A Youtube Pick and Mix!

Introduction.

I'm finding these days that my old school terrestrial television habits are shrinking down to a handful of 'must watch' shows. 'Mock the Week' being one of them. The rest of the time, the television acts as a gentle audio visual wallpaper to my leisure hours, if it is on at all.

However, I've not stopped watching stuff. For there is an alternative method, Youtube, the home of the lame, the eccentric, the short and strangely worth watching, and even a few longer items of interest. I'm sharing for our (hopefully) mutual enjoyment, some of the things that ticked my amusement bones over the last few months or so.

'CorridorDigital'

We're going in hot with my first YouTube pick of the day. 'CorridorDigital' take the genre of insanely clever action short features with special effects, and make them really, special. On here you can find such mini-gems as how Angry Birds would look in real life. (Ending messily and not very well!) It's a couple of guys in Los Angeles who are just too good with computer assisted movie making, showing Mario and Minecraft parodies, kittens foiling miniature villains and stuff which seamlessly blends real life and video game trickery. There's at least one feature which will make Felice go into paroxysms of ecstasy, but I'll let him find that one for himself!

Outstanding features within their sub-site, search for 'Graphic Violence' which is a concise introduction to their style, and 'Photoreal' for something a bit more wondrously surreal.

Did I mention their movies have gorgeous soundtracks from all sorts of artistes, by the way?

Something tells me that real life Angry Birds isn't going to end well speech - "I filled this one with gasoline. It's really expensive!"

'Theshadowsnose'

It's time for some retro-gaming action with my next host, none other than 'Theshadowsnose' Here we've got not just retro-gaming of beloved 8 and 16-bit platforms, but some head to head styled comparative reviewing action too. The style is a run through of a level or two on a given game, comparing the graphics, sound and smoothness (or not) of gameplay between different versions on the same video. The commentary is done nicely in German accented english, where you can tell that he is keenly playing the game at the same time.

You can find ZX Spectrum vs versions of the same game on Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. Or Atari ST versus Commodore Amiga. There's even some complete mash-ups in the head-to-head department including both sixteen bitters and an unlucky C64 or Amstrad (which generally doesn't come off too well.)

The Shadow is a definite Amiga fan, but there is no platform hating going on. Where a game has good points, whatever the format, he will mention them. In some cases, he's even given to prefer the ST or STE version over the Amiga game, even in spite of the latter's obvious superiority in the technical arena. One example being his head to head for 'Blood Money'. The Amiga version is clearly the flagship version but he found the ST version to be more playable. This seems to be a case where the product was perhaps just too tuned up and perfect on the Amiga, with the gameplay being less forgiving as a result.

There's even a couple of rare head to head reviews, for STE and Amiga versions of Stardust and Obsession. The sound quality on the STE Obsession gets a thumbs-up from our man, a point which was interestingly raised elsewhere in Xia's interview!

We can only sum this one up with the intro that he puts on the beginning of his recordings. "Bwhahaha! Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of games!" Definitely one to while away a spare hour, or two.

'Old Cartoons are crazy'

Or if you find what I found, the actual title is old cartoons are CRAZY.

A change of pace to something that doesn't demand an hour or two of your precious free time. This single short work is over in a minute and a half. It's a bunch of clips from very early cartoons with a neat sound chip inspired tune playing with it. Somehow the visuals and music work very well together. (On a further check, it looks like there is another version with the same tune and reworked visuals.)

There is a small issue, as you then go off looking at other old cartoons which are decidedly pre-Disney with their content. So perhaps it's not so much of a quick visit after all?

'FMV Hell Microcosm'

By the time 1993 rolled around, the name 'Psygnosis' had become fatally intertwined with the term "Overhyped Amigawank". Their major release for the 1993 season, Microcosm, was intended to celebrate the up and coming 'next gen' CD-based formats, such as the Sega Mega CD, MS-DOS-based PeeCee, and Amiga CD32.

Microcosm was the poster (and free t-shirt) child for everything that the corporate side of entertainment software loved then. A massive box with a price tag to match, a marketing effort which truly broke new boundaries, unlike the rather average on-rails game hidden under the fancy wrapping. The rest of us were happy to turn our backs on it, pitying the poor fools who spent actual money from the false promises made to them.

