then somehow imply like it was better than black members or?

Oh no, I think it was his daughter was dating a black man.

Oh.

And he did not approve.

Ah, he mentioned that while porking his friend's wife.

I think it was pillow talk afterwards because you know, when you're when you're just lying in the afterglow, that kind of thing just kind of slips out.

Right, right, right.

Just kind of reveal that about yourself.

And she doesn't talk to him for years.

If we're talking about Brooke Hogan, because I I don't know how many daughters.

He has I don't know, I'm, I'm, I'm not that all read into his personal life.

Yeah, you're it's for the best, but he's in a game, a Hulk, a maniac game.

Is that what?

Yes, it's Thunder in Paradise Interactive.

No.

Yeah.

They did one of those.

Yeah.

Is it on the 3D O?

It's on the CDI.

Yes.

It did come to DOS, which I played the DOS version, but it was it was ACDI game.

Did you ever watch the show?

Yes, it was on.

I'm sorry.

And I focused on it.

I was like, there must be something good here because it's on TV and therefore there's checks and balances.

There's gates that are kept that you're not supposed to get through those gates unless your show has something good of some kind in it.

And you know, I'd seen Knight Rider, I'd seen Baywatch, I'd seen Dukes of Hazzard, I'd seen not.

Blue Falcon.

What's it called?

Blue Thunder.

Maybe there's one with a helicopter.

I, I, I'd known how bad it could get, but I was not prepared for Thunder in Paradise.

It's it's he's speed boating around I think, like the Florida swamps and Everglades little bit of the ocean.

I just.

I never watched the show but but.

He punches people.

Hulkamania just blew right through the checks and balances of TV.

To allow it, yeah.

Yeah, I never watched the show.

I think it would be something I would enjoy hating.

For a little while for like an an episode.

I don't know if I could watch all 22.

Right.

I've I saw many of them because it was just that's what was on on channel 38 or whatever.

This is like right before cable I think.

Maybe it was 1993.

So for for those who aren't familiar, 1993.

That was between when Hulk Hogan was at the WWF and before he was at WCW.

Oh, OK, so he had a little time on his hand.

Well, he wanted to focus on his acting career because I guess somebody told him he could act and that wasn't going particularly well, I guess, because then like the WWF apparently was, was very demanding on its wrestlers, Like they had to wrestle like 300 days a year or something.

And the WCW is like, well, you just have to show up for, for 30 shows and, and that's it.

We'll pay you a, a few $1,000,000 a year.

So he's like, all right.

And that's how he got into WCW And and later that led to the NWO and that's sort of the second revitalization of pro wrestling.

That's right.

When he was evil, he when he was evil, dyed his stubble black and he wore all black and black sunglasses.

He looked like Mouser from Super Mario Brothers 2.

Little mouse boss.

I think he was better at being a heel simply because the guy's just a doof.

So.

Being an evil doof, it just fit well because the villain could be goofy and all and and he could just lean on his doofiness.

Yeah, and at the time, somebody who grew up with his cartoon shows, grew up with his T-shirts and toys, and everybody just thought he was the the best guy.

He was just the pinnacle of goodness, even though to your point, he sounded dumb always.

And like, the best thing you said is he's a cereal.

And, you know, just like barked bizarre orders of children.

So to me, it made sense that he finally revealed his true nature.

That was being a bad guy.

It felt validating, actually, when he came out as evil, it felt right.

But yeah, he took all the energy that had been invested in him for like a decade or so, maybe 2 decades by that time and and flipped it around into bed.

But before that, he was trying to be a hero in Thunder and Paradise.

I'm trying to remember the name of his character.

He was Hurricane Spencer.

His first name was Hurricane and his last name was Spencer.

His nickname was Hurricane, I think.

I think his first name was actually like Randolph or something.

I really wanted to say Rudolph, but I don't know if anybody has actually named that.

No offense to anybody who might be listening.

Named Rudolph.

Yeah, there's a Rudy out there.

I feel like I've met.

Sure.

Maybe a Rudolph?

That's a name.

I don't know if it's shorter for something else.

He was partnered up with Chris Lemon, who was Brubaker or just Brew, which sounded like Hulk Hogan was trying to say bro and was putting his own twist on it.

Yeah, sounds about right.

We're bro bro, bro.

Yeah, it was a show about them riding around in a boat that was basically like the Knight Rider boat.

Right.

And it's it's funny because there was a Simpsons joke about Night Boat, the crime fighting boat, and how every episode had like a convenient channel that went up along the bad guy's escape route or something.

Yeah, and the show kind of did that.

I'll take your word for it because like I said, I've never watched the show, but I have played this game.

Is it a game or is it like Dragon's Lair where you just select clips or it's actually?

It's mostly a shooting gallery, so there's 3 levels in it.

And the first level you're protecting Thunder the boat.

So you're shooting down like missiles coming at you for four directions.

And then the second one is you shooting people and then third one is you shooting people.

It's based on the episode the major and the minor.

I don't know if that rings any bell, but they have like a they, they have like a kid sidekick in it.

Really.

Yes, I and it's it's definitely like, you know, so kids can kind of project.

If they knew Hurricane Spencer.

Yeah, like if they were if they were chums with Chris Lemon and Hulk Hogan.

So the the episode, like, I've never seen the episode and it is so poorly told through the context of the game.

It opens up with like Hulk Hogan strapped into like this brain device.

I don't know whether he's like a genetic experiment or like a super soldier or something, but he's floating around in water with like this tube coming out of his Dick.

Well, he a brain device, so like a brain for him, like a a substitute brain, so his brain.

Hulk Hogan is connected through this brain device on his head.

I don't.

Know what that means?

But the major major has the the Dick tube and I think it was supposed to be an umbilical cord but is way too low for that.

Is it connected to the brain device on the other guy on the Hulk Hogan?

You know, I don't think so, but they don't really saw a good shot at the back of it.

Yeah.

So any any tubes could go anywhere.

So I guess I guess this guy's Dick tube might be plugged right into Hulk Hogan's brain.

It sounds like something Hogan would think would be good TV.

The Dick tube go right in my brain.

Worst Worst Hulk Hogan impersonation.

You just have to add brother to everything.

I know.

And it's a good yeah.

Then it's the perfect Hulk Hogan.

Well, let me tell you brother, no, it still doesn't.

It feels too soft.

Well, let me tell you something.

Mean Gene.

Yeah, I love it.

Thank you.

Yeah, I I try.

So the device starts malfunctioning and like, I guess nearly fries Hulk Hogan's brain because he kind of like slumps over after it happens.

But I don't even know what the goal of the experiment was.

They say something about like compressing his memories.

So maybe he was trying to give his memories to the Major to make a a second Hulk Hogan, but that doesn't make sense to me.

Yeah, it does not.

Maybe he's trying to learn a secret that only Hurricane Spencer knows, like where the gold is kept or something.

The.

Secret of the of the leg drop.

That was his special move.

That was a.

Special move his leg.

Dropping just with his knee bent carefully over the guys like neck.

So as so much was puzzling as a child, like you know, clearly what do they call them when you grab the guy and it's like a tomb stoning of the the head there.

The pile driver.