These people were not generally given a decent perspective on this mess by a bunch of compliant advertising revenue dependent magazines (until it was too late. By the time the budget price re-release came around, one or two managed to finally stop biting their reviewing tongues and bothered to say what the rest of us had been thinking.) As far as more independent viewpoints were concerned, the possibilities of FMV-based CD-ROM rail games had been already explored and exhausted in the earlier LucasFilm title 'Rebel Assault'.

Someone even dared to suggest that a rethink might be due as early as the Maggie 13 review of that game.

"The idea that a CD-ROM should be used sparingly and wisely, as a data-store for some extremely complex and rich 'real' game environments has not caught on yet. What we all get in the near future is CD-ROM being used for novelty effect roller-coaster games with little long term playability or holding interest which seem to involve rushing down a tunnel or roadway or something. Hopefully I will be proven wrong on this, we'll see."

A very insightful paragraph, wise chap whoever wrote that, long and rambling sentences aside, oops, damn!

So what has this got to do with YouTube fun stuff then? Well the eponymous Spoony One, aka Noel Antwhiler, finally gives Microcosm the 'review' that it utterly deserves and should have got at the time it was unleashed.

"Have you ever seen a box like this, before or since?" Is only the first of many questions posed about the viability and purpose of Microcosm. He manages to establish from the incredibly long-winded FMV movie introduction sequence that "Helicopters exist". Even the 'William Gibson channelling the spirit of Morrissey' back-story in the instruction book gets a slating.

The game play is dissected closely by someone who clearly cares about his games, which is more than the makers of Microcosm seemed to do. Eventually, he establishes that the best way of progressing through the tunnel like levels is to attempt no hostile laser-based action, just meekly waggle the stick to prevent being hit and thus fly through safely. He illustrates this on screen, role-playing as a blindfolded Luke Skywalker 'reaching out with the force' to the flying practice droids on the Millennium Falcon. Yes, you can play most of Microcosm without actually seeing anything on the screen!

The game is shown in stark relief as a completely unforgiving pile of arse, right down to the little things that should normally help the player. An access level code eventually pops up, whilst our hero is looking for a pen and then trying to make sense of the abstract characters representing the code, the screen decides its had enough of waiting around and disappears!

Somehow he managed to get to the end, false final boss included. A feat which I doubt very many people managed back in the day.

Spoony has provided an invaluable public service on at least two levels. For most of us, we've got to appreciate and see the full awfulness, FMV beginning to strangely unsatisfying end, without paying out £50-60 which was the going price 'back in the day'. For software developers and publishers of entertainment software at all levels, bedroom coder and megacorp alike, here's your beautifully created free lesson on how to avoid making a complete clusterfuck of your next game!

"Threads' (Nuclear War)

In spite of the majority of YouTube features being short productions of ten minutes or less, there are several full-sized movies on there. There are even a few things that you might watch and wish you hadn't seen!

I find that if one is really fed up with life and want to be depressed that bit further, then google 'Threads', with or without the 'Nuclear War' in brackets.

I won''t say a lot more, but it might well be one that you can't watch in one go.

American readers might want to start more gently with 'The Day After', which was made around the same early eighties scary time period and handily exists as a full length upload on YouTube as well.

'AdolfinNorthampton' - He could have had meatballs?

Now what is it with 'Downfall' (Der Untergang) parodies? They went viral a couple or so years ago, literally. There are people still in long term medical care constantly screeching for a non-existent "Fegelein!" You will also note that some people don't find these parodies funny. These people tend to have a working knowledge of the German language, like the Germans. Such an unfortunate coincidence may reinforce the long held nationalist stereotype of humourlessness on their part? But this is a topic which should be picked on elsewhere, as we've found probably the funniest Downfall parody yet. If you live in Northampton England, that is.

'AdolfinNorthampton' presents a series of three short educational films, challenging the fondly held delusion on the part of the Northampton tourist office that there are exciting thing to see and do in Northampton. The (in)famous 'Steiner rant' scene is repurposed to cover what happened when Adolf was told his holiday included a day in Northampton. You know the scene isn't going to start (or end) well when Adolf calmly opens with "Anyone not involved in this arsehole plan to have me spend even one second of my life in that fucking joke of a town, get out now."