Yes oof that looked really painful.

I know there's ways to make it so your butt lands 1st and the head is protected, but it looks like it's going to hurt.

A lot of people got neck injuries from that.

They don't allow it anymore.

But the the undertaker can do his because the tombstone pile driver.

He bends at the knees so that the head like doesn't even touch the mat.

Right, the knees.

He's just smashing his knees against the man.

Yeah, so like, he's very carefully dropping his opponent, which is considering how many people got like, broken necks from poorly performing pile drivers.

Jeez.

Louise, Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

Maybe, but the leg drop always seemed like a joke compared to all those things because it's his leg.

Like what's the worst that can happen?

It's a pretty.

It's a pretty.

Beefy leg It's a.

Beefy leg, but it's.

I wouldn't want it to drop on me, but he he does he he bends the knee nicely so that there's a just a nice little cavity.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it is puzzling to me that anybody did not think that wrestling was scripted because, like, Hulk Hogan has that thing where, you know, he's he's losing for a while.

And then then the crowd starts cheering for him and he starts like, shaking and hooking up.

And it's like, so, so many people watch this and they're like, OK, maybe he actually does get supernatural strength from the crowd.

Yeah, I was a child watching it, and I thought, I guess if I'm ever in trouble, I'll just look around and try to get people hyped around me and I'll start trembling with with energy, with the influx of sudden positivity and aggression and steroids.

They don't again, they leave that stuff out.

I had a feeling he was putting us on a little bit.

But I was young and I trusted the world, you know?

But they were like, they were like reporters trying to prove that wrestling was scripted.

And it's like, well, you just just watch it.

It's true.

It's true.

The world was a different place.

Fake news was still alive and well back then, but in a different, different way where people just kind of believed the collective untruths together now.

Now there's all these pockets of lies that some people jump into and they expand as a result of people getting behind them.

But people didn't get behind this Thunder and Paradise game.

I had no idea it existed.

Does the does the story continue?

Do they end up telling you how I wanted to call him Thunder Spencer, Hurricane Spencer.

And what's his name?

Lemon.

Chris Lemon.

And Brubaker?

It's Chris Lemon as the actor.

Right brew, come here, brew, bro, brah, all that.

How did they get out of this jam?

Well, it's actually you don't even play as either of them.

You play as this kid that's like following them around and they contrive a reason why they have to have the kid with him.

And the reason is like he can hook up to the major's brain with that thing that nearly fried Hulk Hogan's brain.

So that doesn't sound safe to me.

But that is the pretense here is that the kid has to use the brain scrambler to see what the major is seeing and also like get past his mental defenses so they can shut him down or something.

Like I said, it's not really well told.

Now I don't know how the story ends because I have not been able to beat the game.

Is it hard?

Yes, well, I find it difficult.

You know how like in Time Crisis, an enemy will pop up behind cover and then he'll have to like very kind of slowly aim his gun at you before he pulls the trigger, giving you a chance to react.

A lot of the time there's none of that in this game.

So a guy will pop out behind cover and he he's already shooting at you.

What?

The second area is what always gets me.

The first guy seems to pop up and take off half of my health right away.

I don't know why because most of the other ones just chip away at your health.

Do you always know where he's coming from?

Does he always pop out of the same barrel?

I think it's.

Randomized, but I'm also not going to play the game that many times to find.

Out No, you're not No, that sounds awful.

I've.

Played it enough.

Yes I I was actually reading like retro RGB today and they actually said the game was impressive in the eyes of the beholder.

Sure, as all things are, I suppose.

Yeah, yeah, it's impressive in a way that like it was made and and like a Baywatch game was never made except for like 1 on a on cell phones, like the old flip phones.

Not, not.

Cell.

Phones.

Yeah, and since like Thunder and Paradise is like this cross between Baywatch and Night Rider, I don't know how this 1 ended up with a game.

I'm guessing Hulk Hogan is the reason.

Yeah, I, I have to guess that from what I know about licensed games, especially back then, a Baywatch game, they may say, if you want to make a game out of Baywatch, you better pay up because this is a big name.

This is the most popular show on TV right now.

And nobody was willing to get involved for whatever the cost was going to be to get the license.

Nor did they want to try to slave away at making a good Baywatch game for the Baywatch license holders because it's very hard to do correctly.

But Thunder in Paradise, I'm guessing they thought, hey, it's action, it's shooting, it's Hulk Hogan, it's going to sell.

And we can make something with very little money put into it and it'll still turn around a profit for us.

And I don't think it did because this is the first I've ever heard it existed.

It it got reviewed by an outside outlet like it, it was known as a as a game.

I suppose there are a few listed critic reviews on Moby games that I think are contemporary with the games.

But now Retro RGB was talking about it later and how to get it to run in Dosbox.

It's it's extremely difficult, like you have to run like the secondary memory management module to it.

I felt like a real hacker getting it running.

Oh cool.

Yeah, well, yeah, it was worth it I guess.

I'm picturing somebody cutting up the the film Hackers with Angelina Jolie, and that's what they're doing with what was his name, the Johnny something The he was in Trainspotting I think too.

And Shaggy was in it, you know, the Hackers movie.

Yeah, yeah, I know hackers.

I actually when I started working in IT, that was they demanded that I watch hackers.

So I did and it is so 90s.

To watch it is fun to.

Watch just because it is.

It is the 90s thing.

I think it is.

Pretty much that, and like Jet Set Radio is for video games, Jet Set Radio was the.

Odds.

It wasn't.

It was just two.

1000.

It was like.

Exactly 2000 so to me that's like the peak of the 90s and it's just resetting and trying to turn into something new but didn't still still 90s to me Crazy Taxi was.

That time and that feels like a 90s game, even though it isn't.

Yeah, you're absolutely.

Right, Yeah, something about the Dreamcast was still just like 1999 forever to me, which is when the console launched I think, if I remember 9/9/90.

9 How can you forget that it was a big deal?

Yeah, yeah.

I just never trust my memory on literally anything, nor my words because sometimes they're just the opposite of what I mean so I never know for sure.

So the reviews for the game were were saying it was impressive.

The Recent Reviews 1.

Of the reviews on that is listed on, Moby Games gave it an 80%.

What I don't in the eyes of the beholder, is there a boss?

Fight at the end.

Is there some sort of again?

Again, I don't know.

I've been to the last level because you can fail the whole time and and Chris Lemon and Hulk Hogan the whole time are just telling you how much you suck.

It cuts away every so often to them, just staring straight in the camera and they're like, you know, you're supposed to shoot those dudes, brother.

But do they eventually give you a pass and you can go to the next level or did you did regardless of how bad?

You do, even if you fail.

If you fail, they'll just like, peel you off the ground and be like, well, I guess we have to do everything ourselves because you suck.

Wow.

But the last level.

If you fail, you don't get to the end boss.

Sure sure sure.

So I at one time once I got to the cellar where the major is 0.

But it doesn't.

Refill your health and the major just took like one look at me and I died.

That's awful and and then you got to start over there, continues.

Yeah, there's no.

Continues.

It's just Hulk Hogan come out and they're like, well, you're horrible, but you can try again, brother.

And I did try again multiple times that I just could not crack it.

No, no.

This recent time.

That I played it.

I nearly got through the the speedboat level because I was finally figuring out how to use like the secondary weapons.

Oh.

I don't really.

Know if I want to try again just to get to the ending?

Yeah, it's.

It definitely it feels like one person out there will take one for the team and record it on YouTube somewhere.

And yeah, that would probably be.

Enough for me.

Yeah, that makes.

Sense.

So to close this off, I.

Thought this was kind of interesting that there are two people listed under conceptual design in the credits and that's David Jordan who later worked on the Bible game for PS2O.

And the other person?

Listed is Robert Weaver who worked on Voyeur One and Two which were softcore porn FMV games.

So the creative team split and one went deep into the I mean, this sounds perfect for Hulk Hogan, now that I'm thinking about it, because on one hand he was sort of conservative Christian friendly, and then on the other end, he was softcore or hardcore porn with his sex tape.

Well, he wasn't.

He didn't.

Know he was being recorded I don't think he didn't know, but he.

Didn't shy away from how do I put it like he put himself into position to be recorded having sex, what with his philander and and and general braggery about his member.

I keep talking about members today.

He he he talked about his girth and and length some some depth I hate to say.

This but his 24 inch Python.

Yeah, he in the deposition about the sex tape because he took it all to court.

They had to get into that.

See, I try not to think.

Too hard about the sex tape just because then I have to think about Hulk Hogan's.

24 inch.

Python.

Yeah, and it's like sinewy, flabby and strong buttocks all at the same time.

Please.

Stop painting a picture about it.

I don't need this in.

My life.

No, you're doing the.

Right thing by telling me to stop.

So yeah, that is that is interesting.

It would be great to tap into the creative team behind this game and get a sense of what they were going for and if they feel like they met their goals to try to look up this.

It was Chris Weaver and no that Robert.

Weaver, Robert Weaver.

And the other one was David Riordan.

One later went on to 5 Bible games and the other was deep into soft core porn FMV games.

Yeah.

I wonder if they were at Hulk Hogan's wedding catching up.

I'm not.

His wedding, his funeral.

Or both.

Maybe they're invited to both, but the funeral being the more recent one, I wonder if they were there swapping stories about how things have been since they made Thunder in Paradise the interactive CDI game.

All right, well, let's.

Stop thinking about.

Hulk Hogan's 20.

4 inch Python.

I'm just thinking about now I am thinking about it because you said it again, 24 inch or like a round.

Well, he's talking about.

His arms, but I'm.

Picturing now if his genitalia was the size of one of his arms, he did.

Steroids so no his it shrink down.

That's right.

Probably was not.

Very impressive, but men are too preoccupied with that in the 1st place.

This is true.

And I've recently to further discussed you for fun.

Oh no.

I.

Found out that there's a condition with testicles that can happen called the bag of worms where the either the vasculature, the veins and arteries in the testicles just continue to get longer and bigger to the point where your testicles just look like just like the name says, just a bag of worms.

I'm.

I'm just now going to have to figure out how to tell my husband that I'm now a lesbian because of this discussion.

Well, if he doesn't.

Have a bag of worms yet?

Then you're you're in good shape.

Just just tell him to keep an eye out for it.

And this is just destroying my I know.

It's so.

Easy to do my.

My respect for penises, I know they're.

So easy to start disrespecting and and being dislike.

They're so easy to dislike for for many.

But I I'd like to think that for my own sake, they have a sort of a, a rustic charm, kind of a, a underdog quality to them that eventually people can not hate them all the way.

That's my hope.

Who?

Penises or Hulk Hogan, it's.

What's the difference?

He's a walking, talking penis, essentially with a mustache.

Balding.

Unlike.

Hulk Hogan, our guest Sarah is a great person and she wants to talk about women in wrestling as she shaped them herself.

She made women's wrestling happen in the WWE with a video game and she's coming from Australia.

So this is like one of the best accent filled episodes of all time if you ask me.

So I guess we'll kick it over to Sarah.

So we're back.

With Sarah Karapas who remained in my not day-to-day life but very close to day-to-day which has been a wonderful treat for me.

Sarah has been drawing a comic about the invalid Mario Brothers from Mario Brothers.

The Lost Levels, also known as Mario Brothers 2, which are real brothers you can access through a hack of the brother bytecode.

We've been doing a comic about it for like 6 months now and due to that we've gotten to continue chatting.

And Sarah, you also are interested in talking about WWE 2015 and that's not quite the right name.

2019, 19.

Geez.

So more recent, say.

Hello.

Hello.

Sarah Yeah, I guess I've.

Been upgraded from occasional guest host to occasional cohort and that's fun that's that's good for me in my mind you've.

Always been like almost too good for me and in the world in general.

What was your fantastic artwork that you you've done on Dungeon Bitches?

Dungeon Bitches Don't just dream that.

Yeah, now.

Technically still available on each dot IO.

Maybe we can talk about that later, yeah.

Zoe, the Co host of the maximum upcast and I we're talking a little bit about what is going on and how much worse is it going to get and who the real enemies of free speech and fun are.

And that is a a whole other yo, I've got AI.

Have a stinking suspicion who that might be?

You might be on to something there, but yes, which?

Leads us to the WWE, who some people think are enemies of free speech and fun.

Kinda particularly.

Vince McMahon, who has been ousted, I think, but people are still wondering if he finally every.

Time it happens that you say finally.

Maybe this time it'll stick.

I have seen.

Him come out and say I'm Mr.

McMahon and like, get hit with a metal chair and said, fine, I quit, you know, but he was still pulling the strings from the background.

I I don't trust this WWE as an organization.

And yet I'm in love with the concept of professional wrestling, which really causes some internal tension.

And.

And you have felt that tension, too.

I think I wanted to hear about your, your thoughts and feelings about the wrestling games and everything else.

For sure.

Yeah.

So there are a bunch of things where I feel like I can say this, where it's like professional wrestling.

I think I love professional wrestling.

I simultaneously hate professional wrestling.

It's it's not a love hate thing.

No, it's it's a love and hate thing simultaneously.

And, and, and largely it's because of business things because and like this thing's like, I think comic books kind of fall into this a little bit.

I think I love and hate comics and a few other things that I like.

Professional wrestling, when it's good is like sublime.

And when it's terrible, it's some of the worst stuff you'll ever encounter.

And I feel it's like it falls under a unique thing where once you're into it, you sort of develop a craving for it.

And because you're so consistently let down that that craving often never goes away.

I think it's something like this.

I've got a bit of a timeline, a bit of a bit of a history we can we can talk about and see how we go here.

So, yeah, the first time I ever had to consider professional wrestling, he was talked to me.

I, I was friends with with a boy when I was in like primary school in grade 6.

And we met at school and it turned out he lived like less than a block away from me.

So I was like this place all the time and he told me about there's this dead guy who was real and he had a demon brother and he burnt his face and so they didn't like each other and they were going to fight.

So obviously this is like me being told for the very first time about the Undertaker.

I was gonna say this sounds like.

This sounds like yes.

And and they're not brothers in real life, are they?

There are a lot.

Of things about them that they aren't in real life, it would seem, including.