After a very inventive rant with passionately expressed views, he informs his cowering general staff that he was hoping to get one day of bucket and spade action at the seaside, but Stalingrad is nearer the beach than Northampton, it would be tea-time before they got there. But I'm leaking spoilers here! There's just too much to enjoy, watch it, then the other two short educational films in that series!

And you do actually need a panzer division to drive past 'Toys R Us' in under fifteen minutes ever since they allowed that massive B and Q!

A second movie goes to 'Der Fuhrer-Karavan at Billing Aquadrome" where Adolf argues with the Northampton tourist office over the phone, and a third one wrapping things up with a visit to the underpopulated Peacock Place shopping centre. The howling desolation and distant sounds of artillery fire making this totally authentically filmed on location!

These little gems seem to have been made by someone with a very keen eye on detail. I'm extremely jealous! The explanatory texts are priceless, wonderfully written and totally in keeping with the theme, Here's an extract from one of them,

"Resigned to having to spend the day in Northampton, Hitler wanders disconsolately around the market square. He thinks that maybe later he will put a bet on "Horse Wessel" or "Speer Of Destiny", running in the 3:30 at Dusseldorf, in one of the market square's ever-growing fine selection of betting shops. He quietly despairs at the half-arsed litter-strewn water feature that the Council probably paid half a million quid for, opposite the now-abandoned Phones4U."

Still, at least it's not Wellingborough.

'2 Unlimited' - No Limit.

Lots of options with this one. Fond recollections of the early-mid nineties surge up, like a stomach acid reflux after a memorably dodgy curry. There's even a recent (2012) live version on a beach where Anita Doth still scrubs up reasonably well. Of course, the original and best video of 'No Lyrics' is the one set inside a giant fake pinball machine.

She's supposed to be the ball, the weird silvery stage costumery now makes sense.

But why is she dancing like she's trying to fight with the camera man?

'Father Ted my lovely horse'.

One of the highlights in an excellent show that has many of them. If I was having to pare my choices right down, such as for an article like this one. Father Ted's attempt to do Eurovision gets the coveted top spot.

"Like a train in the night.."

'Rude Rainbow Twangers Episode'

A British children's television programme, and more of those things which we innocent youths were exposed to back in the seventies. This is a real parody of 'Rainbow' made by the actual cast. Supposedly an insider only distribution, of course it leaked out to a wider Youtube. I might mention that there are an awful lot of parody attempts at 'Rainbow', but all of the others are pale and indeed annoying knock-offs of this sublime original. Especially take care to avoid the ones that are just unfunny sexual references and swearing in a Birmingham accent.

How you can tell you're on to the real thing is with this opening conversational gambit, right after the titles.

"One skin.. Two skin.. Three skin.. Er, fou.."

"Zippy, w-w-where's Bungle?"

"Oh I think Geoffrey's trying to get him up!"

Immediately after that, a truck laden down with innuendo collides with the poorly loaded single entendre van, Much carnage and laughter ensues.

The only real copy at the moment seems to have been taken third hand, from a VHS video tape damaged in the first Gulf War. I'm sure there was a better quality version floating around a few years ago?

'Ren and Stimpy'

For some reason, the Dutch Atari scene of the 1990's springs to mind when recalling this one. Ren and Stimpy is hugely popular on Youtube. It is also the battleground for a massive intellectual property shitstorm, so good versions of some Ren and Stimpy are hard to find. Some people claim to have complete collections of episodes, but all too often, the grey scar of a 'deleted video' crops up. Where you do try to play back, then the video is blocked.

There's a dearth especially for a decent version of the 'Happy Happy Joy Joy' song. A couple of years ago, this attracted a lot of awful bootleg versions which had at least a couple of things wrong with them, or only tangentially bore a resemblance to the source material.

I think most of these have gone now?

I managed to find a halfway acceptable extract, which included the end-part when Ren realises that he's so angry with Stimpy, he feels great!

I'm still looking for a complete sequence, from when Stimpy first invents the happy helmet, right through to the end of the Happy Happy Joy Joy song with the after part. Is it out there?

CiH - For Mag! - Various in 2013.

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