Being a zombie and a demon.

Yeah, yeah.

A zombie wizard, cowboy, biker.

But but it's like, is that at that age where I was, you get, I was a little older.

I was like, I mean, 10 or something like this.

And it's like, OK, I know that puppets aren't real, you know, I know what a puppet is.

But you but you still got that kid brain of but what if they, they do move around and talk?

What if they are?

And they are there in the space, right.

So there's that thing of but what if it is real?

And this friend of mine, this young lad, he eventually had to move.

I was living in Tasmania.

He moved to Brisbane and there's a whole vast Strait of water in between.

So it's like, oh, well, I guess I'm not saying you too much anymore.

But when he left, he gave me this box.

Full of.

Video games, he just gave me his some of his stuff.

He he had a a Mega Drive and I had a Mega Drive and he gave me all of his Mega Drive game and a Sega CD.

Yeah.

It's like whoa.

And he had like 2 games for it and so I had two games for it now.

Well, I think there was only.

Like 10 games total for it, so that's not bad.

There were a bunch I.

Have got a long fascination with the Sega CDI think it's a really interesting bit of hardware that was large and let down because the mood at the time was well we got to put them FMV video games on it's like no you could make more pop for males you know one of the games was.

Rage in the cage WWE from 1993.

I was like, what is this thing?

Hey, it's got that guy The the, the, the he told me about Yeah.

So I I tried to play.

It's like like, what even is this?

What am I supposed to do?

How does this work?

You punch and that does nothing and then the guy jumps on you and you lose instantly.

OK, cool.

So that was like my first wrestling game experience, Completely impossible to fathom.

I played it a bit with my brothers.

In that case, it's just like, because we didn't know how to do the wrestling mood, it's just ineffectual punching until the timer runs out or whatever.

I actually tried this game fairly recently.

It's like, can I actually play this thing?

And the answer is kind of, but it's real bullshit.

It's like to you wear them down, you do a move into pin.

I mean, you have to really hammer the button and like I'm almost 40, I can't hammer buttons like that anymore.

That's not happening.

So it's like, all right, that's that's going to just stay in the memory hall.

How were the?

Graphics though, were they next Gen.

CD-ROM graphics it.

Used the same engine as a game that came out on the Super Nintendo, so it looked OK.

The main thing though, was like because it's on the CD, which meant there was voice in it a little bit.

The ring guy would say it's one full and what does that mean?

And there there'd be little introductions for the the restless.

There was like really compressed grainy FMV footage.

If like them doing a super move.

I think that was just the entire of the game, but the entrances.

But you know, it had stuff like that is what made me interested with because like, you know, that that era of like video games, the sound effects and music, we kind of have them as fun MIDI, MIDI things that that sound good.

But voices, it wasn't really a thing until later.

And how are you gonna do them?

You just get like a crunched up sound and a lot of these things, you know, it's very hard for people.

Who weren't there to fathom an era, yeah, when sound had to be chip tunes because that's all that would fit on the cartridge and whatnot.

And the whole concept of the CD-ROM was this new thing where we were like, yeah, yeah, lasers to burn into the disc data.

Like, what are you talking about?

ROMs ranching?

It was nuts at the time.

I'm old enough.

That like the first computer we had didn't have a sound card like exactly nightmare and the speaker nut thing.

But anyway long stretch no wrestling, no wrestling.

But then my my younger brother was friends with another boy.

So this is like I'm in early high school there, unless it a late at primary school and the friend when he visits is bringing over this newfangled PlayStation one.

What?

And he?

Starts bringing over the wrestling games from that era.

So like, there's what?

There's attitude, and there was another one.

And there was the first Smackdown game from 2000, which was the first wrestling game developed by Yuks Oh Do.

You know much about.

Yukes, I know the.

Name I see it around.

It's a Japanese company if I remember correctly.

Yes, but I don't know much about their origins and what makes them special so like.

I only have like a relatively surface understanding of you, but it's like they've been making games since like at least 1995.

The the first one was like a new Japan pro wrestling game from the PlayStation one.

But they've they've done a bunch of pretty notable things over these as well.

Like they did a fighting game called evil zone.

They did the berserk games, like there's one, the Dreamcast guts rage.

There was Millennium Falcon on the PlayStation 2.

They did that weirdly creepy Dog Island game that was on the Wii.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, and they did.

Some license games as well.

I was just thinking.

About the chain of connection between these games and how Evil Zone if I remember correctly was like a Dragon Ball Z esque.

Like flying around Polygon fighter.

Yeah, yeah.

Very like anime, sort of high energy kind of unusual fighting game.

I like that.

Was it psychic?

Was something false?

Something like that?

The hazard hair for those games, Yeah, but then to go to the.

Dog island, which all I remember is looking at the boxer game I.

I've never.

Played it and I've played so many Wii games.

The the nose of the dog, it felt like they wanted you to feel like that nose was about to enter your face.

Like you look at the box art.

Yeah, it was.

Really.

On you, yeah, it's.

Intensely wet and entering your zone.

Your evil zone in that way, my friend.

KK, who's like my editor, he's playing that dog island.

Apparently.

It's got this weirdly dark story.

It's like you're a dog and you end up on an island and you're like surviving as a weird, cute pup.

I don't really know, but apparently it's like boys games.

Like, oh, it looks like it's for kids, but like, it's not just like being 10 dogs.

It's more different.

Yeah.

But yeah, they did some licensed stuff.

All you.

They did a real steel game.

Remember that robot punching one?

Whoa.

Huge Jackman and huge Ackman.

Yeah, huge.

Yeah, we both had the.

Same ancient joke and they did a Pacific Rim game as well but like largely they were set to the the WWE mines they starting from 2000 and or 2000 or 1999 I guess is when Smackdown came out and they've done.

Tons of wrestling games since then so.

So, so many.

They were doing them with THQ until 2003 and then those 2K games starting in 2004.

And that's your win.

The naming convention style.

So, so the long, long history of doing these things and so skipping over to 2018.

OK, it's starting to get relevant.

2 things are happening at once for me.

One, I am working this job to call center job and it is shredding my soul.

I, I, I'm at my 7th going on 8th year at this job and I am sad.

I am a sad gal.

And simultaneous to this, I'm sort of stretching my legs a little bit.

At the time, I'd been out for a little bit and it's like, I want more.

I want more stuff with cool ladies in it in my life.

You know, that was kind of the impetus.

It's like, I want to see a tough, cool lady doing cool, tough things.

Yeah.

And I'm the only like an action movie and stuff.

But this is like the era of like, if you see an action film with a with a female lead, you usually got some tiny itty bitty.

Really.

You're the virtual Skelet Johansson.

It's like, all right, I guess we're doing this again, right.

And since I I had that thought of what about professional wrestling?

Some of those gals seem pretty cool and I had some nerd friends as you do good ones and they were into it.

And I was like, hey, I don't know who were the gals who I should look at?

So I got a list of cool tough gals to look at.

This was like right when, for example, the the now pretty famous Ria Ripley was brand new and she being a not exactly a local gal, she's from like Adelaide, like, hey, she's from here kind of and I like her.

She's being strong and a bunch of other stuff kind of started to get me.

So hey, this could be a thing I could actually get into.

And there's an artist named Marin.

She did really cool art of like original characters and look good at her stuff.

And there was A at the time WWE were trying to push their female roster some more.

So it's like they did a big pay-per-view called Evolution and they did a thing called the Mayon Classic.

Have you heard of this thing?

The Mayon?

Classic, No.

Yeah.

Mayon Classic was like a 32 person tournament where it was all like women wrestles, like a women in the event, kind of a mix of indie wrestlers and, and girls who are like relatively young in their career in like NXT and stuff like that.

And like a really good entry point.

If like if you haven't seen any of this stuff, you can watch this.

It's like they will introduce you to them.

The storyline was kind of rough because everyone just had interest of like, I'm here to win the tournament.

Once you've heard that 30 times, it's like, OK.

Good.

I hope you do it.

So building up this interest, building up a bit of a knowledge base and then I get I finally get the game.

I finally find 2K19 cheap.

So cheap.

By Yukes.

If they lost WWE game it would turn out apparently like for a bunch of time.

Like the games were pretty simulationist, pretty realistic ish, a little on the slower side and more sort of technical.

Like what if we speed it up and made it a bit more Arcadia, a bit less realistic.

And that's the one like that that worked for me.

And so to get started, like there's so much stuff in these games, like they've they're packed with weird things.

Like they've always got some career mode that focuses on like recreating some famous stuff.

There's like a create your own wrestler have a story where for ages it was just a guy story.

And then later they ended up added a guy and girl story and did a big boys at the same time.

And I think now there's they might be separate.

I'm not sure.

They did weird things at those, but I ended up just focusing on making stuff.

So as mentioned, while this was happening, I was having some fun.

I was very sad and I ended up using this game as AI.

Guess a bit of a coping mechanism.

This is not something I think I would recommend to people.

I feel like if you are very sad and having troubles, if you can get some help, get some help.

At the time I had about as much help as I could get and it wasn't quite cutting it.

It was one of those things, sure, but the thing with my job as a call center job, great thing about a call center job, even though it sucks and it's red your soul is a lot of people are there doing the same job.

So if you decide to not go to work that day and you let them know, you could just kind of get away with it because the work's kind of going to get done anyway.

So I would call in sick all the time and just be home and like, and I was sick in that my mental health was a disaster and I couldn't do anything.

So I would be at home in a couch, just sunk into it, covered in blankets.

And I would make a wrestler and like creating a wrestler would take forever.

It was, it's a really laborious process if you do it from tip to toe and go through all the stuff.

And I did the first thing you, you make a wrestler for yourself.

So I made a wrestler.

If I was one, what would I be?

So I made this character, Max Lewis, and she was kind of a scrappy indie type.

She had sharp teeth for no reason.

She had a mixture of power moves and and luchador flipping around moves.

This is like the perfect wrestler.

And then I was like, well, I should make a part.

I've got a girlfriend.

What if I made a a wrestler character for my girlfriend?

So I made Dylan Plague, who is small and gothy and had a plague mask.

And that was fun.

Yeah.

And they were tiny, but I I made their stats really stupid so they could just pick up and crush anyone.

So that was good.

And you can group together characters to make like stables and tag teams and all of that.

And there's separate intros that you can make for all of these things.

And at the time there was a pair of wrestlers, can't remember who it was, might have been the Bella Twins, I don't know.

Which is a little weird because in the intro I signed that to the the Max and Dylan girlfriends and they're holding hands in the interim.

Like, yeah, that's good.

I've made the game gay instantly.

I did it very easy.

The mission I sent myself was I will turn this into a lesbian simulator.

That that is what I'm going to do with WWE2K19.

It makes sense.

It was a project.

That got me through a weird, terrible time and like I developed some techniques because like there's the make a character all the way through takes forever.

The other thing you can do is like you just make a cool looking character and then you can just sort of assign it the moves of a pre established wrestler.

Sure, and that's kind of a shake and bake you done.

And then like you can do that, but then customize it a bit.

So they've got a few different moves or variation, the personality and so on.

And with that, a whole kind of branching roster started to form where it's like I had some themes.

I had like indie sort of style wrestlers because like there was a very distinctive deer style that indie wrestlers sort of had at the time.

I still kind of do like a lot of sort of shiny vinyl and plasticy stuff like tassels.

As well not as many.

Tassels.

Sometimes tassels I think of.

Tassels.

I think they go in and.

Out of style, I think there's a lot of fishnets.

Oh, indie.

Wrestling.

That's.

Yeah.

Yeah, it it shows that you are ready to show off, but also want to to bring something other than just the trunks or the the One Piece bodysuit.

You want to show that you are willing to bring some edge and some style.

I want to know how many wrestlers you made in this game so.

I am unable to tell you exactly how many wrestlers.

What I can tell you is that it turns out there's a limit and I maxed and I maxed it out.

I got to the point where I could no longer make anymore.

I made so many of these girls that I had three distinct mini promotions going in the game.

I had a cyberpunk themed 1, I had a horror themed 1, and I had the scrappy indie themed 1.

And there's like this mode called My Universe where you can set up shows with little intros and little storylines and you can book the Restless together.

And it's sort of like became a whole saga.

And it took me forever to realize how to, like, work that feature because it's a little complicated.

Yeah.

But by the time I did, I had so many gals I was I was ready to roll.

And I need to tell you, I got a weird list of things in the game that are funny to me.

So Dukes are really interesting developer.

I get the impression that like when you're working on licensed material just year after year, it kind of becomes, I don't know, it's like routine or something.

Something happens where sometimes things can get a little strange, especially when you need to pump out a new iteration each year or whatever, right?

So here's some weird quirks in the game.

There are like a bazillion like real wrestlers in the game, right?

From like, you know, ranging from guys all the way from like this, the 70s, obviously at the whole ton of giant beef man's from the 80s, a whole bunch of your Attitude Era guys and then a whole bunch of modern guys as you really expect if you were to select them and play them.

And there's like the little intro where like you see the two portraits of the fighters.

You know how you're fighting games have you cool portraits of your dudes.

Oh, sure, sure.

All of the inbuilt, you know, sort of stock wrestlers have a default expression where they just got their arms at their sides and they've got no facial expression.

They're just staring directly at you.

It's really off putting.

You can go into them, into the character editor and put them in little poses so when you start up a match they look OK, but otherwise they're just a blank slate.

It's really strange.

For the women specifically, there's like weird stuff, which is maybe it's kind of accidentally sexist.

It is impossible for women, and everyone knows this, for women to be taller than 5 foot 11.

Any taller than that, I mean, that's just ridiculous.

It can't be done.

It's never been done.

It can't.

Be done.

There's different weight classes which give you access to different moves.

There's heavy and super heavy as well as like lightweight and cruiserweight.

Women cannot be super heavy.

That's impossible.

Can't be done.

You can do little promos in the universe mode where like the the wrestlers are talking to each other on mics and they back and forth.

It's kind of like a mini game.

It's pretty neat.

It doesn't matter the personality you assign your creative wrestlers.

Like if you make them sort of tough and you give them a walk cycle that is like, less, I guess, generically feminine.

As soon as they're on the mic, they start like, tossing their hair and like, shaking their hips and stuff.

It's like, OK, it's just like stock animations that aren't like, connected to anything else.

Apparently there's blood in the game.

Oh.

Which is like.

You know, if someone gets hit in the head with, say, a steel chair, you mentioned that happening.

Oh, yeah.

And.

Making blood.

Happen and apparently the blood effects are relatively realistic, like the way it'll like drip down the face and all of that.

Just in like in real life, it's impossible for women to to have blood on their face.

They're, they're, they're invincible.

Oh.

I assumed they were completely dry on the inside, just no fluid.

They might be or.

Or the.

Like I haven't.

Checked how I'm going at the moment.

I don't plan on finding out.

I'm hoping it's not just dry.

No, that's.

What the wrestling?

Game told me just all women are.

Mummies like you still lose.

Stamina and fall over and lose the match and I don't want to do that you know oh sure your your.

Magic woman, actually, that drives.

You can eventually deplete.

Your meter can run down, but you're just mummies.

That's right.

Yeah, and it also has the most off putting boob physics I think I've seen in a game where they don't bounce is the thing.

They kind of sway left to right and it doesn't matter what gear they've got, it'll always do that.

So like, let's say, for example, you've decided I'm going to make the road warriors that girls you do that in the game.

That's fun for me to do.

So not hawk and not animal in though their spiky armor.

The spiky armor sways left and right because of the stupid boob physics.

She Hawk.

And she animal, as they would be called if they were Marvel superheroes like she something like this.

I gave them different like names, like I made a bunch of like attitude era, but gender bended them, but I gave them all their own names.

So like I had like a an undertaker, but her name was like Victoria Graves.

And I made a a cane, but instead of cane it was Jane Burnstorm, I think.

And the thing funny thing with cane as well, I was like, well, in real Kane is just kind of a big pasty Republican, I guess.

And in the K fave they're like a demon guy.

So for Jana made her like her skin kind of like chod and dark blue and sort of oily.

So she kind of looked like a demon girl and that was fun.

Well, I mean.

I'll recap briefly how it sounds.

So to me, wrestling is like a live action role-playing, which itself is close to video games.

So I think wrestling and video games are both like an opportunity to get involved with something that you can recreate yourself in and also be violent without anyone actually getting hurt, at least ideally.

I know there's a risk of getting hurt, but it's not as bad as it looks.

At least that's the the hope with wrestling is that no one's actually getting like really badly beat up, though that of course occurs.

So you get to get violent without actually hurting anybody.

You get to recreate yourself in a way that's fun and expressive without necessarily having to, you know, actually go all the way and live in your secret identity or wrestling identity forever.

Just like you play video games for a while and become somebody else, but you recreated the WWE, which in itself is like a a recreation and an escape from reality.

You took it the next level of inception into this dreamlike world of being a wrestler, like what a wrestlers dream of being.

And it's being cool women wrestlers where there's unfortunate sexism.

You said accidental.

And I can't imagine all of those things.

They might be oversights or just like we didn't have the budget to like do a good job.

They're all.

Really stupid, but like, some of it, I guess it's like it's corporate mandate.

Like in in wrestling at the time, there was a general thing of like the women wrestlers weren't supposed to get color.

They weren't supposed to bleed.

Anytime it happened, it was always like, by accident.

Yeah.

Not allowed to.

Yeah, that's just weird.

It isn't just where, you know, it's like, wow, this, this gal is so strong, so tiny.

They're itty bitty, some of some of these gals, well it.

Makes me want you to make your own real wrestling federation.

I feel like the GLOW was the closest I can think of that was all women that had some fame and some fan base here in the United States anyway.

And they recently, and by recently, I think it was already like 10 years ago, but Netflix had a GLOW show that was fairly popular.

And then the pandemic hit.

Yeah, that was actually.

Another one of my sort of entry points.

I watched that and it's like kind of a good way to like, if you're not familiar, it's like the main character doesn't know what wrestling is, right.

And and then she learns all about it, you know?

Yeah.

Great show.

Yeah, I thought so.

Too, I was sad that it didn't get to continue, but I think the pandemic, yeah, it did get.

Cancelled without ending, that's true.

So is there a?

Way to like, I don't know if one can support the WWE.

I think it's not quite as bad as you're talking.

Rowling, but it's.

Close, it's close to Rowling level.

Like you just can't know that you helped it or else you'll feel badly.

But like Rowling and the Harry Potter franchise, there's there's trans folks I know who worked on Harry Potter games and they're like, so you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but you also have to stand for something at the same time.

Like there's good people who work for the WWE.

I think that is the thing.

Like there's some great talent and this is a lot of cool people who are like in their promotion, but it's sort of like it's always had such this iron grip for so long.

I think that the cool thing now is that like, I mean this so this game came out in 2000 and I guess technically 18 is how they tend to go AE W started in 2019 in January.

It actually makes like this particular game kind of a weird timepiece because it's like a bunch of the roster aren't going to be in a bunch of future games because they moved to AW right.

AW not a great promotion either.

They they do a lot of stuff that I'm not super cool with, but they do some stuff that is pretty cool.

Yeah, yeah.

Probably it's like.

It's like, I don't know, it's like half dozen and six sometimes.

Who knows?

So hard, yeah.

Yeah, what do you do?

I think making your own is the way to go.

There are other things.

Yes, because like there's a promotion called Eve the kind of like English based They they describe themselves as the the riot girls of wrestling.

They're pretty fun.

Some people like GCW, which is like the new ish sort of hardcore outfit and hardcore wrestling is not really my thing all the time.

Sometimes a bit of hardcore for a treat is OK.

I actually got into AJW, which is like the Japanese pro wrestling, like Joshi wrestling from the 80s to the 90s.

I started to actually watch that with some friends, like some like old episodes or old compilations of that with like really famous wrestlers, the Crush Gals, Dump Matsumoto and Bull Nakano.

That lot extremely good.

Here's the one that I'm kind of curious about is there's JCW, the Juggalo Championship Wrestling.

They've been doing wrestling stuff since like about 99 and generally it's been, I'm going to be generous, kind of awful.

Their their whole thing was mostly like just being like, obviously like being very cross, being very vulgar, but also just being kind of sloppy.

Yeah, very.

Recently.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

But Mr.

Violent.

Violent.

Jay of the Insane Clown Posse.

He loves wrestling.

So much it might be the thing that he actually cares about the most.

And he recently started a new show with JCW called Lunacy.

It's a weekly show and Lunacy Linda Owens.

It's it's got production.

They have a really fun like mat.

Their wrestling roster is like really talented and cool and like they're actually he's even said it's like, you know, sort of that old stuff is like maybe not acceptable in modern day and we're trying to do something that's more for everyone.

He'll still be on the commentary talking about people scrotums being slapped and such, but but that's for everyone now and I think that's kind of lovely.

That's great.

Yeah, that's worth watching.

And they they seem.

To have higher quality control than they used to in general.

So that's, that's good.

I wish I could talk to you all day.

A baby is screaming.

Oh no.

Screaming.

He's going to be fine.

But I know when I go out there, the looks of everyone else saying like, So what have you been doing while the baby's been screaming?

They're like talking to Sarah Carabas about wrestling for 45 minutes.

They will they will have feelings about that and and it I will probably want to watch some wrestling after to escape from my day-to-day tensions and responsibilities.

And just imagine what if I was if I was a wrestler, I guess I would be like, I don't know the the mailman.

I would just be like, here's my responsibility, my mail, and smash somebody in the face with it with a mail, with a mailbag, which, you know, you could really ham that up.

Like it really hurt because you don't know what I'm delivering.

Maybe I'm delivering dumbbells or anvils like cartoon anvils like Bugs Bunny.

It's probably just imagine being like.

A heel like you get into your opponent's mail and you just like throwing it out into the street.

You know now, you don't know what bills are doing, do you?

It would be.

So fun for me to really reject that incredibly important responsibility of properly delivering the mail and just and then get beat up real bad and survive so badly.

Yeah, they really.

Fine.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, Sarah, I hate to hate to close it up.

Yeah, you can.

Come on back.

Though oh please and hopefully wouldn't it be fun?

We were talking about doing a a Big Bertha comic about Big Bertha from the live action Mario Brothers movie.

What if that turned into a wrestling comic?

I'm not against.

That that sounds pretty cool work.

Right, and that making like human versions of different Mario characters but make them cool women that are fighting tough Broads like Wart as like a badass bitch.

Badass bitch could be very kind of.

Dumb Matsumoto ish or something.

Yeah, you might.

Really.

Be onto something I might be I.

Might not, but it's worth a shot and I'm going to try to dream something up, alright?

OK, well, Sarah.

So lovely.

As always, we're going to put the places people could find you in the show notes.

So if people are curious about what you're drawing and what you're doing, what you're saying, they'll be able to find you there.

And in the meantime, we're going to stay in touch.

Yeah, I've I've got some.

Some Mario's to color and and send you away.

Everyone should buy a Nintendo Force just for Sarah's comic she's drawing.

It's so good about those.

So so proud to be you did the layouts.

Here, I'm just finishing it.

Yeah, it's a.

It's a whole new world when you get involved.

It's like from rags to britches, a true Cinderella story that you bring to life.

Every two months it comes out, so I guess I have to close up the the baby stopped crying, but I'm still nervous about what kind of dirty looks I'm going to get when I get out there.

So thanks so much.

We'll talk again soon.

An absolute.

Pleasure, take care.

Sarah, Karen.

Face she's drawing for.

You she's not going to trace.

Sarah.

That was amazing with Sarah once again, and she just sent me an update on the comic that we're working on together.

She's drawing Bowser in the style of Professor K from Jet Set Radio, which I talked about earlier in the episode.

It's coming together so good.

What did you think of what Sarah had to say about those wrestlers in the wrestling games?

I really.

Relate to that because I do something similar.

I don't do all women, but I'm on WWE2K24 because as she mentioned, it takes so long to actually create a wrestler.

I didn't want to wipe the slate clean and start over with 2K25, but I've been making my own stable since, well, just a few years ago.

But it was.

I started with Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 on the N64 where I started making my own wrestlers and then I just sort of carried on and expanded the stable as I as I played later games.

Do you re.

Recreate, recreate the old wrestlers from the N64 days and carry them forward and like the next Gen.

technology.

Yeah, so.

Like I have my three main ones from back then were Greenback who is like a a money themed luchador and his tag team partner gold standard.

Who is sort?

Of like sort of betrays Greenback sometimes he's kind of a tweener, not necessarily healed, but definitely not a good guy.

And then there's Mr.

Murder who is just this walking slab of a human who I kind of based off of.

I don't know if you know Walter from the Mask comic books a little.

Bit I bought those Mask comic books as they came out before the movie was even released.

He was the only.

Person who could stand up to the mask.

That's right.

Because he was just completely unstoppable.

He was burned.

He was hit by a car or something.

I don't know.

A lot happened to him.

He just keeps on getting up and walking away from it.

So I sort of made a wrestler in that kind of vein.

So those were the three that I made in virtual pro wrestling too, because you couldn't make women back then.

Oh, not at.

All not not in virtual.

Pro wrestling too.

I think in No Mercy you could OK, but as Sarah said, the wrestling has not been historically good to women.

More recent.

Games has been more even like 2K25 finally reintroduced intergender matches so you can pit women against men.

Oh wow.

Which I get why you wouldn't from an athletic standpoint, but with wrestling being more performance I don't see why you couldn't so.

And it's also a video.

Game so it's like it's going to be OK I I assume no matter how you slice it one of the wrestlers that.

People seem to attach to because I I reviewed a couple of them for Destructoid and in my screenshots people seem to pick out Polyethylene, who is a superhero.

She's actually from one of a story that I never finished writing.

Oh, so she's just this small little thing with super strength, so she can do like all the lifts and stuff and she's a, she's a powerhouse fighter, but she's smaller.

Than like a.

Lot of the other ones, a lot of people seem to maybe just connect with the name.

It's a great name.

Absolutely.

Like Polly being the first name and then the recipe and the last name.

Yeah, I actually.

Got it from a Radiohead song Polyethylene Part 1 and 2.

And it's just because during the chorus he kind of says polyethylene in a way that sounds like 2 words.

And I also thought it sounded.

Like kind of a superhero theme.

I'll have to listen.

To that, your wrestlers are going to live forever digitally in this world, maybe.

I don't think so.

Like physical media does have a shelf life.

Yeah, that hard drive and PlayStation servers, they're not going to go forever.

I guess not.

Even hard drives?

How long do hard drives live for?

It depends.

Like we're really getting into the weeds here.

Yeah, we don't have.

To but I'm curious solid-state drives.

Actually have a a certain number of reads and writes that they can take for like that cluster of data just can't be read or written to anymore.

But the more it's read or written to, the shorter it lives, right?

So they actually have that as a shelf life.

Spinning hard drives.

They don't have a set shelf life, but anything physical eventually is going to wear down.

But if you don't use it at all, like that's my secret, you know, all the Hulk's secret and The Avengers is he's angry all the time.

I thought we were talking about Hulk Hogan.

Again, I know.

Nope.

This is the the Bruce Banner Hulk I'm talking about now is the better of the two.

If you ask me of the famous Hulks.

My secret is I just never use anything and therefore I always have it.

And other people say like, what's the point of having it if you never use it?

And I'm like aha.

Yeah.

Like, is that healthy?

Yes.

OK, I don't think you'd admit to.

It if it wasn't, but I wouldn't.

Know yeah, I I'm definitely not the one to ask about about that.

Well this is inspiring me it's making me feel like I need to to get into creating characters some more I did create a character with my 9 year old for Street Fighter six but he just pushed all the sliders in One Direction and kept laughing so it's just like the widest thickest, thickest neck.

I think he only made their waist skinny so they just look like a big Hornet kind of like, you know with the thorax and a little itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face.

He loved it yeah yeah, he went for it and a mustache for sure and I think pigtails.

So what was in a serious attempt to use the tools to actually create something and.

And you really can.

You can make stuff that's equal to what you get in the standard game if you if you try.

Yeah.

I didn't try very hard.

I kind of made.

Like a poor facsimile of myself, I don't look at myself often enough to care.

So yeah, I.

Feel like the tools aren't good enough quite yet to make like this.

Looks exactly like me.

Unless you already look like polygons, you know, like it's just not going to happen unless you're got a cyber truck for a face, kind of, you know, and you just got ankles.

Oh my God.

So it's OK.

It's OK that it's not exactly like you, and I'm curious to see how your recreation of you looks in the wrestling game.

Oh, I didn't.

I didn't.

End the wrestling game.

I did it in Street Fighter 60.

I'd love to.

See that?

No.

No.

No, I, I.

Understand some things are are not meant to be seen by others.

I'm sort of in a.

Midpoint between like before, I would try to make something that resembled me as closely as possible, but more recently as tools become better I started thinking like why would I want to look like myself in fantasy?

Yeah, I I certainly don't.

I'm never like, you know what?

I like the look of tired, old bald, you know, I I quickly make myself like a I'm usually like a zingy blue haired chick that's got a big teeth, like a big smile, like a cartoonish toothy smile.

That's me on the inside.

I feel like sometimes on the outside it's fine.

I don't mind my outsides, but I'm not excited to remake them.

I've got enough of them as it is.

I think just enough of them.

Well, you make a good.

Sigat No.

Thanks, that was fun.

I, I he's in Street Fighter 6 now, so I'm glad he's.

Yeah, I loved.

I loved your What was it Sundays with Sagat or Saturdays with Sagat?

It was Sundays with.

Sagat and then there was a short lived spin off called what was it called Samus and Sagat where we're roommates.

Yeah, that was fun.

And then the the woman who did the show with me, Maddie Myers, then like took over Polygon for a little while.

So it's always weird for me that I, you know, I do these collaborations with people at the time before they're, they're a big deal.

And then suddenly they're writing the new Borderlands game or something and it's like, Oh yeah, we, we made a dumb video together like five years ago.

So, oh, that's cool though.

But you're already.

Famous you're on road rules.

Oh.

I.

Nobody knows about that anymore.

But it it's true that nobody knows about that.

Anymore you have a podcast specifically devoted.

That's the only reason people know about it.

So many people listen to that podcast, which had a episode recently which was fun and we might record another one soon if I can dig out of this hole of life and find the time.

But so many people say I only know Rd.

Rules exists because I listen to the podcast for Seth Sterling and the way they treat you.

And now I know about some bad reality show that.

Is hated like everybody Daniel the editor for this show watched it on his discord server or something and he was like this is the worst and Daniel liked Morbius kinda the the Jared Leto movie editor's note.

I'll not have my good name slandered.

I did not like Morbius and I can't remember where Jonathan is pulling this information from.

I may have one time told him that Morbius is fine, but if you know me, I say everything is fine.

So there's that.

He was like.

His taste, he's very forgiving, I guess you could say.

But Rd.

rules could not be forgiven.

It is cursed.

Yeah, I hated.

Reality TV when it came out and I hate it more now.

Even like the Internet has become worse than reality TV.

That's true.

But it's, it's, it's so neck and neck and, and I think they are feeding each other constantly the Vadnais.

And it's kind of ruined everything.

Like the fact that someone I competed against on road rules is now the secretary of Transportation and I think he's running NASA now just shows that lowering the bar for caring about quality or expertise in what you do.

Like when you're on TV, you used to need to know how to act or write a story or anything, but now it's just whatever it is, it's vibes based.

I guess it's just if you, you show up with a camera and if you stimulate people's brains enough with something, then you're famous.

And that's also who gets elected here in the United States anyway.

That's who wins the elections, just whoever is stimulating, regardless if they're smart or good at anything at all.

Weird times.

We live in weird times.

We're surviving them, Zoe, together.

I'm excited about it.

I'm excited about surviving.

And where's the This podcast is surviving in episode 2.

We're doing it, yeah.

Yeah, we were on time, Yeah.

Did you get that?

Code.

From Machina, by the way, did you?

I did I.

Did I played through the whole thing?

I'm working on a review of it.

Excited to see.

What you think I?

I love the way you say chunk O matic.

I forgot I did.

That yeah, for those who don't know.

Jonathan Holmes here was tungsten in China.

Yeah, a video game.

About little robots on a island of junk covered in slime, or surrounded by slime, I should say.

Looks like a a disaster apocalypse game.

But they're just very cheerful about all the stuff they're doing.

Yeah.

It's not really about the apocalypse.

It's just it's not like Wally or anything like that.

It's like, oh, it's a trash apocalypse and humans suck.

It's it's more like, oh, these robots, they make the best out of everything.

Yeah.

And they talk about it.

They talk about being chums a lot.

And they're just very excited to see each other.

So they're surviving in the way I aspire to.

And I'm so glad that you didn't hate it so far and that I said chunk O matic.

OK.

I'm excited to see what else your review has to say about it.

Yeah, well, don't.

Spoil it now.

Maybe, maybe I'll have.

It up by the time this podcast goes up.

Excited to see it.

I'll plug something I'm doing.

I'm writing about mice for the next issue of Nintendo Force.

I wrote about Mina the Hollomer.

It has a new demo out, and on the switch to the demo, you can use the mouse controls to control Mina's head for no reason.

You just tilt it up or tilt it down slightly.

It serves no gameplay purpose, but it just makes her feel like a real little mouse for a second.

Bunch of mouse games.

Mouse Works.

I interviewed the creators of Mouse Works.

That was nice.

So yeah, check that out.

I think that's up for grab still.

Issue 79, a Nintendo Force and that's all I'll plug for now.

Oh, and Boston's favorite sign is back.

I think.

So feel like that show and didn't know it was back.

Go go listen to that.

It's on the pod Beam.

You can find it.

It's good stuff.

Yeah, thanks.

All right, well, I guess we'll bid everyone to do goodbye everybody.

Thanks so much for listening to support us on Patreon like fave, subscribe and tell your friends add you you've been listening to.

Maximum Utcast, which is hosted by Zoe and Jonathan with editing, production and music by Daniel.

You can support the show and get exclusive bonuses on patreon@patreon.com/T TWAV.

Visit Maximum mos.com to read written articles about some of the topics we covered on the show, plus news, reviews, opinions and more.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks as always to our sexy and talented Patreon supporters, but especially the ones who support the Patreon at the $5 and up level, such as Carson, A, Alana G, Venaya A, Evan, Samuel P, Bo M, Jeff P, Benjamin V, Forest R, Simon L Conduit of Chungus, Bearer of Dinkus, Minion of John Con, Ricardo V, Soda Baby Kiat, Benjamin S Counter 5th Amber D, Midlife Stasis Conduit of finally changing his Patreon name for the first time since season 5, Shy Fox and you and B.

Thank you all so much.

He's a walking.

Talking penis He's a walking talking penis.

24 inch.

He's a walking.

Talking penis.

He's a walking talking.

Don't quit do go run my brick Do go run my brick Do go run my brick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.

Do go run my brick tick tick.

Do go run my brick tick tick.

Do go run my brick tick tick tick 24 inch.

He's a walk is a.

Walk is a walk is a walk is a walking.